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: The past is a foreign country. Author LP Hartley coined
Speaker 1: this phrase in nineteen fifty three in the opening lines
Speaker 1: of his book The Go Between. An instantly iconic simile,
Speaker 1: it describes how alien even our own history looks to ourselves.
Speaker 1: With enough time, history just becomes archaeology. But if human
Speaker 1: history is a foreign country, natural history is like another planet.
Speaker 1: Cleopatra live closer in history to the invention of the
Speaker 1: iPhone than the construction of the Great Pyramids. Your lifespan
Speaker 1: is closer to your great great grandparents than a Tyrannosaurus
Speaker 1: rex was to a Stegosaurus. And after the passage of
Speaker 1: so much time, it requires an immense act of imagination
Speaker 1: to fill the gaps left by time. When you enter
Speaker 1: a natural history museum, for example, one of the first
Speaker 1: sites you're likely to see is a fully assembled dinosaur skeleton.
Speaker 1: They're impressive, eye catching, and give a sense of immediacy
Speaker 1: and scale to the past that might otherwise elude us.
Speaker 1: We can easily imagine what it would be like to
Speaker 1: be in that thing's presence, even if our species never overlapped.
Speaker 1: But what we don't often think about is all the
Speaker 1: trial and error that it took to assemble the skeleton properly.
Speaker 1: Some skeletons are found intact, but others require mixing and
Speaker 1: matching with bones from other sites or replicas made to
Speaker 1: replace missing or damaged fossils. And if multiple fossils are
Speaker 1: found the same place, the possibility for mixing creatures up
Speaker 1: becomes very present. And one of my favorite examples of
Speaker 1: this happening took place in central Germany. Sometime in the
Speaker 1: seventeenth century, workmen who were mining near the town of
Speaker 1: Magdeburg unearthed the Strange Cave. In this cave, they found
Speaker 1: strange bones, bones that looked nothing like any animal they
Speaker 1: had ever seen. Word quickly spread throughout the town, and
Speaker 1: eventually the mayor Otto von Gurika studied the bones himself.
Speaker 1: Gurica was initially quite worried that the workmen had damaged
Speaker 1: the bones by handling them improperly, but as worries were
Speaker 1: soon eclipsed by his own excitement at the discovery. He
Speaker 1: wrote an article about this amazing find in the local newspaper,
Speaker 1: and shortly thereafter they set about reconstructing this strange, strange beast.
Speaker 1: We have to remember that the field of paleontology just
Speaker 1: didn't exist back then. There was no ruling authority for
Speaker 1: Gurka to report to for this kind of esoteric discovery,
Speaker 1: so instead Gurika brought the bone bones to the town's abbess,
Speaker 1: who helped lead a reconstruction of the creature. As they
Speaker 1: tested which bones fit with which they were met with
Speaker 1: another miraculous revelation. This creature had a long horn protruding
Speaker 1: from its skull, sharp as a knight's lance, and for
Speaker 1: many years, local legend had contended that there were unicorns
Speaker 1: in these lands. In fact, there was a small cottage
Speaker 1: industry among the villagers that involved selling medicine made out
Speaker 1: of unicorn bones, but this was the first full skeleton
Speaker 1: assembled of such a creature. It would become a prized
Speaker 1: possession of the town, famed in local legend. Later in
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century, a German polymath named Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz
Speaker 1: drew a version of the creature's skeleton, using Gerica's description
Speaker 1: as his primary basis. The resulting depiction of the so
Speaker 1: called Magdeburg unicorn looked strange, a strong jawed skull with
Speaker 1: two massive forelegs framing ribs, and a spinal column that
Speaker 1: tapered off with the tail. The bipedal creature didn't really
Speaker 1: look like a horse, like one assumes in most unicorn legends,
Speaker 1: but more like a narwhal with an enormous head and
Speaker 1: two over developed front legs. Although the bones themselves would
Speaker 1: be lost over the centuries, the creature passed into legend
Speaker 1: thanks to the drawings that leaven it's maid. Of course,
Speaker 1: it would become obvious that Gurica, the Abbess and the
Speaker 1: people of Magdeburg had not discovered a unicorn. They'd made
Speaker 1: a haphazard assembly of different prehistoric animal fossils. The so
Speaker 1: called unicorn is mostly made up of fossilized wooly rhinoceros,
Speaker 1: a creature whose existence was not known at the time.
Speaker 1: To the modern eye, it looks downright outrageous, a goofy
Speaker 1: bipedal creature with proportions out of a cartoon. And while
Speaker 1: we don't know for certain how seriously this discovery was
Speaker 1: taken by the scientific community of its era, we do
Speaker 1: know that the Magdeburg unicorn has a special place in
Speaker 1: the annals of science. It's gone down in history as
Speaker 1: the worst fossil recon instruction of all time. It was
Speaker 1: August of nineteen eighty five, and New York City was
Speaker 1: in the grip of its annual late summer heat wave.
Speaker 1: In downtown Manhattan, two young boys strolled through the busy sidewalks,
Speaker 1: gaping at the towering skyscrapers an endless stream of yellow cabs.
Speaker 1: They were ten year old Keith Burne and thirteen year
Speaker 1: old Noel Murray, and this was their first time in
Speaker 1: the Big Apple. They were here without their parents or permission,
Speaker 1: and so far they were loving every second of it.
Speaker 1: The boys had been dreading the rapid approaching school year
Speaker 1: and had decided to squeeze in one last summer adventure.
Speaker 1: So two nights before they'd met up just before dinnertime.
Speaker 1: Ignoring Keith's mother's insistence that they not go too far,
Speaker 1: Keith and Nol headed straight for the local train station,
Speaker 1: where they snuck under a turnstile and hopped aboard a
Speaker 1: random train car. They didn't have a plan or a
Speaker 1: destination in mind, but they kept changing transportation at random
Speaker 1: until they wound up in New York. The city was
Speaker 1: like anything they had ever experienced, and they spent hours
Speaker 1: soaking in the sights and sounds. They kept their hunger
Speaker 1: at bay by fishing coins from public fountains and using
Speaker 1: the money to buy hot dogs and chips. The boys
Speaker 1: were just discussing their next move when a shadow fell
Speaker 1: over them. They looked up into the stony face of
Speaker 1: one of New York's finest The cops said that his
Speaker 1: name was Officer White and asked the boys where their
Speaker 1: parents were. Nol slipped on a confident, easygoing smile and
Speaker 1: gestured back down the sidewalk, as if to say that
Speaker 1: she was just behind them and would catch up at
Speaker 1: any minute. This trick had served the boys well throughout
Speaker 1: their adventure, getting them passed more than a few ticket agents,
Speaker 1: but Officer White did not buy it. He pressed them
Speaker 1: for answers, and eventually Keith stammered that they were on
Speaker 1: their way to meet their parents in the center of town.
Speaker 1: Officer White frowned, and then he reached for his radio,
Speaker 1: and minutes later the boys were seated in the back
Speaker 1: of Officer White's police car, racing through the busy New
Speaker 1: York traffic. Despite finding themselves in police custody, Keith and
Speaker 1: Knowle were in high spirits. They marveled at the cruiser's
Speaker 1: controls and pestered Officer White to turn on his sirens
Speaker 1: and his megaphone. And while they knew that their trip
Speaker 1: was rapidly coming to a close, they didn't mind too much.
Speaker 1: This was shaping up to be a better adventure than
Speaker 1: they could have ever hoped for. When they got to
Speaker 1: the precinct, Officer White and his sergeant put the boys
Speaker 1: in a holding room. After feeding them hamburgers and soda
Speaker 1: and letting Noel play with an unloaded pistol. They begged
Speaker 1: the boys to say where they were from, and finally
Speaker 1: Keith and Knowle agreed that it was time to come
Speaker 1: clean first. Though Noel asked how Officer White knew that
Speaker 1: they were runaways, Officer White laughed and said that he
Speaker 1: suspected something was up. When Noel mentioned meeting their parents
Speaker 1: at the center of town. A local might say that
Speaker 1: they were meeting a friend in Midtown or maybe even
Speaker 1: Times Square, but no New Yorker would ever say the
Speaker 1: center of town. However, the real giveaway was their thick accent.
Speaker 1: The boys laughed at the comment and finally told Officer
Speaker 1: White the whole story about their journey, how they had
Speaker 1: stowed aboard several trains, a ferry, and finally a seven
Speaker 1: forty seven, all without ever paying for a single ticket.
Speaker 1: When he heard the tale, Officer White was sure that
Speaker 1: they were pulling his leg yet again, but he made
Speaker 1: some calls and discovered that it was all true. He
Speaker 1: managed to get a hold of their parents, as well
Speaker 1: as the airline they had conned, which responded by putting
Speaker 1: Keith and Nol up in a five star hotel for
Speaker 1: the night. To keep them busy and out of trouble.
Speaker 1: Officer White's sergeant took them sightseeing and bought them all
Speaker 1: the souvenirs they could carry. A few days and a
Speaker 1: plane ride later, the adventure was finally over. Keith and
Speaker 1: Nol were safe and sound back home in Dublin, Ireland.
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: This 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
Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
Speaker 1: the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.