Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Today we take the stock market as a given. Every
Speaker 1: developed nation has one, and anyone with extra cash sees
Speaker 1: it as a good idea to invest. It allows startup
Speaker 1: companies to grow quickly, and it allows the middle class
Speaker 1: to have a retirement fund. But at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, it's all about perceived value. How much the
Speaker 1: market aka human beings thinks something is worth. And when
Speaker 1: that perceived value it proves to be way off from
Speaker 1: the actual value of a stock, well, then we call
Speaker 1: that a bubble. One of the first examples of this
Speaker 1: happened over three hundred years ago, and when it burst,
Speaker 1: it almost took all of England with it. In the
Speaker 1: early seventeen hundreds, England already wasn't doing so great. The
Speaker 1: monarchs of Europe conducted wars like they were a regular
Speaker 1: part of doing business, and England had racked up quite
Speaker 1: a bit of debt from all the fighting. On top
Speaker 1: of all of this, there was still quite a bit
Speaker 1: of fighting over the English monarchy itself. Politician John Aisleby,
Speaker 1: along with several of his fellow politicians, formed a committee
Speaker 1: to address the national debt. At first, they conducted several lotteries,
Speaker 1: just like the ones we have today, where participants pay
Speaker 1: a small amount on the tiny chance that they'll win
Speaker 1: a huge sum. The government takes some of the profits
Speaker 1: and then uses them how it sees fit, such as
Speaker 1: paying off the national debt. But this was too slow
Speaker 1: a solution for England's significant financial woes, and so the
Speaker 1: politicians turned to another scheme. You see, large private banks
Speaker 1: were a relatively new development in England. They were sometimes
Speaker 1: still called companies back then, and it was around this
Speaker 1: time that members of Parliament decided to create a company
Speaker 1: of their own, the South Sea Company, which would take
Speaker 1: advantage of a new peace agreement signed with Spain in
Speaker 1: seventeen thirteen. And what would their investment be well, human trafficking.
Speaker 1: The company purchased an agreement from the English Crown granting
Speaker 1: them exclusive rights to the slave trade with Spanish colonies
Speaker 1: in Central and South America. They expected this to be
Speaker 1: hugely profitable, and so they would sell shares in the
Speaker 1: company in order to consolidate the national debt. In other words,
Speaker 1: they paid investors who England was indebted to with shares
Speaker 1: in the south Sea company, promising them shares that would
Speaker 1: grow in value over time. To be even more clear,
Speaker 1: here Parliament was betting the entire national debt on their
Speaker 1: ability to sell human beings to Spain. They were very
Speaker 1: literally putting the country's burden on the backs of African slaves.
Speaker 1: It was a new wrinkle in a century's long pat
Speaker 1: of horrific abuse. The members of Parliament were so lacking
Speaker 1: in empathy that they didn't see anything wrong with pay
Speaker 1: off the debt from endless, pointless wars by transferring it
Speaker 1: to the labor of innocent Africans who had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with any of it. Over the next few years,
Speaker 1: they managed to sell around thirty thousand enslaved people to
Speaker 1: the Spanish, which is already an incomprehensible amount of pain
Speaker 1: and suffering. And yet despite all of that, it wasn't
Speaker 1: actually enough to make the company profitable. You see, Spain
Speaker 1: limited England to just one ship, a year, and when
Speaker 1: that ship arrived in the New World, the human traffickers
Speaker 1: were often met with bureaucracy and logistical difficulties that kept
Speaker 1: them from turning a profit. And so the south Sea
Speaker 1: Company was a failure, but no one seemed willing to
Speaker 1: admit it. The company had practically become a money printing machine.
Speaker 1: People from all over Europe and all social classes invested
Speaker 1: their money and used their shares to inflate their own wealth.
Speaker 1: And that's when John Aisleby, the English politician first tasked
Speaker 1: with eliminating the debt, joined with other politicians to make
Speaker 1: the problem even worse. They proposed a new scheme to
Speaker 1: Parliament to have the south Sea Company take over even
Speaker 1: more of the national debt. They wanted to inflate their
Speaker 1: own wealth by inflating the stock price of the company,
Speaker 1: and people went along with it for a few reasons.
Speaker 1: For one, many of the members of Parliament were bribed
Speaker 1: by aisle B and his cohorts, and for another, aisle
Speaker 1: B had made King George the first honorary governor of
Speaker 1: the company, giving everyone false confidence. By spring of seventeen twenty,
Speaker 1: the stock price for the south Sea Company had inflated
Speaker 1: to an incredibly high number, but by September investors began
Speaker 1: to realize how worthless the stock really was. The bubble
Speaker 1: burst and the price of the stock plummeted. Many members
Speaker 1: of the nobility lost a substantial amount of their wealth,
Speaker 1: Some even took their own lives as a result, and
Speaker 1: there were other consequences as well. As leb was imprisoned,
Speaker 1: but only for five months. Of course, the king was
Speaker 1: held blame in all of this. He was the first
Speaker 1: monarch of the Hanover dynasty, a stable line that had
Speaker 1: persisted all the way to the modern day. Parliament wasn't
Speaker 1: going to risk another civil war by calling him into question.
Speaker 1: So what does it all mean for us? Well, it
Speaker 1: goes to show how disastrous it can be when politicians
Speaker 1: and financiers neglect their responsibility to the public, and it
Speaker 1: showcases the curious tendency of humans to fall victim to
Speaker 1: a herd mentality, continuing to invest in something they know
Speaker 1: is worthless. It seems that whether you are a peasant
Speaker 1: or a king, no one is immune to the lure
Speaker 1: of a get rich quick scheme. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Speaker 1: or MIT, is known for a lot of things. World
Speaker 1: class professors, cutting edge technology, and some of the best
Speaker 1: science engineers and mathematics programs in the world. Want to
Speaker 1: go to space or the depths of the ocean, or
Speaker 1: get inside an atom, then MIT is the place to be.
Speaker 1: But aside from its academics, MIT is also known for
Speaker 1: another characteristic. With world class students come world class pranks,
Speaker 1: called hacks by the student body. They range from the
Speaker 1: whimsical to the wild. Many hacks include the Great Dome,
Speaker 1: a neoclassical building topped by, of course, a very large dome.
Speaker 1: Over the years, a firetruck, a lunar lander, and an
Speaker 1: MIT campus police car have all made their way onto
Speaker 1: the top of the building. Other hacks are lighthearted, like
Speaker 1: how in two thousand and seven, MIT students dressed the
Speaker 1: statue of their rival Harvard University's founder in armour from
Speaker 1: the Halo video game series. And sometimes they can get
Speaker 1: downright dangerous, like how in the nineteen thirties, five MIT
Speaker 1: students set off thermite bombs under a Boston streetcar, welding
Speaker 1: the wheels to the rails. Notably, one of those pranksters
Speaker 1: later became an MIT dean. Perhaps the most famous hack
Speaker 1: at MIT, though, began as a fraternity hazing ritual and
Speaker 1: left a lasting mark on the school. It was a
Speaker 1: cool October night in nineteen fifty eight when seven Lambda
Speaker 1: Kai Alpha pledges arrived at the Harvard Bridge armed with chalk.
Speaker 1: They were there for a simple task to put down
Speaker 1: markers along the half mile overpass that spanned the Charles
Speaker 1: River from Cambridge to Boston. The whole thing was their
Speaker 1: pledge master's idea. He, like many MIT students, lived in
Speaker 1: Boston proper nearly every day he had crossed the bridge
Speaker 1: to get to the MIT campus in Cambridge. He wanted
Speaker 1: the markers so that he could easily see how far
Speaker 1: he had left to walk, but he didn't want them
Speaker 1: to measure in feet or yards. Instead, they would measure
Speaker 1: in smoots. What exactly is a smoot, Well, a smoot
Speaker 1: is a person Oliver Smoot, to be exact. Oliver was
Speaker 1: one of the pledges that and as the shortest member
Speaker 1: of the group at five foot seven inches tall, the
Speaker 1: pledge master chose him to make measuring the bridge more
Speaker 1: labor intensive. On top of that, he reasoned Smoot's name
Speaker 1: sounded scientific and ampere measures electrical current, a watt total
Speaker 1: power and a smoot distance across the Harvard Bridge, so
Speaker 1: that evening these seven pledges set out to measure the bridge.
Speaker 1: They had Oliver Smoot lay down, marked the length of
Speaker 1: his body, and then moved on. And at first Smoot
Speaker 1: was jumping up and moving on to the next spot
Speaker 1: on his own, but as the smoot lengths reached into
Speaker 1: the hundreds, he grew too tired to do that. His
Speaker 1: brothers started picking him up and carrying him to the
Speaker 1: next chalk mark. Part Way through, the brothers were forced
Speaker 1: to run off the bridge and hide when a Boston
Speaker 1: police car rolled by. Once the police lost interest, they
Speaker 1: returned to their task. After over an hour and a half,
Speaker 1: the brothers made their final chalk mark at Smoot's feet. Together,
Speaker 1: they found that the Harvard Bridge stretched three hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty four point four smoots long, plus or minus one year. Now.
Speaker 1: Even though the measurement known as smoots originated as a
Speaker 1: fraternity prank, over the years, they became part of the
Speaker 1: city Landakai Alpha repaints the Smoot marks every year. When
Speaker 1: the bridge was rebuilt in the nineteen eighties, the contractor
Speaker 1: added smoot marks to the sidewalk, and today you can
Speaker 1: convert any distance on the Google calculator into Smoots. As
Speaker 1: for Oliver himself, his foray into measurement marked the beginning
Speaker 1: of a career. He became head of the International Organization
Speaker 1: of Standardization, which is the group that sets standard measurements
Speaker 1: for scientific research. With each new hack MIT, students hope
Speaker 1: to make their mark on history, but after nearly seventy years,
Speaker 1: none quite measure up to Oliver Smoot. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created 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.