WEBVTT - Survivalist 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.400 Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:09.320 iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:16.840 Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:20.520 is an open book, all of these amazing tales right 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:25.639 there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:37.920 to the Cabinet of Curiosities. The history of exploration is 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:42.400 marked by mountaintops reached and ocean's crossed, by impossible being 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:46.480 proven possible through sheer human will. But the one particular 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:52.360 expedition stands apart by almost every metric. Ernest Shackleton's journey 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:56.400 to cross Antarctica was an utter failure. The frozen continent 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:00.560 was not crossed, and Shackleton's ship, the Endurance, was hopelessly 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:04.000 mired in ice which nearly crushed it. So why is 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:07.520 it considered one of the most renowned journeys in history. Well, that, 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:11.040 it turns out, is a curious tale. By nineteen fourteen, 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:13.920 Sir Ernest Shackleton had already been hailed as a great 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:17.000 explorer of the age. He had already led the Nimrod 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:21.200 expedition into Antarctica, coming within ninety seven miles of the 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:24.080 South Pole. It was the closest that anyone had ever 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:26.640 come to the pole. Although the party had to turn 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:30.240 back due to near starvation, it established him as a thoughtful, 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.920 fearless leader, and beyond that, proved to him that it 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:34.800 could be done. 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:38.080 And so in August of nineteen fourteen, he and a 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:41.160 fresh team boarded the Endurance and set sail for the 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:44.880 southernmost part of the globe. From the start there were troubles, though. 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.520 By January of nineteen fifteen, Shackleton and company had reached 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:51.520 the wide l Sea, where the ship became hopelessly trapped 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:54.800 in the ocean ice. Months passed in this way, a 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.720 ship adrift in an icy sea, but it would only 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.880 get worse. In October, the ship finally gave in to 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:04.000 the mounting pressure of the ice and the hull was cracked. 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:07.760 Shackleton's diary from that time showed the dire situation that 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:11.120 the crew found themselves in as they abandoned the Endurance 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.359 for the ice floes that surrounded it. They watched hopelessly 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:17.200 as the Endurance sank. It was at this point in 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.440 the expedition that the mission shifted. It was no longer 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:25.040 about exploration. It was simply a matter of survival. For months, 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:28.400 the crew lived on the ice with dwindling supplies, praying 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:30.919 for a rescue that became less likely by the day. 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:34.040 To keep their morale up, Shackleton insisted on a strict 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:36.840 routine each day to keep a sense of normalcy, and 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:39.440 he even went so far as to organize cricket matches 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.080 on the ice to take his men's mind off of 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:45.240 their dire situation. But when the ice began to break 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.600 up in April of nineteen sixteen, he saw an opportunity. 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:50.960 He may not be able to cross the continent, but 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.720 he would give his men a safe home. As the 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:57.480 ice dissipated, the men loaded onto three lifeboats. It was 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.160 then that Shackleton made the decision to make the journey 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.200 to Elephant Island, which was nearly eight hundred miles away 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:05.880 from where they floated, and from there they would have 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.960 to travel another eight hundred miles to reach a sign 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:12.760 of civilization, and so Shackleton set off with a small 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:16.040 crew aboard a lifeboat named the James Caird. The journey 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.280 was perilous, with hurricane force winds that battered the small 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:23.000 craft and sent freezing ocean spray into the faces of 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:26.360 the men on board. When finally they reached Elephant Island, 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:29.519 Shackleton chose a small group to continue on with him 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:32.280 for the next leg of the journey, which would somehow 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.480 be even more harrowing, And so they set off once 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:38.640 more into the freezing winds and the tumultuous sea. For 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.040 days they battled the choppy seas, finally landing on South 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:45.280 Georgia Island. But their journey was not over yet. Yes, 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:47.760 they had made landfall on the island, but they were 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:51.200 on the uninhabited side. To get to the nearest whaling station, 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:54.240 they would have to traverse the island on foot. The 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.680 trek was arduous. For thirty six hours, they crawled across 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.880 glaciers that none had ever set eyes on before, had 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:04.080 finally reached the whaling station, where they were able to 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.960 resupply before going back for the rest of their crew. 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:09.800 And to be honest, they've feared for the worst. Many 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:13.080 expeditions that had faced such odds had ended in tragedy. 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.400 But miraculously they returned to discover that every one of 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.320 the twenty two members of the party had survived while 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.160 they were gone, and as you'd imagine, the endurance crew 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:24.920 returned to a hero's welcome. It could have gone very 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.440 much differently had it not been for Shackleton and his 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:30.800 crew's ability to adapt to the situation as it worsened. 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:33.880 In the month's long crisis, they had somehow managed to 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:38.760 hold onto perhaps the single most important factor for survival, hope. 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:42.520 And Yes, the Endurance Expedition did fail to achieve its 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.880 original goal, but it also somehow managed to demonstrate the 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:50.080 power of thoughtful leadership and human resilience, turning what could 0:04:50.080 --> 0:05:00.560 have been a terrible tragedy into the stuff of legend. 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:11.720 Gonzalo was born to fight. His family name literally meant warrior. 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:14.600 He grew up sometime in the late fifteenth century and 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.920 was likely trained to fight in the Reconquista, the Catholic 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:21.800 conquest of Spain from the Muslim Moors. Gonzalo would have 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.560 spent his youth climbing walls while avoiding spears and arrows, 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:29.200 stabbing and smashing his way across South Spain. Once the 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:32.280 Reconquista was finished, though, it's possible that he traveled to 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:36.839 Italy and fought there, But by fourteen ninety two, Christopher 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:39.680 Columbus was sailing to the New World and opening a 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.719 whole new frontier for the Spanish. Some even say that 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:46.839 Gonzalo was on that very voyage, whatever the truth might be. 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:51.120 By fifteen eleven, Gonzalo was involved in a shipwreck, winding 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.680 up on the shores of Mexico with eight other companions. 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:57.440 Despite the violence that he had seen in his life 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:00.200 up to that point, nothing could have prepared him for 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:03.640 what he was about to experience. Mayan warriors came out 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:07.080 of the jungle, their ears and noses pierced, their bodies 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:10.480 covered in tattoos. They looked frightening, and they could back 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:13.560 up that appearance with their actions, and they did. They 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:16.800 seized the Spanish soldiers, decapitating a few of them and 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:19.919 sacrificing them to the gods. They even ate parts of 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:23.240 the bodies to complete the ritual. Gonzalo knew that he 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.360 wouldn't last long as their prisoner. He and another one 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:29.760 of the captives, the priest Hieranimo de Aguilar, worked together 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:33.080 to escape, traveling through the jungle, knowing that anywhere was 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:36.479 better than being at the mercy of the cannibals. But 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.120 this jungle belonged to the Maya, and before long the 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.840 Spanish duo was captured by Yets, another tribe. However, this 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:46.559 one wasn't interested in sacrificing them. Gonzalo and the priest 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:49.560 seemed pathetic, not much of an offering to their gods. 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:53.360 They were pressed in a service as slaves instead. However, 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.480 Gonzalo was a warrior through and through, and he couldn't 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:58.760 help but reveal his skill. He gave some of the 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.520 warrior's tips on how to better use their spears and 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.080 how they could get around the armor of the Spanish. 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:07.320 By fifteen seventeen, he was helping to fight off Spanish 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:11.520 invasion forces. He used Mayan spears, clubs, bows and arrows 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:15.240 against the metal plate armor and rifles of his former brethren. 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:19.360 It was the most brutal, bloody combat imaginable. Gonzalo fully 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.240 converted to the ways of the Maya, piercing his ears 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:26.080 and nose and tattooing his body. Impressed with his prowess, 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:29.360 the Mayan chief offered his daughter to Gonzalo in marriage. 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.720 Her name was Sasil, and together they had three sons. 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:36.120 The boys were some of the first mestizos in recorded history, 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.040 a term used to describe people of mixed Spanish and 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.880 indigenous ancestry, and they make up the majority of people 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.760 in Mexico today. Gonzalo had truly found his home, but 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.720 of course his original home wouldn't let go of him 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:55.080 so easily. Legendary Spanish conquistudor ernand Cortes arrived in Mexico 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.160 in fifteen nineteen, preparing to conquer the Aztec Empire. He 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:03.280 invited Gunzao and his priest companion Hieranimo to join him, 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:06.080 and the priest jumped at the chance, begging his year's 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:08.920 long companion to return to the Spanish fold with him. 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:12.080 And yes, they were friends. But Gonzalo could not abandon 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:14.240 his new family, and he also knew that it would 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:16.480 be hard for the Spanish to accept him back given 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:20.000 his strange new appearance, and he loved his sons, he 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.840 felt honor bound to stay and fight for them. Keranimo 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.560 reluctantly left to join Cortes, who was successful in conquering 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.800 the Aztecs in fifteen twenty one. More than ever, the 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:34.840 small remaining Mayan tribes needed Gonzalo's help to fight against 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.600 the Spanish, so he put his body on the line 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.520 time and time again, leading massive defensive battles where he 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:45.080 showed the Mayans how to organize barricades against Spanish armies. 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.880 His spear and club shattered the helmets and breastplates of 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:52.520 one Spanish warrior after another. Many were not so different 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:54.679 from the young man that he had been fighting in 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:58.760 the Reconquista years before. Apparently the love of his family 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:01.440 was all he needed to turn his back on that legacy, 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:06.400 or maybe he just didn't like conquerors. Around fifteen thirty six, 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:09.360 he led a group of Mayan warriors in canoes from 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.600 their home in Yucatan to what is now modern day Honduras. 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:16.080 Their goal was to reinforce the indigenous warriors there in 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.160 their fights against the Spanish. But Gonzalo was in his 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:21.920 sixties by this point. It's incredible to think that he 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:25.520 was still engaging in the most physically demanding combat possible 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:29.200 at such an advanced age at the time. The battle, though, 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:32.120 would be his last. A stray shot from a Spanish 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:35.559 rifle struck him, dropping him to the ground with his comrades. 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.400 He was a violent man who lived a curious life. 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.640 Although he didn't win his final battle, his descendants went 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.000 on to gain independence from the Spanish in a curious way. 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:53.920 The entire country of Mexico. Today is his legacy. I 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:57.640 hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:01.280 This show was created by me Aaron May in partnership 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.240 with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim and 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.760 Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.040 the show and the people who make it over at 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:14.320 Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:17.840 to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.520 bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook. And 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:24.200 if you're looking for an ad free option, consider joining 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.160 our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without the 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:28.240 interruption for. 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:29.520 A small monthly fee. 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.520 Learn more and sign up over at patreon dot com 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:37.240 slash Grimandmild, and until next time, stay curious.