WEBVTT - Boom & Bust

0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.440
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of

0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:14.440
<v Speaker 1>iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of

0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.440
<v Speaker 1>the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all

0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.599
<v Speaker 1>of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting

0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:28.840
<v Speaker 1>for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:40.159
<v Speaker 1>Hong Hi Kwan had just failed his fourth civil service exam.

0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:43.400
<v Speaker 1>He was mortified, but in truth, this was nothing to

0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:47.199
<v Speaker 1>be ashamed of. Most people didn't pass. These exams were

0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:50.000
<v Speaker 1>a big part of what made China such a dominant nation.

0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.920
<v Speaker 1>Its leaders were largely in power based on merit, except

0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:57.440
<v Speaker 1>for the emperor, of course. Chiquan hated to think of

0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:01.080
<v Speaker 1>the Emperor on his throne in Nijing, being born into

0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:03.920
<v Speaker 1>power and not having to pass any exam at all.

0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:06.720
<v Speaker 1>Later that night, he went to sleep, and he had

0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:09.560
<v Speaker 1>a dream. He floated up from his home and into

0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:12.039
<v Speaker 1>the clouds, where a strange man who said he was

0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:16.120
<v Speaker 1>Shikwan's father told him that demons were destroying China. He

0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.040
<v Speaker 1>then gave him a sword and introduced him to another

0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.760
<v Speaker 1>man who he claimed was Schui Kwan's brother. When Chuquan

0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:25.080
<v Speaker 1>woke up, the next morning, he didn't know what to

0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:29.080
<v Speaker 1>think of this dream. Years later, though, around eighteen thirty nine,

0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:32.560
<v Speaker 1>he came across a pamphlet from a Christian missionary. When

0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:35.440
<v Speaker 1>he read about the Christian God and his son Jesus,

0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.080
<v Speaker 1>he came to believe that these were the father and

0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:41.119
<v Speaker 1>brother from his dream, and that meant that shu Quan

0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.399
<v Speaker 1>was the second son of God. And so he decided

0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:46.720
<v Speaker 1>that the demons that he was meant to destroy or

0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:49.960
<v Speaker 1>the Emperor and the emperor's family. He told his own

0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.280
<v Speaker 1>family about his revelation and began to cultivate a following

0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:56.680
<v Speaker 1>in southern China. Through most of Chinese history, the nation

0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:00.320
<v Speaker 1>had been an unstable mix of different ethnic minorities, and

0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.360
<v Speaker 1>this era was no different. The people of this region

0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.960
<v Speaker 1>shared no blood relation with the ruling Qing dynasty, and

0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:10.640
<v Speaker 1>they were suffering in poverty. Schukwan's message that he was

0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:13.359
<v Speaker 1>the son of God meant to liberate them from their

0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:17.440
<v Speaker 1>demon rulers quickly caught on The movement became known as

0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:22.959
<v Speaker 1>the Heavenly Kingdom. They were somewhat puritanical, demanding abstinence from drugs, alcohol,

0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:27.000
<v Speaker 1>and sex outside of marriage. They were also somewhat pre socialist,

0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.920
<v Speaker 1>as they believed in equality between men and women and

0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:33.480
<v Speaker 1>the sharing of property. Before long, they had gathered weapons

0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:37.919
<v Speaker 1>and launched attacks on nearby Qing strongholds. They ruthlessly slaughtered

0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:41.440
<v Speaker 1>any soldiers who would enjoin their cause. The Emperor, who

0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:43.959
<v Speaker 1>had only recently ended a war with the British, was

0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.520
<v Speaker 1>spread too thin to respond, but this was a mistake,

0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.760
<v Speaker 1>because soon the Heavenly Kingdom had stolen a whole fleet

0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.720
<v Speaker 1>of ships. In eighteen fifty two, they were able to

0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:57.560
<v Speaker 1>travel up the Yangtsee River to the imperial stronghold of Nanjing.

0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:01.040
<v Speaker 1>This was the traditional home of the emperors, and soon

0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:04.959
<v Speaker 1>the cultists were scaling the walls, slaughtering the soldiers inside.

0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.760
<v Speaker 1>Millions died in the wake of their violence. They now

0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:12.440
<v Speaker 1>ruled a significant portion of southern China. Chu Quan was

0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:14.840
<v Speaker 1>seen as the true son of God, who had delivered

0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.959
<v Speaker 1>the poor from the Ching's boot. The Emperor, who fled

0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.120
<v Speaker 1>to Beijing, was distracted by another war with England and

0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.600
<v Speaker 1>France and wanted to be able to import opium into China.

0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:27.799
<v Speaker 1>Chu Quan saw this as just another example of how

0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:31.200
<v Speaker 1>the emperor was unable to protect his people. But once

0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.280
<v Speaker 1>the British and French were victorious. They sent the emperor

0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:38.000
<v Speaker 1>after the Heavenly Kingdom. They couldn't tolerate an entire faction

0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.480
<v Speaker 1>that banned opium. There were rumors that the stress of

0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:45.960
<v Speaker 1>the situation led Chuquan to start smoking opium himself, going

0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.720
<v Speaker 1>against his own sacred beliefs. Ultimately, he died in eighteen

0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.920
<v Speaker 1>sixty four of mysterious causes. Just as the imperial forces

0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:58.160
<v Speaker 1>were besieging Neijing. They took the city and slaughtered any

0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:00.720
<v Speaker 1>and all who were loyal to the Heavenly Kingdom. It

0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:03.440
<v Speaker 1>said that some of Chuquan's followers saw the end of

0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:07.240
<v Speaker 1>the kingdom coming and immolated themselves in public rather than

0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:11.600
<v Speaker 1>live under the rule of the supposedly demonic Empire. Millions

0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.440
<v Speaker 1>were killed as the Imperial army fought its way south

0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.600
<v Speaker 1>and reclaimed all of its lost territory. Historians estimate that

0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:22.839
<v Speaker 1>anywhere between twenty to fifty million people died. For comparison,

0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:26.680
<v Speaker 1>the entire deathtoll military and civilian of World War One

0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:29.839
<v Speaker 1>was between nine and fifteen million, and all of this

0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:33.200
<v Speaker 1>brutality stemmed from a being both a religious war and

0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:37.040
<v Speaker 1>a colonial conflict. The Heavenly Kingdom saw their enemies as

0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:40.960
<v Speaker 1>demons unworthy of life, and the colonizing British and French

0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:45.200
<v Speaker 1>saw them as less than human. Curiously, the Heavenly Kingdom

0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.480
<v Speaker 1>was inspired by Christian beliefs that were introduced to China

0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:51.640
<v Speaker 1>by the British. If they hadn't forced their beliefs on

0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:55.480
<v Speaker 1>the country after the First Chinese British War, it's possible

0:04:55.520 --> 0:05:12.279
<v Speaker 1>the Taiping Rebellion may never have happened at all. On

0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.360
<v Speaker 1>a morning in January of nineteen ninety nine, a group

0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.680
<v Speaker 1>of reporters gathered in a brightly lit office. They were

0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:22.279
<v Speaker 1>there to witness an unusual announcement from a financial advisor

0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.440
<v Speaker 1>named Raven Thoroughgood the Third. It was the height of

0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:28.120
<v Speaker 1>the dot com boom, the period when the Internet was

0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:31.320
<v Speaker 1>just taking off and tech companies were setting the stock

0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:35.200
<v Speaker 1>market on fire. Raven wanted to help investors capitalize on

0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:38.920
<v Speaker 1>the trend by launching his own index fund with ten

0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.839
<v Speaker 1>hand pick stocks that were sure to succeed. What made

0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:46.160
<v Speaker 1>Raven so unusual was that he had no prior experience

0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.000
<v Speaker 1>in finance. He was an actor who had had a

0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:52.280
<v Speaker 1>successful career in Hollywood, and he openly admitted that he

0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.919
<v Speaker 1>knew nothing about internet companies or the stock market in general.

0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:59.360
<v Speaker 1>He planned to choose his stocks simply by throwing darts

0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:03.360
<v Speaker 1>at a board. The reporters watched in astonishment as Raven

0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:05.880
<v Speaker 1>picked up a dart and threw it at the board

0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:08.599
<v Speaker 1>on the opposite wall, which was covered in the names

0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:12.560
<v Speaker 1>of various internet companies. His assistant removed the dart and

0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:16.520
<v Speaker 1>announced the name of a company he had selected, CMGI,

0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:19.920
<v Speaker 1>and then he repeated the process, randomly, choosing nine more

0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:24.560
<v Speaker 1>relatively unknown companies. The press, needless to say, was skeptical.

0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:27.719
<v Speaker 1>In fact, everyone thought this was a total farce. But

0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.359
<v Speaker 1>within a week, one of Ravens stock picks, CMGI, was

0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:35.200
<v Speaker 1>up ninety six percent. Over the next year, the stocks

0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:39.640
<v Speaker 1>Raven had selected kept rising and rising and rising. By

0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.520
<v Speaker 1>the end of the year, his portfolio had outperformed every

0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:46.400
<v Speaker 1>other index fund on Wall Street. Raven had bested thousands

0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.719
<v Speaker 1>of experienced brokers to deliver a shocking two hundred and

0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:53.680
<v Speaker 1>thirteen percent return. Within one year of beginning his career,

0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.839
<v Speaker 1>He was ranked as the twenty second most successful money

0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.880
<v Speaker 1>manager in the United States. He appeared in the Guinness

0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.520
<v Speaker 1>of World Records. Everyone on Wall Street was clamoring to

0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:07.200
<v Speaker 1>figure out how he did it. Of course, Raven's PR

0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:11.440
<v Speaker 1>team attributed his success to sheer natural talent, but market

0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:15.120
<v Speaker 1>analysts saw shadows of something a bit more ominous. To them,

0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:20.400
<v Speaker 1>Raven's overnight success was a sign that internet stocks were unstable, unpredictable,

0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:24.080
<v Speaker 1>and possibly headed for a disaster. If someone like Raven

0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:26.800
<v Speaker 1>could gain the system so well, that meant that there

0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.600
<v Speaker 1>was no logic whatsoever in which stock succeeded and failed,

0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:35.040
<v Speaker 1>and no bet was safe because Raven wasn't just inexperienced,

0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:40.800
<v Speaker 1>he was also a chimpanzee. Unfortunately, the market analysts were right.

0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:43.920
<v Speaker 1>Raven was just riding the wave of the dot com bubble,

0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:47.280
<v Speaker 1>and at the turn of the New millennium that bubble burst.

0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:51.000
<v Speaker 1>Raven's portfolio fell a stunning thirty four percent in the

0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.320
<v Speaker 1>year two thousand. Within a few years, every single stock

0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:58.640
<v Speaker 1>he had picked was worth absolutely nothing. But Raven's dartboard

0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.720
<v Speaker 1>experiment lived on as proof that the stock market isn't

0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:06.600
<v Speaker 1>all about strategy or careful analysis. Sometimes it's all just

0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:13.680
<v Speaker 1>a load of monkey business. I hope you enjoyed today's

0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:17.120
<v Speaker 1>guided tour through the Cabinet of curiosities. This show was

0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:21.320
<v Speaker 1>created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with iHeart Podcasts,

0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:23.880
<v Speaker 1>researched and written by the Grim and Mild team, and

0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:27.000
<v Speaker 1>produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and

0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:30.320
<v Speaker 1>the people who make it over at Grimandmild dot com

0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.640
<v Speaker 1>slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link to the official

0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:37.800
<v Speaker 1>cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online,

0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:40.760
<v Speaker 1>as well as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking

0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:44.080
<v Speaker 1>for an ad free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's

0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.000
<v Speaker 1>all the same stories, but without the interruption for a

0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.000
<v Speaker 1>small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over at

0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:55.920
<v Speaker 1>patreon dot com slash Grimandmild, and until next time, stay curious.