April 11, 2023 • 9 mins
There's no end to the unexpected discoveries we've made over the centuries, and this pair are certainly curious.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcomed Aaron Menk's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio
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 the Cabinet of Curiosities. He's
(00:36):
the only astronaut without a military and aviation background to
have set foot on the Moon. He and other scientists
entered the history books as the first time NASA sent
scientists to accompany astronauts into space. But that's not the
most curious fact about Harrison Schmidt. Not even close. You
could say he's studied and prepared his entire life for
(00:57):
the moment when he stepped foot on Apollo seven on
December eleventh of nineteen seventy two. After studying geology at
the California Institute of Technology, he spent a year at
the University of Oslo. In nineteen sixty four, he received
his PhD from Harvard. From Rocks to Gas and the
matter that makes up planets and their moons, I think
it's safe to say that Schmidt knew a lot about
(01:18):
the material that makes up our world. While most geologists
work for energy companies or mining sectors, Schmidt took a
different route. In nineteen sixty five, he found work creating
geological field techniques at the US Geological Surveys Astrological Center
in Flagstaff, Arizona. Those techniques would go on to be
used by Apollo Cruz. When NASA decided to send scientists
(01:40):
to the Moon with astronauts, they selected Schmidt. Schmidt trained
with the Air Force for the next year, learning to
become a jet pilot. Schmidt made his second mark in
history as the only geologist in the Astronaut Corps. From there,
he moved to Houston, where he put his lifelong love
of geology to use, training the astronauts to be come
better at recognizing geologic changes while in orbit and collecting
(02:04):
material from the Moon's surface. In March of nineteen seventy,
Schmidt was assigned to the Apollo eighteen crew. Unfortunately, his
hopes were dashed when NASA scrubbed the mission. All wasn't lost, though,
and his breakthrough came in late August when scientists convinced
NASA to reassign Schmidt to the Apollo seventeen mission. It
would be the last Apollo mission, Schmidt certainly had some
(02:26):
shoes to fill, replacing an astronaut Joe Angel as the
lunar module pilot. Two years later, on December seventh of
nineteen seventy two, Schmidt and his crewmates Commander Jean Cernan
and Ronald E. Evans boarded Apollo eleven at the Kennedy
Space Center for launch. A few days later, Cernan and
Schmidt landed on the Moon. Before collecting rocks, Schmidt took
(02:46):
pictures and claimed to have snapped the iconic blue Marble
photo of Earth. To date, it's the most widely circulated
photo ever taken. Schmidt collected formations, picked a sample that
became one of the most significant rock specimens ever collected.
At just five ounces, the plutonic rock has helped NASA
support its theory about what material makes up the Moon's core.
(03:09):
After collecting samples, Schmidt's and Commander Sernan returned to the
Lunar module. Both men removed their helmets. Moments later, Schmidt
realized that he was congested was at the start of
a cold With his next breath, the inside of his
nose felt irritated. It was then that he understood the source.
He and Sernin had moon dust on their suits, helmets,
(03:29):
and boots. Schmidt felt his throat tightened, his voice faltered.
It turned out that Schmidt was allergic to the very
thing that he had trained for the Moon's surface. He
wouldn't be the only one, though, One of the flight
surgeons on the mission also suffered an instant and severe reaction.
Both men recovered, though, and the mission resumed. Apolo seventeen
(03:49):
splashed down in the South Pacific Ocean on December nineteenth
of nineteen seventy two. In the fifty years since the
Apollo seventeen mission, Schmidt has advocated test in future pilots
against such allergic reactions. The soft, powdery material is difficult
to remove, even when the astronauts attempt to brush it off.
For Schmidt, the ease with which moondust can make its
(04:11):
way into astronauts lungs, it seems there is nothing to
sneeze at. The world is a massive place, with billions
(04:32):
of people separated by thousands of miles of oceans. But
every once in a while, something serendipitous takes place. We
might run into an old friend in an unlikely location,
or realize that the differences between our cultures aren't as
vast as we had once thought. But Cornish missionary William
Colenzo discovered something quite unexpected on his trip to New
(04:53):
Zealand in the late eighteen thirties that the world was
a lot smaller than any of us really knew weren't.
In Penzance, Cornwall, England in eighteen eleven, Colenzo was a
printer's apprentice before he joined the Church Missionary Society to
spread the gospel. It was eighteen thirty four when he
first traveled to New Zealand and came face to face
with the native Maori people and their customs. According to
(05:16):
some reports, he was the first European to ever set
foot within the village. They welcomed him in, allowing him
to witness their customs. Colenzo was watching some Maori women
cooked potatoes when he noticed something strange about the pot
they were using. It was made of bronze. These people
wouldn't have cooked in a bronze vessel. They would have
used something wooden with heated stones inside to warm their food.
(05:39):
Not to mention, Colenzo was, if not the first, then
among the first Europeans to enter their community. The Maori
had never traded with foreigners before, so where had they
gotten this bronze pot. Well. As he began to examine
it more closely, he realized that it wasn't a pot
at all. It measured six inches across by six and
a half inches tall, with a jagged lip going around
(06:01):
its opening. There was also an inscription embossed around its
middle in a language Colenzo didn't understand. But what he
did know was that the object the Maori had thought
was a pot was in fact actually the crown of
a ship's bell. It had apparently been in their possession
for decades, and had been discovered tangled among the roots
of a tree that had been felled during a storm.
(06:22):
Colenzo knew it needed to be studied further, and so
he bartered with the women, offering them an actual cast
iron pot in exchange for the bell. They acquiesced and
allowed the missionary to take it back to England. It
was later revealed that the writing around its rim was Tamil,
a language spoken in parts of India, Singapore and Sri Lanka.
But how had it wound up so far from home?
(06:44):
In eighteen eighty two, a New Zealand scientist named William
Maskell suggested that it might have been owned by a
sailor who had traveled to South Asia and taken it
for his own before ultimately losing track of it. Later,
almost a century beyond that, historian Robert Gossett claimed that
it had been part of a ghost ship that had
lost its crew and traveled thousands of miles away from
its home before crashing into New Zealand. Neither story, though,
(07:07):
was ever confirmed. And then there was the matter of
the inscription. At first, it was believed to date back
as far as the fourteenth century, but that theory was
dismissed as of several years ago. Nalina gopol, a museum
curator in Singapore, examined the bell in twenty nineteen. A
native Tamil speaker herself, Gopel easily read the text along
the bell's edge without question. That was because it was
(07:30):
more modern than earlier researchers had determined. Gopel knew that
an older version of Tamil would have been almost impossible
to read because it would have been too different from
the current iteration of the language. She figured it was
only as old as the seventeenth or eighteenth century. As
for what it said, the literal translation read the Bell
of the Ship of Mohideen Bucks. Early experts assumed that
(07:53):
meant that the ship had been owned by a person
with the name of Mohideen Bucks, but not Gopel. After
quite a bit of search, she determined that Bucks wasn't
the owner, nor was it the name of the ship.
It was the name of a saint. In fact, many
ships coming out of Southeast Asia at the time would
have been named mo hitting Bucks as a way to
bless them on their journeys, to keep them safe, and
(08:14):
at least in this instance, it didn't work out so well.
Not only did Gopel nor any of the other experts
who studied the bell know how it arrived in New Zealand,
there was no trace of the ship that had carried
it either, and we might never know the true story
behind the bells providance. The sea may get angry and
loud at times, but there is no greater keeper of
secrets on this earth than the water that covers it.
(08:41):
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 Mank in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
(09:03):
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of Loore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Welcomed Aaron Menk's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio
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 the Cabinet of Curiosities. He's
(00:36):
the only astronaut without a military and aviation background to
have set foot on the Moon. He and other scientists
entered the history books as the first time NASA sent
scientists to accompany astronauts into space. But that's not the
most curious fact about Harrison Schmidt. Not even close. You
could say he's studied and prepared his entire life for
(00:57):
the moment when he stepped foot on Apollo seven on
December eleventh of nineteen seventy two. After studying geology at
the California Institute of Technology, he spent a year at
the University of Oslo. In nineteen sixty four, he received
his PhD from Harvard. From Rocks to Gas and the
matter that makes up planets and their moons, I think
it's safe to say that Schmidt knew a lot about
(01:18):
the material that makes up our world. While most geologists
work for energy companies or mining sectors, Schmidt took a
different route. In nineteen sixty five, he found work creating
geological field techniques at the US Geological Surveys Astrological Center
in Flagstaff, Arizona. Those techniques would go on to be
used by Apollo Cruz. When NASA decided to send scientists
(01:40):
to the Moon with astronauts, they selected Schmidt. Schmidt trained
with the Air Force for the next year, learning to
become a jet pilot. Schmidt made his second mark in
history as the only geologist in the Astronaut Corps. From there,
he moved to Houston, where he put his lifelong love
of geology to use, training the astronauts to be come
better at recognizing geologic changes while in orbit and collecting
(02:04):
material from the Moon's surface. In March of nineteen seventy,
Schmidt was assigned to the Apollo eighteen crew. Unfortunately, his
hopes were dashed when NASA scrubbed the mission. All wasn't lost, though,
and his breakthrough came in late August when scientists convinced
NASA to reassign Schmidt to the Apollo seventeen mission. It
would be the last Apollo mission, Schmidt certainly had some
(02:26):
shoes to fill, replacing an astronaut Joe Angel as the
lunar module pilot. Two years later, on December seventh of
nineteen seventy two, Schmidt and his crewmates Commander Jean Cernan
and Ronald E. Evans boarded Apollo eleven at the Kennedy
Space Center for launch. A few days later, Cernan and
Schmidt landed on the Moon. Before collecting rocks, Schmidt took
(02:46):
pictures and claimed to have snapped the iconic blue Marble
photo of Earth. To date, it's the most widely circulated
photo ever taken. Schmidt collected formations, picked a sample that
became one of the most significant rock specimens ever collected.
At just five ounces, the plutonic rock has helped NASA
support its theory about what material makes up the Moon's core.
(03:09):
After collecting samples, Schmidt's and Commander Sernan returned to the
Lunar module. Both men removed their helmets. Moments later, Schmidt
realized that he was congested was at the start of
a cold With his next breath, the inside of his
nose felt irritated. It was then that he understood the source.
He and Sernin had moon dust on their suits, helmets,
(03:29):
and boots. Schmidt felt his throat tightened, his voice faltered.
It turned out that Schmidt was allergic to the very
thing that he had trained for the Moon's surface. He
wouldn't be the only one, though, One of the flight
surgeons on the mission also suffered an instant and severe reaction.
Both men recovered, though, and the mission resumed. Apolo seventeen
(03:49):
splashed down in the South Pacific Ocean on December nineteenth
of nineteen seventy two. In the fifty years since the
Apollo seventeen mission, Schmidt has advocated test in future pilots
against such allergic reactions. The soft, powdery material is difficult
to remove, even when the astronauts attempt to brush it off.
For Schmidt, the ease with which moondust can make its
(04:11):
way into astronauts lungs, it seems there is nothing to
sneeze at. The world is a massive place, with billions
(04:32):
of people separated by thousands of miles of oceans. But
every once in a while, something serendipitous takes place. We
might run into an old friend in an unlikely location,
or realize that the differences between our cultures aren't as
vast as we had once thought. But Cornish missionary William
Colenzo discovered something quite unexpected on his trip to New
(04:53):
Zealand in the late eighteen thirties that the world was
a lot smaller than any of us really knew weren't.
In Penzance, Cornwall, England in eighteen eleven, Colenzo was a
printer's apprentice before he joined the Church Missionary Society to
spread the gospel. It was eighteen thirty four when he
first traveled to New Zealand and came face to face
with the native Maori people and their customs. According to
(05:16):
some reports, he was the first European to ever set
foot within the village. They welcomed him in, allowing him
to witness their customs. Colenzo was watching some Maori women
cooked potatoes when he noticed something strange about the pot
they were using. It was made of bronze. These people
wouldn't have cooked in a bronze vessel. They would have
used something wooden with heated stones inside to warm their food.
(05:39):
Not to mention, Colenzo was, if not the first, then
among the first Europeans to enter their community. The Maori
had never traded with foreigners before, so where had they
gotten this bronze pot. Well. As he began to examine
it more closely, he realized that it wasn't a pot
at all. It measured six inches across by six and
a half inches tall, with a jagged lip going around
(06:01):
its opening. There was also an inscription embossed around its
middle in a language Colenzo didn't understand. But what he
did know was that the object the Maori had thought
was a pot was in fact actually the crown of
a ship's bell. It had apparently been in their possession
for decades, and had been discovered tangled among the roots
of a tree that had been felled during a storm.
(06:22):
Colenzo knew it needed to be studied further, and so
he bartered with the women, offering them an actual cast
iron pot in exchange for the bell. They acquiesced and
allowed the missionary to take it back to England. It
was later revealed that the writing around its rim was Tamil,
a language spoken in parts of India, Singapore and Sri Lanka.
But how had it wound up so far from home?
(06:44):
In eighteen eighty two, a New Zealand scientist named William
Maskell suggested that it might have been owned by a
sailor who had traveled to South Asia and taken it
for his own before ultimately losing track of it. Later,
almost a century beyond that, historian Robert Gossett claimed that
it had been part of a ghost ship that had
lost its crew and traveled thousands of miles away from
its home before crashing into New Zealand. Neither story, though,
(07:07):
was ever confirmed. And then there was the matter of
the inscription. At first, it was believed to date back
as far as the fourteenth century, but that theory was
dismissed as of several years ago. Nalina gopol, a museum
curator in Singapore, examined the bell in twenty nineteen. A
native Tamil speaker herself, Gopel easily read the text along
the bell's edge without question. That was because it was
(07:30):
more modern than earlier researchers had determined. Gopel knew that
an older version of Tamil would have been almost impossible
to read because it would have been too different from
the current iteration of the language. She figured it was
only as old as the seventeenth or eighteenth century. As
for what it said, the literal translation read the Bell
of the Ship of Mohideen Bucks. Early experts assumed that
(07:53):
meant that the ship had been owned by a person
with the name of Mohideen Bucks, but not Gopel. After
quite a bit of search, she determined that Bucks wasn't
the owner, nor was it the name of the ship.
It was the name of a saint. In fact, many
ships coming out of Southeast Asia at the time would
have been named mo hitting Bucks as a way to
bless them on their journeys, to keep them safe, and
(08:14):
at least in this instance, it didn't work out so well.
Not only did Gopel nor any of the other experts
who studied the bell know how it arrived in New Zealand,
there was no trace of the ship that had carried
it either, and we might never know the true story
behind the bells providance. The sea may get angry and
loud at times, but there is no greater keeper of
secrets on this earth than the water that covers it.
(08:41):
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 Mank in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
(09:03):
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of Loore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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