Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Let's be honest for a moment. Sports fans are not
Speaker 1: necessarily known for their good behavior. It's not unheard of
Speaker 1: for riots to break out if a beloved team loses
Speaker 1: or even wins. Fans take it on themselves to defend
Speaker 1: the honor of their team and clash with fans from
Speaker 1: the opposing club. Whether it's the football hooligans of the
Speaker 1: UK or baseball fans in the US, these upheavals rarely
Speaker 1: end well. In Ohio, there is one such episode from
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies that remains the most infamous in professional
Speaker 1: sports history, and it all happened in June of nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four. First, the Cleveland Indians were coming off of
Speaker 1: a loss in Texas to the Rangers. It was a
Speaker 1: bitter defeat that included an on field brawl between some
Speaker 1: of the players not a good example for the fans. Second,
Speaker 1: the Indians returned home and prepared to face off against
Speaker 1: the Rangers, only now on their own turf. The stadium
Speaker 1: management prepared a promotion a ten cent beer night to
Speaker 1: draw fans to the game, and the Cleveland Indians hadn't
Speaker 1: been performing well, it must be said, so the attendance
Speaker 1: was down. They typically drew only about twelve thousand fans
Speaker 1: per game. And Third, a local shock jock named Peter
Speaker 1: Franklin spent the weeks leading up to the game urging
Speaker 1: people to attend, saying that this would be their chance
Speaker 1: to take revenge on the Rangers for the brawl in Texas.
Speaker 1: All of this leads to a virtual powder keg on
Speaker 1: the night of the games is double what it normally
Speaker 1: is due to the promotion. There are about twenty four
Speaker 1: thousand fans at the stadium, and beyond that, they're consuming
Speaker 1: lots and lots of beer. Now it's only three percent alcohol,
Speaker 1: but if the beers are only ten cents a piece, well,
Speaker 1: the sky's the limit. As one fan said, I had
Speaker 1: two dollars. You do the math. Management supposedly limited fans
Speaker 1: to six beers each, which is already too many, but
Speaker 1: their ability to enforce that limits is questionable. Down on
Speaker 1: the field, the game is close. As the night progresses,
Speaker 1: fans get more and more restless. Things start to get
Speaker 1: wild when a female fan makes her way onto the field.
Speaker 1: She crawls on top of the dugout, removes her top,
Speaker 1: and starts dancing. She eventually wandered over and tried to
Speaker 1: kiss the umpire before finally leaving. Bizarrely, the nudity parade
Speaker 1: was only just getting started. Next a man stripped down
Speaker 1: and ran across the field in just his socks. You know,
Speaker 1: you've got to keep your feet safe after all. Now
Speaker 1: it must be said that streakers were actually common at
Speaker 1: this time. There had just been one on live TV
Speaker 1: at the Academy Awards that previous April. People in the
Speaker 1: seventies just really seemed to think it was funny to
Speaker 1: get naked in public, and in the case of this
Speaker 1: Cleveland Indians game. Next up was a father and son duo,
Speaker 1: you know, just to make things even weirder, who walked
Speaker 1: out on the field together and mooned everyone. Clearly, the
Speaker 1: beers were taking their toll. Soon enough, fans were hurling
Speaker 1: cups and hot dogs onto the field management removed the
Speaker 1: player's wives from the bleachers, sensing that things were going
Speaker 1: to get worse from there. And then suddenly, Rangers player
Speaker 1: Jeff Burrows was swarmed with multiple drunk Indian fans who
Speaker 1: taunted him, trying to take his hat, and Indians players
Speaker 1: came to his defense, tackling the most aggressive fan, and
Speaker 1: then all hell broke loose. Hundreds of fans swarmed the field,
Speaker 1: running a muck, taking swings at each other and at
Speaker 1: the players. Security couldn't handle so many people. The best
Speaker 1: they could do was get the players off the field.
Speaker 1: The riot raged on for forty five minutes. Police arrived,
Speaker 1: but in all the chaos they only managed to arrest
Speaker 1: nine people. After that, the umpire you know, the one
Speaker 1: who had narrowly escaped being kissed by a streaker earlier,
Speaker 1: ruled that the game was a forfeit in favor of
Speaker 1: the Rangers. The Cleveland Indians fans had lost their team
Speaker 1: the game. Now, curiously, this was not the last ten
Speaker 1: cent beer Knight at the stadium. The promoters argue that
Speaker 1: it had actually been successful. They had doubled attendance, never
Speaker 1: mind the fact that they had gotten everyone so drunk
Speaker 1: that they started a riot. Subsequent beer knights went more
Speaker 1: smoothly after that, as the Cleveland locals wanted to prove
Speaker 1: that they could behate themselves. They were earning their city
Speaker 1: quite the negative reputation. However, over the years, the legend
Speaker 1: of ten cent beer knights only grew to where it
Speaker 1: became something of a badge of honor if you were
Speaker 1: actually there. Fans loved to talk tough about how they
Speaker 1: drank twenty beers, or took a punch to the jaw,
Speaker 1: or stole one of the bases, literally stole one of
Speaker 1: the bases. Nowadays, baseball team are very careful to avoid
Speaker 1: another of these incidents, limiting guests to two beers and
Speaker 1: upping the security at the stadium. But I have to
Speaker 1: say that it's curious this did not occur to them
Speaker 1: so much sooner. The ancient Greeks told the story of
Speaker 1: a boy named Icarus, who was the son of the
Speaker 1: world's greatest inventor. When the pair were imprisoned in a tower,
Speaker 1: the inventor created mechanical wings out of feathers, beeswax, and
Speaker 1: thread so that they could escape together, but Icarus was
Speaker 1: intoxicated by the thrill of flight, and forgot his father's
Speaker 1: warning to stay low. He flew too close to the sun,
Speaker 1: the wax melted, and he plummeted to his death. It is,
Speaker 1: of course a story about Hubris, but on a literal level,
Speaker 1: it was also a reminder that humans were never really
Speaker 1: meant to fly. To the Greeks and many other ancient peoples,
Speaker 1: the skies belonged to the gods. Mortals could dream about visiting,
Speaker 1: but would never belong there. And for roughly three hundred
Speaker 1: thousand years that was true. Then on a blustery December
Speaker 1: day in nineteen oh three, it ceased to be true.
Speaker 1: Two bicycle mechanic brothers named Orville and Wilbur Wright became
Speaker 1: the first humans to achieve powered flight. Their journey lasted
Speaker 1: twelve seconds and one hundred and twenty feet, but a
Speaker 1: changed history in an instant. Within hours, the right brother's
Speaker 1: flight was making headlines. The news of their accomplishment spread
Speaker 1: across the globe, igniting imaginations and inspiring a generation of
Speaker 1: aviation enthusiasts. Among them was a seven year old boy
Speaker 1: from Worcester, Massachusetts named Jean. Jean had always been a
Speaker 1: small boy, and his classmates never let him forget that
Speaker 1: their teasing left him feeling isolated, and so he found
Speaker 1: solace in his daydreams. He spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: staring out the window, wishing that he could leave the
Speaker 1: world and his bullies behind. So when Jean heard about
Speaker 1: the Right brother's flight, came obsessed. Boys had dreamed of
Speaker 1: flying for centuries, but now it was possible, and Jane
Speaker 1: was determined to be part of it. Over the next decade,
Speaker 1: he devoured every book and magazine on aviation he could find,
Speaker 1: and by the time he reached adulthood, the American aviation
Speaker 1: industry was just beginning to take off. No pun intended.
Speaker 1: He graduated from high school the very same year the
Speaker 1: first commercial passenger flight was conducted. The plane was still
Speaker 1: light years from the jumbo jet days of today. Of course,
Speaker 1: air travel was a rickety, open cockpit experience, loud, unsteady,
Speaker 1: and far from reliable. Most people at the time saw
Speaker 1: flying as more of a dare devil's stunt than a
Speaker 1: way to travel, But to Jean, it was the future.
Speaker 1: He threw himself into the world of flight, taking every
Speaker 1: opportunity he could to get in a cockpit. Within a
Speaker 1: few years of graduating high school, he earned a reputation
Speaker 1: as one of the best pilots in the country at
Speaker 1: a time when that was a very small group. When
Speaker 1: he wasn't in the cockpit, Jane was analyzing flights in
Speaker 1: the classroom. He attended Clark University and studied physics with
Speaker 1: Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocketry. That education and
Speaker 1: personal connection became a launching pad for Jane's career. Pretty
Speaker 1: soon he was rubbing elbows with aviation legends. He met
Speaker 1: Orville Wright, Howard Hughes, and Charles Lindberg. He was even
Speaker 1: an early passenger on the Hindenburg, and, as the story goes,
Speaker 1: predicted that it would go up in flames. By the
Speaker 1: time World War One broke out, Jane was no longer
Speaker 1: just a dreamer. He flew for the US Army in Europe,
Speaker 1: engaging in dogfights that were more like duels, where pilots
Speaker 1: circled each other in fragile, wooden biplanes, firing rudimentary machine
Speaker 1: guns from the cockpit. And two decades later, when World
Speaker 1: War II erupted, Jean returned to the skies, this time
Speaker 1: in a sleek, metal, closed cockpit modelplane that barely resembled
Speaker 1: the primitive aircraft of his youth, Aviation was evolving at
Speaker 1: lightning pace, and Jane adapted with it. By the war's end,
Speaker 1: he was working on experimental aircraft for the US Air Force,
Speaker 1: pushing the boundaries of human flight. Gene served until nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty six, when he retired at the rank of colonel.
Speaker 1: He stayed active in the advancing field and later became
Speaker 1: a consultant for NASA. In July of nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: the seventy three year old was watching history unfold yet again.
Speaker 1: Jane had already witnessed aviation's evolution from fragile biplanes to
Speaker 1: supersonic jets, but this was something else entirely, a rocket
Speaker 1: carrying three men beyond Earth's atmosphere. As the lunar module
Speaker 1: touched down, Jane held his breath, and when the grainy
Speaker 1: black and white image flickered onto the screen, he saw
Speaker 1: the impossible become real, a man stepping onto the Moon's surface.
Speaker 1: For Gene, though this was more than just history in
Speaker 1: the making, it was also deeply personal because one of
Speaker 1: those lunar astronauts was his very own sun Eugene Aldrin Junior,
Speaker 1: better known to us as buzz I Hope, you've enjoyed
Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities, subscribe for
Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
Speaker 1: by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com.
Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.