Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Architects, like artists, have specific distinct styles. The
Speaker 1: open floor plans and low pitched roofs of Frank Lloyd
Speaker 1: Wright's designs are iconic and a masterful work, clearly influenced
Speaker 1: countless others in the field. No matter what the style, though,
Speaker 1: architects all over the world all share the same characteristic,
Speaker 1: a clear vision, and John had a vision too many
Speaker 1: of them in fact. Born in Anderson County, Tennessee, John
Speaker 1: lived a fairly standard life. He got married relatively young
Speaker 1: to a woman named Julia Anne, and together they had
Speaker 1: four beautiful children. Unfortunately, their daughter, Ethel, became sick with
Speaker 1: diphtheria when she was only two years old and tragically
Speaker 1: passed away. Julia Anne blamed her husband for Ethel's death,
Speaker 1: as he had disciplined her with a spanking a short
Speaker 1: time earlier, something that she believed caused her illness, so
Speaker 1: she took her three remaining children and headed to Arkansas,
Speaker 1: where she started a new life without him. John, though,
Speaker 1: had trouble moving on. He just lost his entire family
Speaker 1: and was in search of new direction in his life.
Speaker 1: He soon founded in city planning. Standing before a large
Speaker 1: committee of neighbors, he once gave a speech about how
Speaker 1: he planned to see his town of Bear Creek Valley change.
Speaker 1: Homes and fields would be replaced with giant factories and
Speaker 1: tall buildings. He said, their purpose to build a weapon
Speaker 1: that would help the Allies win World War Two. The
Speaker 1: main railroad line would split off into other routes through
Speaker 1: the town. A new city would be built unlike anything
Speaker 1: they had ever seen before, where the nearby town of
Speaker 1: black Oak Ridge currently sat. And that city was built
Speaker 1: in secret to the U. S. Army brought up almost
Speaker 1: sixty acres of land in East Tennessee near the Clinch River.
Speaker 1: The rest of the county had no idea, of course,
Speaker 1: even the locals in nearby towns didn't know why all
Speaker 1: that land had been purchased. The Army called their new
Speaker 1: city Clinton Engineer Works, but it would eventually adopt the
Speaker 1: name oak Ridge. They built reactors and facilities that processed
Speaker 1: the rani um used in the first atomic bomb. But
Speaker 1: John didn't design any of the buildings in Oak Ridge.
Speaker 1: He wasn't an architect. His vision for the future of
Speaker 1: his town didn't come from years of education or experience.
Speaker 1: It came from a more unusual source. You see, after
Speaker 1: the death of his young daughter, and after his wife
Speaker 1: and children left him, John religion and a gift. This gift, though,
Speaker 1: didn't make him too popular among his friends and neighbors.
Speaker 1: One example came early on in his born again life.
Speaker 1: After his friends had him committed to an institution against
Speaker 1: his will. He escaped and swore that God would burn
Speaker 1: the place down within thirty days. A month later, lightning
Speaker 1: struck the facility and it went up in flames. He
Speaker 1: also claimed to have heard a voice that promised to
Speaker 1: reveal the future of Bear Creek Valley. All he had
Speaker 1: to do was camp out in the woods for forty
Speaker 1: days and nights. After doing so, John saw exactly what
Speaker 1: would happen to the town during the war. A speech
Speaker 1: he gave that day wasn't to a board of trustees
Speaker 1: or elected officials, though he told it to a bunch
Speaker 1: of people gathered in the town's general store. Sadly, John
Speaker 1: never got to witness his dream realized. He eventually remarried
Speaker 1: and had another child, a son, But John himself succumbed
Speaker 1: tuberculosis at the young age of just forty nine. Some
Speaker 1: believed that he came down with the disease is after
Speaker 1: his month and a half stay in the woods. Whatever
Speaker 1: actually caused it, there was no doubt that John was
Speaker 1: someone special, so special, in fact, that he's still buried
Speaker 1: at oak Ridge, and the town even named a half
Speaker 1: mile nature trail in his honor. John Hendrix saw what
Speaker 1: would happen long before it actually did, earning him the
Speaker 1: nickname the Profit of oak Ridge. Perhaps even more amazing, though,
Speaker 1: was when he'd had his prophetic vision. John Hendrix, you see,
Speaker 1: was born in eighteen sixty five and died in nineteen fifteen,
Speaker 1: almost three decades before the city of his dreams would
Speaker 1: be built a profit. Indeed, here's to the people who
Speaker 1: thrive under pressure, to the student cramming all night for
Speaker 1: their exam because they waited until the last minute to study,
Speaker 1: to the diverse women in shark infested waters for the
Speaker 1: ultimate thrill, And to the Chinese sailor who defied the
Speaker 1: odds and survived in one of the harshest environments in
Speaker 1: the world. Pun Limb was born in China in early on.
Speaker 1: He gained his sea legs working as a second steward
Speaker 1: on the British merchant ship the s S ben Lamon.
Speaker 1: The ship had left South Africa in November of ninety
Speaker 1: two and was on its way to South America when
Speaker 1: trouble began. The armed ship was sailing on its own
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic Ocean rather than among a fleet of
Speaker 1: other friendly ships, an easy target. It was struck by
Speaker 1: a German U boat on November, which had fired two
Speaker 1: torpedoes into the ben Lamon's hull, sinking it instantly. Pun
Speaker 1: Limb grabbed the life jackets and abandoned the ship as
Speaker 1: it went down. It took about two minutes for the
Speaker 1: vessel to slip beneath the waves, and as it turned out,
Speaker 1: pun Limb was one of only a handful of survivors.
Speaker 1: He bobbed in the water for over two hours before
Speaker 1: locating a floating wooden raft and quickly climbed on board.
Speaker 1: Of the fifty four crew members, he would eventually become
Speaker 1: the only survivor. The raft was small, but had been
Speaker 1: loaded with supplies, including eleven gallons of water, tins of biscuits, chocolate,
Speaker 1: a bag of sugarcubes, a flashlight, flares, and two smoke pots.
Speaker 1: Knowing a good thing when he saw it, pun Limb
Speaker 1: secured himself to the raft with a rope around his
Speaker 1: wrist in the event that he fell overboard. He apparently
Speaker 1: wasn't that talented of a swimmer. He rationed his biscuits
Speaker 1: in water for as long as he could, but after
Speaker 1: several days it was all gone and he needed to
Speaker 1: find another way to keep his body nourished. So he
Speaker 1: rigged the canvas from one of the unused life jackets
Speaker 1: into a roof, which he then fastened above his head
Speaker 1: to catch rain water for him to drink. By twisting
Speaker 1: one of the wires from the flashlight to the end
Speaker 1: of a hemp rope, he was able to fashion himself
Speaker 1: a working fishing line. When he wanted to catch larger fish,
Speaker 1: he would use a nail from one of the boards
Speaker 1: in the raft instead of the wire as a hook. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: for all of Punlimb's success in surviving on his own,
Speaker 1: fate would throw yet another test at him. One night,
Speaker 1: a massive storm swept over his raft. The fish that
Speaker 1: he had caught were ruined, and his supply of water
Speaker 1: was contaminated with seawater. Running out of time and options,
Speaker 1: he caught a bird and cut it open with a
Speaker 1: knife that he'd made out of one of the biscuit tins.
Speaker 1: Without a way to cook it, he opted to drink
Speaker 1: its blood to survive, but the blood from the dead
Speaker 1: bird started to attract other things, like sharks. Being an
Speaker 1: optimistic man, he assumed a shark might make a sizeable meal,
Speaker 1: so he braided the hemp rope to increase its strength,
Speaker 1: and then tied the bird carcass to the end before
Speaker 1: throwing it into the water. A hungry shark took the
Speaker 1: bait with his hands wrapped in canvas. He reeled it
Speaker 1: in and hauled it on board. After whacking it a
Speaker 1: few times with a jug of sea water to subdue it,
Speaker 1: he sliced it open. The blood in its liver provided
Speaker 1: a good bit of sustenance, and then he cut off
Speaker 1: the shark fins and set them out to dry in
Speaker 1: the sun for a snack. Later. The ocean current eventually
Speaker 1: carried his raft towards land, which he recognized a few
Speaker 1: days earlier by the change in watercolor. As his raft
Speaker 1: floated down a river inlet, three fishermen spotted him and
Speaker 1: helped him ashore. Surprisingly, he had completed the journey that
Speaker 1: his ship never could. The land he stood on was
Speaker 1: in fact South America. It had been a frustrating journey though.
Speaker 1: During his voyage, pun Limb had been passed by several
Speaker 1: large vessels, but none of them stopped to pick him up.
Speaker 1: They believed that his raft was a trap set by
Speaker 1: German submarines, which had been known to leave a survivor
Speaker 1: out in the open to be found by an Allied ship.
Speaker 1: When that ship stopped to help, the U boat would
Speaker 1: sink it. Pun Limb was quickly taken to a hospital,
Speaker 1: where he spent one month in recovery. He had lost
Speaker 1: twenty pounds from the ordeal. When he returned to Britain,
Speaker 1: King George the sixth awarded him a British Empire metal.
Speaker 1: His story of survival was also recorded by the Royal
Speaker 1: Navy as part of a survival guide for sailors. But
Speaker 1: perhaps the greatest achievement of all was the world record
Speaker 1: that he had set, and this day it remains unbroken.
Speaker 1: Poon limb had survived alone in the South Atlantic for
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty three days. I hope you've enjoyed
Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
Speaker 1: by me Aaron Manky 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 World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Ye