1 00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:07,480 Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 2 00:00:07,520 --> 00:00:14,480 Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of 3 00:00:14,520 --> 00:00:18,480 Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all 4 00:00:18,520 --> 00:00:22,200 Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just 5 00:00:22,239 --> 00:00:28,880 Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. 6 00:00:36,720 --> 00:00:39,800 Speaker 1: The passage of time is inevitable, and the longer we live, 7 00:00:39,880 --> 00:00:43,160 Speaker 1: the more disconnected from the past we become. We forget 8 00:00:43,240 --> 00:00:45,640 Speaker 1: about the things that we used to enjoy as children, 9 00:00:45,840 --> 00:00:48,040 Speaker 1: and we tuck away the parts of us that don't 10 00:00:48,040 --> 00:00:50,839 Speaker 1: fit in with who we are now. Those pieces of 11 00:00:50,920 --> 00:00:54,720 Speaker 1: us get boxed up or buried, sometimes literally. I'm sure 12 00:00:54,720 --> 00:00:57,120 Speaker 1: most of us remember burying a time capsule at our 13 00:00:57,160 --> 00:01:00,600 Speaker 1: school or as part of a town ceremony to unearthed 14 00:01:00,600 --> 00:01:03,120 Speaker 1: in the decades to come. It's fun to think about 15 00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:05,640 Speaker 1: what will our future selves and those who come after 16 00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:08,160 Speaker 1: us think about the music we listen to or the 17 00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:11,759 Speaker 1: books we read. What will people think about our generation. 18 00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:15,000 Speaker 1: The thing is, for hundreds of years, people all over 19 00:01:15,040 --> 00:01:18,600 Speaker 1: the world didn't bury time capsules. They left behind something else, 20 00:01:18,920 --> 00:01:21,319 Speaker 1: something that doesn't need to be dug up to be found. 21 00:01:21,520 --> 00:01:25,319 Speaker 1: Although it might require the use of a sledgehammer. Since 22 00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:28,840 Speaker 1: about the thirteen hundreds, at least, according to archaeologist's findings, 23 00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:32,360 Speaker 1: people have been hiding shoes within their homes, not in 24 00:01:32,440 --> 00:01:35,160 Speaker 1: closets or under beds. These shoes have been found in 25 00:01:35,240 --> 00:01:39,240 Speaker 1: much harder to reach places, like inside walls and chimneys. 26 00:01:39,840 --> 00:01:42,839 Speaker 1: The practice is known as concealment, which is why researchers 27 00:01:42,840 --> 00:01:46,400 Speaker 1: referred to these as concealed shoes, the earliest example being 28 00:01:46,440 --> 00:01:49,080 Speaker 1: one that was discovered in the choir stalls of Winchester 29 00:01:49,160 --> 00:01:53,400 Speaker 1: Cathedral in thirteen oh eight. The reasons for their concealment vary, 30 00:01:53,520 --> 00:01:56,080 Speaker 1: but almost all of them have to do with superstitions 31 00:01:56,320 --> 00:01:59,639 Speaker 1: and fervent beliefs in the spirit world. It was believed 32 00:01:59,680 --> 00:02:01,240 Speaker 1: that a shit shoe that had been worn for a 33 00:02:01,320 --> 00:02:04,640 Speaker 1: very long time would have permanent scars from its owners, 34 00:02:04,920 --> 00:02:08,320 Speaker 1: things like scuff marks, a footprint on the inside, and 35 00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:11,400 Speaker 1: marred leather that signified that the shoe was practically an 36 00:02:11,400 --> 00:02:15,239 Speaker 1: extension of its wearer. In other words, it contained their 37 00:02:15,440 --> 00:02:19,280 Speaker 1: spiritual essence, and that essence was necessary in keeping evil 38 00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:23,079 Speaker 1: spirits and witches from getting inside their house. That's why 39 00:02:23,160 --> 00:02:27,519 Speaker 1: so many shoes were hidden over doorways or stashed inside chimneys. 40 00:02:28,040 --> 00:02:30,919 Speaker 1: Complicating things, though, is that a significant number of children's 41 00:02:30,960 --> 00:02:33,200 Speaker 1: shoes have also been found within the walls of homes 42 00:02:33,200 --> 00:02:36,799 Speaker 1: across the globe, including Europe and Canada. This footwear was 43 00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:39,639 Speaker 1: most likely placed there for one of several reasons. It 44 00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:42,120 Speaker 1: could have been a method of encouraging fertility in the 45 00:02:42,160 --> 00:02:45,600 Speaker 1: home of a husband and wife trying to conceive. This 46 00:02:45,760 --> 00:02:48,160 Speaker 1: isn't too different from the practice of tying shoes to 47 00:02:48,240 --> 00:02:51,240 Speaker 1: the bumper of a newlywed couple's car, and according to 48 00:02:51,240 --> 00:02:54,800 Speaker 1: one archaeologist, women living in Lancashire County, England used to 49 00:02:54,800 --> 00:02:57,200 Speaker 1: put on the shoes of a woman who had recently 50 00:02:57,200 --> 00:03:01,320 Speaker 1: given birth in hopes of jumpstarting the conception process for themselves. 51 00:03:01,960 --> 00:03:04,280 Speaker 1: Kid's shoes may also have been placed in a home's 52 00:03:04,320 --> 00:03:06,840 Speaker 1: walls to protect the children that were already living there, 53 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:09,160 Speaker 1: similar to the adult shoes that were meant to keep 54 00:03:09,200 --> 00:03:12,960 Speaker 1: witchcraft away. Sadly, the presence of a child's shoe might 55 00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:15,680 Speaker 1: have signified a memorial to one who was lost to 56 00:03:15,760 --> 00:03:19,360 Speaker 1: disease or injury as well. Russians believed a home that 57 00:03:19,440 --> 00:03:21,680 Speaker 1: had a certain kind of boot or shoe under the 58 00:03:21,760 --> 00:03:25,840 Speaker 1: stove might lure a domovoi or a domestic spirit meant 59 00:03:25,840 --> 00:03:29,680 Speaker 1: to protect the home and the people within it. In Northampton, England, 60 00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:32,200 Speaker 1: there is a facility where many of these shoes have 61 00:03:32,240 --> 00:03:35,720 Speaker 1: been collected and cataloged. It's called the Northampton Museum and 62 00:03:35,840 --> 00:03:38,960 Speaker 1: Art Gallery and it is home to over fifteen thousand 63 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:41,720 Speaker 1: pairs of shoes. About two thousand of them have been 64 00:03:41,760 --> 00:03:46,320 Speaker 1: recovered from inside various buildings. The practice of hiding shoes 65 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:50,000 Speaker 1: in walls ended for many during the twentieth century, although 66 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:52,840 Speaker 1: it's still done on occasion. For example, a pair of 67 00:03:52,920 --> 00:03:55,960 Speaker 1: high legg boots made by the shoe company Norvik was 68 00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:58,960 Speaker 1: built into the foundation of the factory they had constructed 69 00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:02,520 Speaker 1: in nineteen six four, and in nineteen ninety one an 70 00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:05,440 Speaker 1: old shoe was discovered behind the paneling of an English 71 00:04:05,480 --> 00:04:08,720 Speaker 1: mansion called Nebworth House. It was replaced with the shoe 72 00:04:08,760 --> 00:04:14,680 Speaker 1: of an estate worker instead. Shoes have been found inside workhouses, colleges, townhouses, 73 00:04:14,800 --> 00:04:18,679 Speaker 1: cottages and even hospitals, and not just in England either 74 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:22,119 Speaker 1: Australia and the United States are also on the list. 75 00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:25,000 Speaker 1: So the next time you plan on renovating that kitchen 76 00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:28,080 Speaker 1: or adding another room to your house, keep an eye 77 00:04:28,080 --> 00:04:31,200 Speaker 1: out for shoes and your walls, and maybe leave them be. 78 00:04:31,720 --> 00:04:34,120 Speaker 1: They were put there for a reason, and you don't 79 00:04:34,120 --> 00:04:50,359 Speaker 1: want to find out why. If you ask people to 80 00:04:50,440 --> 00:04:54,240 Speaker 1: name twentieth century psychologists, they're likely to say Sigmund Freud 81 00:04:54,400 --> 00:04:58,159 Speaker 1: or Carl Jung. Maybe someone will even suggest Jean Piaget, 82 00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:02,080 Speaker 1: and sure, each of them remembered for certain things, ranging 83 00:05:02,120 --> 00:05:06,520 Speaker 1: from thoughtful to controversial. But when it comes to behavioral science, 84 00:05:06,920 --> 00:05:09,479 Speaker 1: be up. Skinner stands out from the crowd. You see, 85 00:05:09,520 --> 00:05:11,480 Speaker 1: he believed that free will had little to do with 86 00:05:11,560 --> 00:05:14,320 Speaker 1: why humans and animals do the things they do. He 87 00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:18,520 Speaker 1: theorized that actions were the result of environmental conditioning, and 88 00:05:18,640 --> 00:05:21,359 Speaker 1: to say that Skinner was a bit quirky would be 89 00:05:21,480 --> 00:05:24,800 Speaker 1: an understatement. He initially wanted to be a writer, but 90 00:05:24,839 --> 00:05:28,480 Speaker 1: became frustrated with literary agents, even with the mentorship of 91 00:05:28,600 --> 00:05:31,840 Speaker 1: Robert Frost at his side. Then his life changed. One day, 92 00:05:31,839 --> 00:05:34,800 Speaker 1: while working at a bookstore. Along the rows of books, 93 00:05:34,800 --> 00:05:37,479 Speaker 1: he came across the works of Pavlov and decided to 94 00:05:37,600 --> 00:05:42,720 Speaker 1: enter Harvard's psychology graduate program. Mental health professionals and animal 95 00:05:42,760 --> 00:05:46,240 Speaker 1: trainers know the brilliant psychologist by his extensive work in 96 00:05:46,360 --> 00:05:50,520 Speaker 1: operant conditioning, a method of using rewards and consequences to 97 00:05:50,560 --> 00:05:54,120 Speaker 1: get a preferred behavior. He used pigeons to demonstrate that. 98 00:05:54,720 --> 00:05:57,200 Speaker 1: To teach the birds to spin in a circle, Skinner 99 00:05:57,240 --> 00:05:59,960 Speaker 1: offered food for the slightest movement in the desired direct 100 00:06:00,600 --> 00:06:03,080 Speaker 1: Before long, the pigeons learned a full spin in a 101 00:06:03,120 --> 00:06:07,120 Speaker 1: direction earned them even higher rewards, and no movement equaled 102 00:06:07,160 --> 00:06:10,919 Speaker 1: no payoff. Over time, Skinner taught them to play ping pong, 103 00:06:11,160 --> 00:06:14,359 Speaker 1: much to the amusement of his peers and the general public. 104 00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:17,760 Speaker 1: Weirdly enough, the military used operant conditioning to train the 105 00:06:17,800 --> 00:06:21,200 Speaker 1: birds to guide missiles during World War II by sitting 106 00:06:21,320 --> 00:06:26,000 Speaker 1: inside the missile and tapping on a glass screen to navigate. Fortunately, 107 00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:29,680 Speaker 1: radar was in development and Project Pigeon, as it was dubbed, 108 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:33,320 Speaker 1: was very short lived. To demonstrate the experiment in a 109 00:06:33,360 --> 00:06:37,000 Speaker 1: controlled environment, though, Skinner placed a hungry rat in a box. 110 00:06:37,400 --> 00:06:39,800 Speaker 1: While trying to climb out of the box, the rodent 111 00:06:39,800 --> 00:06:43,080 Speaker 1: pressed a lever that dispensed food. You guessed it that 112 00:06:43,279 --> 00:06:45,880 Speaker 1: rat learned to pull the lever. And while you might 113 00:06:45,920 --> 00:06:48,240 Speaker 1: be thinking that this works for, say, stopping your dog 114 00:06:48,240 --> 00:06:52,000 Speaker 1: from jumping on guests or teaching pigeons to spin in circles. 115 00:06:52,360 --> 00:06:55,479 Speaker 1: Teachers and mental health professionals have used the technique with 116 00:06:55,600 --> 00:07:00,560 Speaker 1: plenty of success on people. Operant conditioning has also influenced 117 00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:03,960 Speaker 1: how parents raise their children. Skinner argued that kids learn 118 00:07:04,040 --> 00:07:08,719 Speaker 1: from consequences. Both positive and negative. Actions followed by a 119 00:07:08,760 --> 00:07:11,800 Speaker 1: positive response were likely to be repeated. He called this 120 00:07:11,960 --> 00:07:16,520 Speaker 1: positive reinforcement. He also invented a teaching machine. The device 121 00:07:16,560 --> 00:07:21,040 Speaker 1: gave students immediate feedback on math problems. Eventually it evolved 122 00:07:21,080 --> 00:07:25,400 Speaker 1: to offer incremental responses to help develop student's knowledge before 123 00:07:25,440 --> 00:07:29,800 Speaker 1: advancing to some more challenging idea. Throughout his career, Skinner 124 00:07:29,840 --> 00:07:33,160 Speaker 1: wrote over twenty books at almost two hundred articles on 125 00:07:33,240 --> 00:07:38,200 Speaker 1: behavioral and experimental psychology. All told, he received several accolades, 126 00:07:38,280 --> 00:07:40,880 Speaker 1: including the Humanist of the Year in nineteen seventy two, 127 00:07:41,080 --> 00:07:44,920 Speaker 1: and in nineteen ninety, the American Psychological Association gave him 128 00:07:44,920 --> 00:07:49,880 Speaker 1: the Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology Award. Skinner's methods might 129 00:07:49,920 --> 00:07:53,200 Speaker 1: seem a bit odd, especially the ping pong experiment, but 130 00:07:53,280 --> 00:07:55,760 Speaker 1: today pigeons have been taught a wide range of tasks, 131 00:07:56,040 --> 00:08:00,960 Speaker 1: including spotting cancer. Even still, critics scoff that Skinner's beliefs 132 00:08:00,960 --> 00:08:04,239 Speaker 1: on behavioral training. They claimed that rewards given during operant 133 00:08:04,240 --> 00:08:08,000 Speaker 1: conditioning were nothing more than bribery. But maybe his most 134 00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:11,840 Speaker 1: controversial invention came when his daughter was born. Skinner created 135 00:08:11,840 --> 00:08:16,720 Speaker 1: a climate and humidity controlled crib enclosure. Unfortunately, his idea 136 00:08:16,760 --> 00:08:19,640 Speaker 1: of regulating the temperature through the linen like surface of 137 00:08:19,720 --> 00:08:22,800 Speaker 1: this air crib didn't receive much support from the market. 138 00:08:23,280 --> 00:08:26,200 Speaker 1: Although this crib was only used at night, some critics 139 00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:29,600 Speaker 1: considered it to be an inhumane and experimental approach to 140 00:08:29,680 --> 00:08:33,199 Speaker 1: child rearing. The reaction must have stung in his mind. 141 00:08:33,480 --> 00:08:35,440 Speaker 1: The crib was a way for Skinner to keep his 142 00:08:35,520 --> 00:08:38,880 Speaker 1: daughter from becoming too warm or too cool during the night, 143 00:08:39,400 --> 00:08:42,560 Speaker 1: and just like his quirky but effective method of behavioral 144 00:08:42,600 --> 00:08:46,760 Speaker 1: science experiments, Skinner found humor in the crib, even finding 145 00:08:46,840 --> 00:08:50,040 Speaker 1: a clever name for it. He called the invention the 146 00:08:50,160 --> 00:08:58,520 Speaker 1: air conditioner, and that's air with an he. I hope 147 00:08:58,520 --> 00:09:01,840 Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided to of the Cabinet of Curiosities. 148 00:09:02,160 --> 00:09:05,240 Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about 149 00:09:05,280 --> 00:09:09,839 Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show 150 00:09:10,080 --> 00:09:13,320 Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how 151 00:09:13,400 --> 00:09:17,000 Speaker 1: stuff works. I make another award winning show called Lore, 152 00:09:17,240 --> 00:09:20,840 Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show and 153 00:09:20,920 --> 00:09:23,520 Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore 154 00:09:23,800 --> 00:09:29,319 Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.