June 30, 2020 • 9 mins
Some curiosities are uplifting, and some are tragic. Hopefully pairing them together will help today's tour balance itself out.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production
of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world
is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an
open book, all of these amazing tales are right there
on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to
(00:27):
the Cabinet of Curiosities. Everyone deserves a second chance, although
few truly ever get one, and war there are no
second chances. As the philosopher Plato allegedly put it, only
the dead have seen the end of war. Don Carcos, however,
(00:50):
didn't die, and yet he saw the end of war,
well sort of. The day after the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor,
sixteen year old Don went with his older brother to
the local Navy recruitment center in their hometown of Lewiston, Maine.
While waiting for his brother to finish his application, a
recruiter popped his head into the waiting room and asked
the younger Don why he wasn't joining his brother. He
(01:10):
told the man that he wasn't old enough just yet,
but his birthday was a few days away. Good enough,
the recruiter said, and just like that, Don was enlisted
in the United States Navy alongside his older brother. He
was placed on the USS rapid In out of Boston.
The rapid In wasn't a ship meant to see action, though,
it was a tanker that would sail around waters infested
(01:32):
with German submarines in order to refuel Allied ships and cruisers.
One summer morning, while Don was up on the deck,
an explosion rocked the ship. Shrapnel flew everywhere, and something
whacked the young sailor in the forehead, just above his
right eye. He blacked out and woke up in a
hospital in Iceland. Though he hadn't suffered direct damage to
(01:53):
his eye, doctors told him that he would never be
able to see out of it again. They encouraged him
to let them remove it. On refused. If it wasn't
going to bother him, he just as well would keep
everything intact. His military career was over before it even started.
After he'd healed enough, Don went home and got a
job at a local mill. He had to learn how
(02:14):
to function with only one I. His depth perception was
almost gone, and he barely had any peripheral vision. Daily
life was a constant struggle, especially since he lived in
fear of something bad happening to his one good remaining
I But he got by working at the mill for
three years until he earned enough money to pay off
his father's house. After some time, he got married and
(02:37):
had children of his own, eventually settling down on a
two acre horse farm. Now, as Don got older and
his children grew up and built lives of their own,
he moved away. He saw countless doctors over the years,
all of whom told him the same thing. He would
never regain sight in his right eye. No technology in
the world existed that would restore it for him. However,
(03:00):
or despite the prognosis, he never lost hope nor his
love of horses. He got a job at the Manticello
Raceway in New York when he was in his mid sixties.
He was a jack of all trades they're, working as
a security guard who would check in horses before races.
He also did odd jobs around the barn. One night
in two thousand and six, after a particularly tough day
(03:20):
at the track, he arrived home dizzy, barely able to stand.
Something had happened. As he rubbed his good eye, he
noticed something happening with the other one, the eye. His
doctors had told him would never work again. He could
see with it. He covered his good eye to make
sure it wasn't a fluke. The image and the right
one didn't disappear. His sights had been restored, and he
(03:42):
had my buddy Chemo to think for it. My buddy
Chemo was a horse at Manta Sello. Don was putting
a collar around its neck when the horse headbutted him
in the same spot where the explosion had hit him
sixty four years earlier. The impact had been so powerful
that it had thrown the eighty two year old back
into the paddock wall. He was shaken and ended up
(04:03):
with a pretty bad lump on his head, but was
otherwise unaffected, or so he thought. It wasn't until hours
later when he got home and realized something inside him
had been changed. Don tried to keep it a secret afterward,
telling only a few close friends about the incident, but
it didn't take long for the story to spread all
over the world. The montes Cello Miracle. They called him
(04:26):
Don Carcos. The man who had been blind in one
eye for almost his entire life had been cured by
a horse. Now that's what I'd call curious explorers. From
(04:51):
all over Europe spent hundreds of years looking for it.
A sea route to the Pacific Ocean by way of
the Arctic. They called it the Northwest Passage, and between
the fifteenth and twenty centuries, hundreds of sailors set out
to find it. One of those expeditions was led by
British explorer Sir John Franklin, along with the crew of
one thirty men. In May of eighteen forty five, they
(05:13):
set off in two ships, the h M s Erebus
and the h MS Terror. Now Franklin was no stranger
to the sea. He'd been an officer in the Royal
Navy for years, and his new ships possessed some of
the most modern technology of the day, including steam engines
and iron rutters. These were features that led to both
ships being described as unstoppable. Their first stop after leaving
(05:37):
England with Scotland. From there they continued on to Greenland
and finally northern Canada. Two whalers claimed to have seen
the crew in that area around July of eighteen forty
and everyone on board seemed okay. Unfortunately, the Franklin expedition
wouldn't stay that way. Shortly after, they were never heard
from again. Two years went by and nobody knew what
(06:01):
had happened. There had been no letters nor any word
that the ships had found the Northwest Passage. Three more
expeditions were assembled, but not to find the passage. These
went out in search of Franklin and his crew, all
of which returned months later empty handed. Any trace of Franklin,
the crew members, or the two ships had vanished, and
(06:23):
then in eighteen fifty a whole fleet of ships departed
with the sole mission of locating the missing explorers. They
came to an island in northern Canada called Beechey Island,
named for the father's son duo of William and Frederick Beachey,
who first stepped foot there in eighteen nineteen. The island
proved ominous for the search party. What they discovered was
that Franklin and his crew had landed there to rest
(06:45):
for a time, with plans to set back out to
see later at some point. Shortly after they arrived, though
three crew members died. In the years that followed, more
details about the fate of the remaining crew came to light.
It turns out that the Arabis and terror hadn't made
it too far from Beechey Island. They'd ended up getting
trapped in the ice, and the ships were abandoned when
it was clear there was no way to break them free.
(07:08):
Everyone fled to nearby King William Island to regroup, and
that's where further tragedy befell Franklin and his crew. According
to the local Inuit who had seen them, about forty
crewmen had succumbed to starvation, while Franklin himself along with
two dozen officers, had perished in eighteen forty seven, and
based on what little evidence was found, it seems that
(07:29):
at least some of the crew had turned to cannibalism
for survival. Others wrote letters in their final days that
were eventually found during an eighteen fifty four excursion to
King William Island. But perhaps the most chilling remnants of
the Franklin expedition were left back on Beechey Island three graves,
all clearly marked in honor of the first men to
die on Franklin's crew, William Brainy, John Torrington and John Hartnell,
(07:54):
and those bodies were exhumed in the nineteen eighties by
dr Owen Beatty, a forensic anthropology is from Canada. Who
performed autopsies on all three of the bodies. The remains
had been impeccably preserved by the freezing temperatures underground. Now
it had originally been believed that the men had died
of lead poisoning from the cans used to hold their
food and fresh water, but it was later determined that
(08:16):
the men in these graves had died from either pneumonia
or tuberculosis. They had already been in poor health when
they landed on Beechey Island, the harsh environment had only
made things worse. The men were eventually reburied alongside a
fourth Thomas Morgan, who had been part of an eighteen
fifty four expedition to find them. His cause of death, though,
(08:39):
had been scurvy. Today, explorers visit Beechey Island to see
the graves for themselves. They pay their respects to the
men who brave the Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage,
unaware that it had all been a one way trip,
and they get to see for themselves one of the
last places that Franklin and his crew ever visited, where
(09:00):
the environment is only slightly colder than the truth. I
hope you've enjoyed Today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
(09:22):
Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
you can learn all about it over at the World
of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,
Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production
of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world
is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an
open book, all of these amazing tales are right there
on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to
(00:27):
the Cabinet of Curiosities. Everyone deserves a second chance, although
few truly ever get one, and war there are no
second chances. As the philosopher Plato allegedly put it, only
the dead have seen the end of war. Don Carcos, however,
(00:50):
didn't die, and yet he saw the end of war,
well sort of. The day after the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor,
sixteen year old Don went with his older brother to
the local Navy recruitment center in their hometown of Lewiston, Maine.
While waiting for his brother to finish his application, a
recruiter popped his head into the waiting room and asked
the younger Don why he wasn't joining his brother. He
(01:10):
told the man that he wasn't old enough just yet,
but his birthday was a few days away. Good enough,
the recruiter said, and just like that, Don was enlisted
in the United States Navy alongside his older brother. He
was placed on the USS rapid In out of Boston.
The rapid In wasn't a ship meant to see action, though,
it was a tanker that would sail around waters infested
(01:32):
with German submarines in order to refuel Allied ships and cruisers.
One summer morning, while Don was up on the deck,
an explosion rocked the ship. Shrapnel flew everywhere, and something
whacked the young sailor in the forehead, just above his
right eye. He blacked out and woke up in a
hospital in Iceland. Though he hadn't suffered direct damage to
(01:53):
his eye, doctors told him that he would never be
able to see out of it again. They encouraged him
to let them remove it. On refused. If it wasn't
going to bother him, he just as well would keep
everything intact. His military career was over before it even started.
After he'd healed enough, Don went home and got a
job at a local mill. He had to learn how
(02:14):
to function with only one I. His depth perception was
almost gone, and he barely had any peripheral vision. Daily
life was a constant struggle, especially since he lived in
fear of something bad happening to his one good remaining
I But he got by working at the mill for
three years until he earned enough money to pay off
his father's house. After some time, he got married and
(02:37):
had children of his own, eventually settling down on a
two acre horse farm. Now, as Don got older and
his children grew up and built lives of their own,
he moved away. He saw countless doctors over the years,
all of whom told him the same thing. He would
never regain sight in his right eye. No technology in
the world existed that would restore it for him. However,
(03:00):
or despite the prognosis, he never lost hope nor his
love of horses. He got a job at the Manticello
Raceway in New York when he was in his mid sixties.
He was a jack of all trades they're, working as
a security guard who would check in horses before races.
He also did odd jobs around the barn. One night
in two thousand and six, after a particularly tough day
(03:20):
at the track, he arrived home dizzy, barely able to stand.
Something had happened. As he rubbed his good eye, he
noticed something happening with the other one, the eye. His
doctors had told him would never work again. He could
see with it. He covered his good eye to make
sure it wasn't a fluke. The image and the right
one didn't disappear. His sights had been restored, and he
(03:42):
had my buddy Chemo to think for it. My buddy
Chemo was a horse at Manta Sello. Don was putting
a collar around its neck when the horse headbutted him
in the same spot where the explosion had hit him
sixty four years earlier. The impact had been so powerful
that it had thrown the eighty two year old back
into the paddock wall. He was shaken and ended up
(04:03):
with a pretty bad lump on his head, but was
otherwise unaffected, or so he thought. It wasn't until hours
later when he got home and realized something inside him
had been changed. Don tried to keep it a secret afterward,
telling only a few close friends about the incident, but
it didn't take long for the story to spread all
over the world. The montes Cello Miracle. They called him
(04:26):
Don Carcos. The man who had been blind in one
eye for almost his entire life had been cured by
a horse. Now that's what I'd call curious explorers. From
(04:51):
all over Europe spent hundreds of years looking for it.
A sea route to the Pacific Ocean by way of
the Arctic. They called it the Northwest Passage, and between
the fifteenth and twenty centuries, hundreds of sailors set out
to find it. One of those expeditions was led by
British explorer Sir John Franklin, along with the crew of
one thirty men. In May of eighteen forty five, they
(05:13):
set off in two ships, the h M s Erebus
and the h MS Terror. Now Franklin was no stranger
to the sea. He'd been an officer in the Royal
Navy for years, and his new ships possessed some of
the most modern technology of the day, including steam engines
and iron rutters. These were features that led to both
ships being described as unstoppable. Their first stop after leaving
(05:37):
England with Scotland. From there they continued on to Greenland
and finally northern Canada. Two whalers claimed to have seen
the crew in that area around July of eighteen forty
and everyone on board seemed okay. Unfortunately, the Franklin expedition
wouldn't stay that way. Shortly after, they were never heard
from again. Two years went by and nobody knew what
(06:01):
had happened. There had been no letters nor any word
that the ships had found the Northwest Passage. Three more
expeditions were assembled, but not to find the passage. These
went out in search of Franklin and his crew, all
of which returned months later empty handed. Any trace of Franklin,
the crew members, or the two ships had vanished, and
(06:23):
then in eighteen fifty a whole fleet of ships departed
with the sole mission of locating the missing explorers. They
came to an island in northern Canada called Beechey Island,
named for the father's son duo of William and Frederick Beachey,
who first stepped foot there in eighteen nineteen. The island
proved ominous for the search party. What they discovered was
that Franklin and his crew had landed there to rest
(06:45):
for a time, with plans to set back out to
see later at some point. Shortly after they arrived, though
three crew members died. In the years that followed, more
details about the fate of the remaining crew came to light.
It turns out that the Arabis and terror hadn't made
it too far from Beechey Island. They'd ended up getting
trapped in the ice, and the ships were abandoned when
it was clear there was no way to break them free.
(07:08):
Everyone fled to nearby King William Island to regroup, and
that's where further tragedy befell Franklin and his crew. According
to the local Inuit who had seen them, about forty
crewmen had succumbed to starvation, while Franklin himself along with
two dozen officers, had perished in eighteen forty seven, and
based on what little evidence was found, it seems that
(07:29):
at least some of the crew had turned to cannibalism
for survival. Others wrote letters in their final days that
were eventually found during an eighteen fifty four excursion to
King William Island. But perhaps the most chilling remnants of
the Franklin expedition were left back on Beechey Island three graves,
all clearly marked in honor of the first men to
die on Franklin's crew, William Brainy, John Torrington and John Hartnell,
(07:54):
and those bodies were exhumed in the nineteen eighties by
dr Owen Beatty, a forensic anthropology is from Canada. Who
performed autopsies on all three of the bodies. The remains
had been impeccably preserved by the freezing temperatures underground. Now
it had originally been believed that the men had died
of lead poisoning from the cans used to hold their
food and fresh water, but it was later determined that
(08:16):
the men in these graves had died from either pneumonia
or tuberculosis. They had already been in poor health when
they landed on Beechey Island, the harsh environment had only
made things worse. The men were eventually reburied alongside a
fourth Thomas Morgan, who had been part of an eighteen
fifty four expedition to find them. His cause of death, though,
(08:39):
had been scurvy. Today, explorers visit Beechey Island to see
the graves for themselves. They pay their respects to the
men who brave the Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage,
unaware that it had all been a one way trip,
and they get to see for themselves one of the
last places that Franklin and his crew ever visited, where
(09:00):
the environment is only slightly colder than the truth. I
hope you've enjoyed Today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
(09:22):
Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
you can learn all about it over at the World
of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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