Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Not long ago, the world witnessed an unimaginable site.
Speaker 1: A cargo ship known as the Ever Given had gotten
Speaker 1: stuck in Egypt's Suez Canal. Steered off its path by
Speaker 1: an oncoming sandstorm, the freighter blocked over three d sixty
Speaker 1: other ships from getting through the canal. The ordeal lasted
Speaker 1: almost a week and had everyone wondering how such a
Speaker 1: thing could have happened in the first place. Apparently few
Speaker 1: remembered that the now had gotten blocked once before, with
Speaker 1: a very different outcome. On June five, nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: Israel went to war against Egypt and Syria in what
Speaker 1: came to be known as the June War. However, due
Speaker 1: to the surprising length of the fight, it also went
Speaker 1: by another name, the Six Day War. A conflict was
Speaker 1: over by June tenth, with Egypt retreating west. However, as
Speaker 1: they crossed the canal, Egyptian forces blocked it on both
Speaker 1: sides to keep the Israelis from using it. What they
Speaker 1: didn't realize was that their actions had inadvertently stranded a
Speaker 1: convoy of fifteen ships traveling through the canal at the
Speaker 1: same time. Every vessel dropped anchor as egypt sunk various
Speaker 1: other boats and even destroyed a bridge to prevent Israeli access.
Speaker 1: They also deployed underwater mines for good measure. The ships,
Speaker 1: having originally come from places like Britain, America, Sweden, West Germany,
Speaker 1: and Bulgaria, among others, were stuck. Crews used their radios
Speaker 1: to reach family and loved ones to alert them of
Speaker 1: what had happened, were forced to cease communications at the
Speaker 1: request of the Egyptians. Times got tough after that first month,
Speaker 1: which initially seemed like a vacation. As the days and
Speaker 1: weeks wore on, however, crew men grew lonely and isolated.
Speaker 1: Boredom eroded their mental health. The weeks turned into months,
Speaker 1: and countries negotiated crew swaps for their respective ships. Though
Speaker 1: they weren't moving, the vessels still required maintenance in order
Speaker 1: to stay afloat, so one crew would stay on for
Speaker 1: three or four months until another crew could be brought
Speaker 1: in to relieve them. The men, with nowhere to go
Speaker 1: and very little to keep themselves occupied, eventually got to
Speaker 1: know each other in a way. Each vessel became like
Speaker 1: a house in a small community, and that's how all
Speaker 1: the crew members treated their situation. Every ship served a
Speaker 1: different purpose. The largest one, with its enormous deck, became
Speaker 1: a soccer field. The men watched movies on the Bulgarian
Speaker 1: freighter and printed stamps on the polar ship, which the
Speaker 1: Egyptian authorities were kind enough to honor as legal postage.
Speaker 1: Many of the crew race lifeboats in the canal and
Speaker 1: attended church services on board the West German ship, and
Speaker 1: if they wanted to unwind, they took a dip in
Speaker 1: the pool on the Swedish vessel. Supplies were delivered regularly.
Speaker 1: During the brutally hot summer months. One could look out
Speaker 1: at the ships and see hundreds of beer bottles floating
Speaker 1: alongside their hulls. After a year without movement, the convoy
Speaker 1: even created its own version of the Olympics, with the
Speaker 1: various crews representing eight countries across fourteen sports. There was archery,
Speaker 1: water polo, sailing, and even the high jump. And for
Speaker 1: those who are curious, the Polish team took home the gold. Literally,
Speaker 1: they had medals made and everything. The men from all
Speaker 1: the ships had combined their resources to put the event
Speaker 1: together and that's how they operated their small community, dubbed
Speaker 1: the Yellow Fleet. They done it with everyone contributing for
Speaker 1: the greater good. It was a fully functioning utopia on
Speaker 1: the water and it stayed that way for eight years.
Speaker 1: In ninety each it removed the blockade and opened up
Speaker 1: the canal once again. The ships were free to return
Speaker 1: to their countries of origin and business went back to normal,
Speaker 1: but not for the men involved. They had made lifelong
Speaker 1: friends during their years on the water. Back on land,
Speaker 1: it had been a time of conflict and war, but
Speaker 1: in the canal nobody fought. There were no land disputes
Speaker 1: or enemy armies to contend with. Everyone helped one another.
Speaker 1: They all pitched in toward a common goal of fun
Speaker 1: and well being. Surviving crew members still meet up today,
Speaker 1: swapping stories about the good old days, when times were simpler,
Speaker 1: when their lives had stood still while the world continued
Speaker 1: on without them, When the Yellow Fleet was the safest,
Speaker 1: most prosperous, and peaceful nation in the world. It started
Speaker 1: with an exorcism, not of a person though, no, this
Speaker 1: was a set of clothing. But I can't blame anyone
Speaker 1: for thinking that there was something dark and deeply wrong
Speaker 1: about them, evil even now, as the story goes. They
Speaker 1: had been passed down between three different teenage girls, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't a happy hand me down situation. In fact,
Speaker 1: none of the girls had ever even worn the clothes.
Speaker 1: You see, each of them had died before they had
Speaker 1: a chance to the clothes, then got passed onto the
Speaker 1: next family who needed them, only to have their daughter
Speaker 1: die in turn. And that's the kind of terrible string
Speaker 1: of tragedies that can leave us feeling like there's a dark,
Speaker 1: supernatural force at play moving behind the scene, a force
Speaker 1: that needs to be stopped. So the families decided to
Speaker 1: do something about it. They brought the clothes to a
Speaker 1: priest for an exorcism, and in the winter of sixteen
Speaker 1: fifty seven, the priest decided to burn them. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I can't blame anyone for trying to put a stop
Speaker 1: to the tragedies that were happening. But what happened next
Speaker 1: was a disaster on an unbelievable scale. You see, all
Speaker 1: of this was happening in a city where winter winds
Speaker 1: were coming. On top of that, it had been a
Speaker 1: particularly dry year. A drought had sucked down the river,
Speaker 1: drained the wells, and left the city's buildings, as one
Speaker 1: historian puts, it, dry as tinder. So you can see
Speaker 1: where this is going, right. Their attempt to stop the
Speaker 1: curse and banish the destructive forces backfired on them. Literally,
Speaker 1: the embers of the fire floated up and a strong
Speaker 1: wind caught them. The nearby temple caught first, and once
Speaker 1: that went up, there was no stopping it. The fire
Speaker 1: traveled as it raged from the temples, to the food
Speaker 1: storage buildings to the wealthiest districts. Just when it seemed
Speaker 1: like the fire was going to be put out in
Speaker 1: one part of the city, the winds whipped up and
Speaker 1: carried it to another district, and the streets were chaos.
Speaker 1: When the prison caught fire, the doors were opened in
Speaker 1: a moment of compassion to save the lives of the inmates,
Speaker 1: but the terrified keeper of the city gates ordered the
Speaker 1: huge wooden doors closed, try upping thousands inside even the
Speaker 1: castle overlooking the city caught fire. Inside the stone walls
Speaker 1: got so hot that all the gold stored in the
Speaker 1: cellar just melted, and the gunpowder stored in the main
Speaker 1: tower exploded, bringing the castle crashing down. One Rand remembered
Speaker 1: carrying a lantern in mid day to light the way
Speaker 1: through the streets that were darkened by smoke. Part of
Speaker 1: the problem was how much of the city's land had
Speaker 1: been marked out for the wealthy to build their huge estates.
Speaker 1: Not enough of the city's area was set aside for
Speaker 1: the homes of working people, leaving them packed together like
Speaker 1: matches in a box. And the blaze went on for
Speaker 1: three days. When the news spread about how it all began,
Speaker 1: the fire got a memorable nickname, the Long Sleeves Fire.
Speaker 1: It almost sounds playful, but there was nothing funny about
Speaker 1: the scale of the disaster. In fact, it was more
Speaker 1: devastating than the Great Fire of London in sixteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: and became one of the worst city fires ever recorded.
Speaker 1: About sixty of the city had been destroyed, and the
Speaker 1: fire had no consideration for persons, status or prestige. Those
Speaker 1: crowded neighborhoods burst into flames but so did almost a
Speaker 1: thousand mansions more than three hundred temples, all of it
Speaker 1: burned together. For the city, this was a turning point.
Speaker 1: The medieval map had been burned away and the shape
Speaker 1: of the modern city was drawn in its ashes. Temples
Speaker 1: that were now seen as fire hazards were moved to
Speaker 1: the outskirts. Rebuilding the castle was delayed, while priority was
Speaker 1: given to rebuilding the homes of working people around wider streets.
Speaker 1: A bridge was even built over the river from the
Speaker 1: most crowded part of the city. If the residents there
Speaker 1: ever had to evacuate in the future, now they would
Speaker 1: have a path to safety. But that's not to put
Speaker 1: too bright a spin on it. Yes there was new
Speaker 1: building afterwards, but there's no denying that the fire was
Speaker 1: an enormous tragedy, and of course the greatest loss was
Speaker 1: the loss of life. Some historians placed the estimate at
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand deaths. It's one of those painful ironies
Speaker 1: from history that we see from time to time. It
Speaker 1: started with an effort to stop what seemed like a curse.
Speaker 1: Burn the clothes saved some lives, but in their attempt
Speaker 1: to prevent something bad, they created something worse. That's not
Speaker 1: the end of the story, though. The way the city
Speaker 1: came back from a disaster of this scale is a
Speaker 1: chapter in its history that gave it a new reputation,
Speaker 1: because the people of the city came together and laid
Speaker 1: the foundation for what would take the place of the
Speaker 1: home they had lost, and the way that they had
Speaker 1: rebuilt after so much destruction brought at least one historian
Speaker 1: to call this home of renewal an indomitable city the
Speaker 1: city of Edo in Japan, but that isn't the name
Speaker 1: we know it by today. No. It's modern name came
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty nine, two hundred years after the fire,
Speaker 1: because the city had become such a center of Japanese
Speaker 1: life that the Emperor took up residence there, and despite
Speaker 1: all the trials and turmoil of the past, it became
Speaker 1: known as the Eastern Capital, or in other words, Tokyo.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore which is a podcast, book series, and television
Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
Speaker 1: the world of Lore dot com. And until next time,
Speaker 1: stay curious. Yeah,