Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Ask an educator why they got into teaching, and they'll
Speaker 1: probably tell you that their career was a calling. They
Speaker 1: wanted to help students achieve their dreams and be the
Speaker 1: best versions of themselves they could be. But in Echo Park, California,
Speaker 1: in n a stranger wandered into the classroom at Alyssian
Speaker 1: Heights Elementary and changed lives in a very different way.
Speaker 1: He didn't have a name, just a white and gray
Speaker 1: fur coat on his back, and he barely spoke. He
Speaker 1: just kind of napped around the classroom wherever and whenever
Speaker 1: he liked. The stranger left the school the day after
Speaker 1: he'd arrived without a word, and then came back the
Speaker 1: following morning as though nothing had happened. No one had
Speaker 1: hired him. He wasn't a substitute teacher, and he wasn't
Speaker 1: part of the administration staff. He simply walked up and
Speaker 1: down the school's hallways as he pleased, poking in and
Speaker 1: out of classrooms, sleeping in random areas of the building
Speaker 1: like he owned the place. He practically moved into the school. Then, Surprisingly,
Speaker 1: nobody had any problem with it. They even gave him
Speaker 1: a name. The students called him Room eight because that
Speaker 1: was the classroom that he first appeared in. When the
Speaker 1: school year was over, Room eight would go off and
Speaker 1: find somewhere else to live for a few months until
Speaker 1: class resumed the following September, and like clockwork, he'd be
Speaker 1: there waiting for the teachers to open their rooms to
Speaker 1: him again. By now you probably realized that Roommates wasn't
Speaker 1: a strange man who had started hanging out a bunch
Speaker 1: of kids. He was actually a cat. He had come
Speaker 1: in through an open window, and for the next sixteen
Speaker 1: years he became a fixture within the schools. Kids didn't
Speaker 1: care about being student president or hall monitor. They wanted
Speaker 1: the job of cat feeder, the person responsible for making
Speaker 1: sure that Room eight was taken care of each and
Speaker 1: every day. Although he often ate from the student's own lunches,
Speaker 1: nibbling on sandwiches and snacks, that they had brought from home,
Speaker 1: and when an outgoing group of six graders was having
Speaker 1: their class picture taken, Room eight was there ready for
Speaker 1: his close up. But as social media and internet memes
Speaker 1: have shown us today, there is nothing people enjoy more
Speaker 1: than cute animal stories. And the days before the term
Speaker 1: viral was used to describe anything other than an infection,
Speaker 1: newspapers and magazines love to publish heartwarming stories about our
Speaker 1: furry friends. Room eight became a national sensation. A documentary
Speaker 1: was made about him titled Big Cats, Little Cat. Look
Speaker 1: magazine did a three page feature on him, pictures taken
Speaker 1: by Richard hewitt. Hewitts was a noted photographer who would
Speaker 1: go on to take iconic photos of stars like Jodie Foster,
Speaker 1: Andy Griffith and Betty Davis. And here he was snapping
Speaker 1: pictures of a classroom cat. But Cats also had a
Speaker 1: children's book written about him, titled a Cat called Room
Speaker 1: Eight by Virginia Finley and Beverly Mason, which was published
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty six, and he appeared on an episode
Speaker 1: of the television variety show House Party alongside host Art
Speaker 1: link Letter. He was everywhere, but little was known about
Speaker 1: Room eight. He was born in nineteen forty seven and
Speaker 1: had run away after being abused in his house. When
Speaker 1: classes at Elysian Heights Elementary were not in session, he
Speaker 1: was known to stay with the Nicano family who lived nearby.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he sought shelter with students as well. Roommates story
Speaker 1: resonated with many people, and he received over ten thousand
Speaker 1: fan letters from all over the world, which were answered
Speaker 1: by the children at the school. Over time, Room Eight's
Speaker 1: returned to school each September became a major event. Children, parents,
Speaker 1: and local reporters would line up outside the building to
Speaker 1: welcome him back with open arms, and they did this
Speaker 1: until his tragic passing in nineteen sixty. Room eight died
Speaker 1: at the age of twenty one, a good long life
Speaker 1: for an outdoor cat who made friends everywhere he went.
Speaker 1: He's remembered to this day thanks to a square of
Speaker 1: cement outside the school burying his pop prints. They had
Speaker 1: been preserved, along with a portrait drawn by Valerie Martin,
Speaker 1: the illustrator for the children's book that was written about him.
Speaker 1: Roommates remains are buried in Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park,
Speaker 1: about thirty five minutes west of the school. He's interred
Speaker 1: near other famous animals like Humphrey Bogart's cocker spaniel Droopy,
Speaker 1: as well as the MGM lion Tawny. He may have
Speaker 1: been a world famous cat, but to the kids of
Speaker 1: Echo Park, California, in the nineteen fifties and sixties, he
Speaker 1: was just there, cuddly per mascot. It's hard not to
Speaker 1: panic when we see it, those eight hairy legs crawling
Speaker 1: across the ceiling, the jumble of eyes staring at us
Speaker 1: as the creature weaves its delicate web. But despite the
Speaker 1: fear they create, spiders served very real and necessary purposes.
Speaker 1: They eat the bugs that bite and infect us like mosquitoes,
Speaker 1: and they prevent the spread of disease. They also helped
Speaker 1: keep crops safe by removing the pests that destroy them.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't stop us from freaking out whenever we
Speaker 1: catch one where it doesn't belong. After all, arachnophobia is
Speaker 1: the third most common phobia in America. But one man
Speaker 1: did not fear the spiders in his presence, and as
Speaker 1: a result, he managed to save his own life and
Speaker 1: secure a military victory in the process. It happened in
Speaker 1: sevent eight years after the Prussians had conquered Holland. The
Speaker 1: Prussians had gone up against the Dutch patriots, who were
Speaker 1: trying to install a democracy against the authoritarian Orange stadholder it.
Speaker 1: The Netherlands had found themselves in a bad situation. Constant
Speaker 1: war had shredded their economy, and the people were tired
Speaker 1: of living under the Prince of Orange is Thumb, so
Speaker 1: they revolted. The Dutch Patriots were soon founded and battle ensued,
Speaker 1: but the Patriots lost the fights against the Prussian and
Speaker 1: Orange forces. Holland fell under new leadership until a few
Speaker 1: years later. The Dutch patriots then discovered that they had
Speaker 1: comrades in France. French revolutionaries were just getting underway with
Speaker 1: their own revolt against their leader, so the Patriots went
Speaker 1: over to assist. They joined in France's fight for liberty
Speaker 1: and eight years later were able to capitalize on their
Speaker 1: alliance to take it back to the Netherlands. What ensued
Speaker 1: was the creation of a new states called the Batavian Republic,
Speaker 1: and in the battle to create the Batavian Republic, one
Speaker 1: soldier consulted with a very unusual tactician in order to
Speaker 1: help the innch win. The soldier's name was Katramare de
Speaker 1: gen Val. He had been the adjunct general with the
Speaker 1: Dutch Patriots fighting in Holland during the first Prussian invasion
Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty seven. As soon as the Prussian army arrived, though,
Speaker 1: they imprisoned him in a dungeon in you Trecked, about
Speaker 1: twelve miles west of the city. He was sentenced to
Speaker 1: twenty five years in that dungeon, rotting away as the
Speaker 1: Stadtholder took over. But during that time he got to
Speaker 1: know his fellow inmates. No, not the other people, the
Speaker 1: spiders the only companions he had. He would watch them
Speaker 1: and study their behaviors, noting how they moved about the cell,
Speaker 1: especially when the weather was about to change. Dijon Val
Speaker 1: had a similar ability. He knew when an atmospheric shift
Speaker 1: was due to occur because he'd get hit with a
Speaker 1: massive headache. You could say that it was his version
Speaker 1: of a spider sense. He recognized that certain spiders, the
Speaker 1: kind who would weave large ornate webs, would flee the
Speaker 1: dungeon whenever his head started to throb, and when those
Speaker 1: two events occurred together, a bad storm wouldn't be far behind.
Speaker 1: Days would pass as the rains beat and battered the city,
Speaker 1: and dejon Val would endure the headaches that plagued him
Speaker 1: the entire time. Eventually, as the weather abated, the spiders
Speaker 1: would return and his pain began to subside. De gen
Speaker 1: Val put two and two together, and before long he
Speaker 1: was able to predict a severe weather event up to
Speaker 1: two weeks in advance. It wasn't the most useful skill
Speaker 1: to someone in captivity, but he figured that it might
Speaker 1: help his brothers in arms on the outside. In the
Speaker 1: winter of seventeen ninety four, as snow fell over Holland,
Speaker 1: the rivers froze beneath the feet of the invading French soldiers,
Speaker 1: and this allowed them to advance toward you Tricht with ease.
Speaker 1: But an early December thaw was predicted while they were
Speaker 1: en route. Clearly that was bad news, because if the
Speaker 1: rivers were to unfreeze, the troops and their artillery would
Speaker 1: be lost. The French generals considered withdrawing completely, but de
Speaker 1: gen Val couldn't let that happen. He believed that if
Speaker 1: he helped them in their mission, they might get him
Speaker 1: out of prison, so he wrote a letter and managed
Speaker 1: to get it to one of the French generals in
Speaker 1: January of sev According to volume seven of the Anglo
Speaker 1: American Magazine from eighteen fifty five, he pledged himself from
Speaker 1: the peculiar actions of the spiders, of whose movements he
Speaker 1: was enabled to judge with perfect accuracy that within fourteen
Speaker 1: days they would commence a most severe frost. And sure enough,
Speaker 1: after only twelve days that frost arrived, and the rivers
Speaker 1: and canals solidified. They were strong enough to hold the
Speaker 1: French soldiers and their artillery who entered You tricked on January,
Speaker 1: and Katamer de gen Val, the man who had used
Speaker 1: his amazing friends to help them, was freed from his incarceration.
Speaker 1: He had developed a keen power to predict the weather,
Speaker 1: and as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Scribe 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 Mankey 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 show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com and until next time, stay curious. Yeah,