Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Nke'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 stream of time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and
Speaker 1: bears away all things that come to birth, and plunges
Speaker 1: them into uttered darkness, both deeds of no account and
Speaker 1: deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. The science
Speaker 1: of history is a great bulwark against the stream of time.
Speaker 1: In a way, it checks this irresistible flood. It holds
Speaker 1: in its height grasp whatever it can sease floating on
Speaker 1: the surface, and will not allow it to slip away
Speaker 1: into the depths of oblivion. This is an excerpt from
Speaker 1: the opening of the Alexiad, one of the most important
Speaker 1: pieces of literature to come out of the Byzantine Empire.
Speaker 1: It tells the story of the emperor Alexios Komnemnos, the
Speaker 1: man who took Byzantium out of a desperate situation and
Speaker 1: into its final successful era as an empire. Five hundred
Speaker 1: years after the fall of Rome, the Byzantine Empire, or
Speaker 1: the Eastern Roman Empire as it was known at the time,
Speaker 1: was facing a fall of its own. In the early
Speaker 1: eleventh century, the empire lost around half of its territory
Speaker 1: to the Seljuke Turks. Normans pressed the empire from the west,
Speaker 1: and the current emperor didn't know how to handle either threat.
Speaker 1: In ten eighty one, Alexios Kommnos stepped into the chaos
Speaker 1: and helped re establish the empire. He fought the Turks
Speaker 1: and made efforts to re establish a friendly relationship with
Speaker 1: the papals. In just a few short years, he went
Speaker 1: from an upstart general to something of a savior for
Speaker 1: the flagging empire. His most lasting contribution to this period
Speaker 1: of history, however, came from when he requested European mercenaries
Speaker 1: to help deal with the Turkish threat and inadvertently inspired
Speaker 1: Pope Urban the Second to declare the First Crusade. And
Speaker 1: because the Eastern Roman Empire was a Christian nation, this
Speaker 1: was not a problem. In fact, it's the sort of
Speaker 1: world altering decision that makes a king into a folk hero,
Speaker 1: although of course it also takes a specific sort of
Speaker 1: historian to make that transformation a reality. The Alexiad, with
Speaker 1: a title that evokes Homer's Iliad, retells the rule of
Speaker 1: Alexios like a cross between history and epic poetry. It's
Speaker 1: a strange, singular work in the midst of an empire
Speaker 1: that mostly produced historical accounts that were dry and factual.
Speaker 1: And that's no accident. It's a history that's so personal
Speaker 1: because it was written by someone who knew Komnmnos personally.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, the author was the eldest
Speaker 1: daughter of Emperor Alexios Anna Komnemni. She was present when
Speaker 1: the first wave of crusaders arrived in Constantinople in ten
Speaker 1: ninety six, and even though she was just a teenager,
Speaker 1: her memory of the European rabble was fresh in her
Speaker 1: mind when she wrote the account down many decades later.
Speaker 1: An exceedingly smart and well read woman, she wasn't simply
Speaker 1: content to live a life of luxury in the palace.
Speaker 1: She wanted to learn and alter the world.
Speaker 2: As her father grew older and infirm, it was assumed
Speaker 2: that upon his death, the crown would pass to her
Speaker 2: younger brother John. Both Anna and her mother attempted to
Speaker 2: persuade the die in Alexios to let Anna's husband inherit
Speaker 2: so that she could rule, but they were unsuccessful. When
Speaker 2: Alexios died, John the Second was crowned almost immediately. Some
Speaker 2: historians say that Anna schemed to depose John, but the
Speaker 2: plot was discovered and she was sent from court in disgrace.
Speaker 2: Her royal ambition permanently thwarted. Anna Kommemni spent the last
Speaker 2: thirty five years of her life reading and writing. She
Speaker 2: became Europe's first female historian, although there is still rigorous
Speaker 2: debates over whether her work should count as literature or history.
Speaker 2: After all, The Alexiad is far from an objective accounting
Speaker 2: of history, and she knew that she would face this
Speaker 2: criticism too. In the preface of the book, she addressed
Speaker 2: the idea that one has to sometimes pay compliments to
Speaker 2: your enemies and criticize your relatives. In spite of this awareness,
Speaker 2: it's impossible to argue that she wrote an unbiased work.
Speaker 2: In fact, her very opinionated prose is what makes the
Speaker 2: Alexiad a vital read. It is not an objectively accurate
Speaker 2: piece of historiography, but it provides a valuable insight into
Speaker 2: the reign of Alexios from someone who is close to him.
Speaker 2: It shows us her contempt for the Crusaders, her assessment
Speaker 2: of her father's military achievements, her resentment toward her brother.
Speaker 2: Like all good primary documents, it makes history feel a
Speaker 2: little more human. More modern scholars have attempted to dismiss
Speaker 2: or downplay her contributions to our understanding of the era,
Speaker 2: but in spite of that, the Alexiad is among the
Speaker 2: most important epics of its era. Without exaggeration, there is
Speaker 2: no piece of literature quite like it. John may have
Speaker 2: gotten the crown, but in the end Anna got the
Speaker 2: last word. Otto g. Lindbergh and Ernest Alpers stood on
Speaker 2: the dusty shoulder of the road, looking up at the
Speaker 2: painted marquee of the general store with an expression somewhere
Speaker 2: between horror and awe. A few feet away, two young
Speaker 2: girls in gingham dresses sat sipping from glass soda bottles.
Speaker 2: Farmers and their families poured in and out of the
Speaker 2: red storefront, arms laden with paper grocery bags and smiles
Speaker 2: on their faces. And above it all hung a sign
Speaker 2: with hand painted script that read ag Low General Store
Speaker 2: The scene was nothing short of picturesque and everyday American
Speaker 2: general store bustling with everyday Americans going about their everyday business.
Speaker 2: Only Otto and Earnest knew the truth that none of this,
Speaker 2: not the general store, or the families, or the girls
Speaker 2: sipping cola were real. Thirteen years earlier, around nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 2: Otto and Ernest sat across from one another feeling very
Speaker 2: pleased with themselves. Their industry was a cutthroat one. Deception, betrayal,
Speaker 2: and most significantly, copycats were common pitfalls of their profession.
Speaker 2: But that day, in the offices of General Drafting Company,
Speaker 2: Otto and Ernest had an idea to overcome even the
Speaker 2: sneakiest copycat artists. Okay, cartography, the science and art of
Speaker 2: making maps may not be the first thing that comes
Speaker 2: to mind when you think of unscrupulous business, but if
Speaker 2: you asked Otto in Earnest, they would say that you
Speaker 2: couldn't be more wrong. The world of map making hadn't
Speaker 2: always been so lucrative, but as automobiles grew in popularity
Speaker 2: through the nineteen thirties and forties, so too did the
Speaker 2: need for road maps. And as the need for those
Speaker 2: maps grew, so did the need for people looking to
Speaker 2: take advantage of that business. After all, it's not as
Speaker 2: if someone could prove a map was stolen or copied.
Speaker 2: If they were accurate, then all maps kind of showed
Speaker 2: the same thing, the same towns and the same cities
Speaker 2: and the same roads, except for Aglow. Otto and Ernest's
Speaker 2: brilliant idea. A copyright trap was an extra town, one
Speaker 2: entirely made up by Otto and Earnest near the Catskills
Speaker 2: at the intersection of New York two O six and
Speaker 2: Rockefeller Road. Of course, Aglow wasn't a real place. Motorists
Speaker 2: who were passing through Aglow would see a dirt road
Speaker 2: intersection and a few scrubby patches of grass. This meant
Speaker 2: any other maps that cropped up with the ma arker
Speaker 2: for Aglow would be easy to identify as copyright infringement.
Speaker 2: The name itself was a private joke, an anagram of
Speaker 2: their initials Alpers g Lindberg, Otto, Ernest or Aglow. In
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty, the Aglo Trap snagged its first prey. Rival
Speaker 2: map company ran McNally published their map of New York
Speaker 2: that included you guessed it, Aglow, Otto and Ernest were
Speaker 2: thrilled by this. Not only had their plan worked, but
Speaker 2: they had caught the massive corporation red handed. General Drafting
Speaker 2: Company filed a lawsuit against ran McNally for copyright infringement,
Speaker 2: expecting an easy victory in court and a sizable paycheck
Speaker 2: for their trouble. But Rand McNally responded to the lawsuit. No,
Speaker 2: they said, we didn't copy your map. We'd sent someone
Speaker 2: out to Aglow and there's a real town there. What's more,
Speaker 2: they told Auto and Earnest that the Delaware County offices
Speaker 2: had records of Aglow. There was a gas station, a
Speaker 2: general store, a fishing lodge, and a sparse collection of houses.
Speaker 2: It seems that someone whose identity is now lost to
Speaker 2: time actually arrived in the false town of Aglow after
Speaker 2: finding it on one of Otto and Earnest's maps purchased
Speaker 2: from the General Drafting Company. And when this individual saw
Speaker 2: the dirt road intersection and empty acres, they interpreted the
Speaker 2: non existent town as a land of opportunity and built
Speaker 2: a town in that spot. This person must have assumed
Speaker 2: that the name Aglow was in the official census record,
Speaker 2: and so that's the name that this person and all
Speaker 2: preceding businesses gave to their operations there the Aglow General Store,
Speaker 2: Aglow gas Station, Aglow Fishing Lodge. I think you get
Speaker 2: the idea, And so Otto and Ernest went and saw
Speaker 2: the place for themselves, and they were shocked by what
Speaker 2: they found. In their imaginative attempt to deter copycats, they
Speaker 2: had somehow accidentally created a real town. Of course, Rand
Speaker 2: McNally was found not guilty. The town of Aglow flourished
Speaker 2: as much as a ton of a one hundred people
Speaker 2: or so can. Around nineteen sixty, the general store closed,
Speaker 2: than the gas station, than the lodge. Aglow fell into disrepair,
Speaker 2: then eventually vanished, reverting back to that scrubby patch of
Speaker 2: grass and a dirt road intersection that Otto and Ernest
Speaker 2: had originally imagined. But the ghost of Aglow haunted most
Speaker 2: other maps for decades. Heck, up until twenty eighteen, it
Speaker 2: was still searchable on Google or Apple Maps. New generations
Speaker 2: continued falling for the old trick, and Aglow gained popularity
Speaker 2: after its appearance in John Green's novel Paper Towns. Once again,
Speaker 2: the town of Aglow seems to thrive best in fiction.
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet
Speaker 2: of Curiosities. This show was created by me Aaron Mankey
Speaker 2: in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the
Speaker 2: Grim and Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn
Speaker 2: more about the show and the people who make it
Speaker 2: over at Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find
Speaker 2: a link to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book,
Speaker 2: available in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook.
Speaker 2: And if you're looking for an ad free option, consider
Speaker 2: joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without
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Speaker 2: until next time, stay curious.