November 24, 2022 • 11 mins
Legendary characters will be cast in new light on today's tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, 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 the Cabinet
(00:27):
of Curiosities. The young man had come far, but he
had one more challenge to overcome before he could claim
his prize. The stakes were high. He had bet one
hundred of his finest horses. He turned to face his
(00:47):
opponent on the mat, ready to wrestle for an exquisite prize,
the hand of a beautiful woman. But she wouldn't be
watching from the sidelines. Oh no. She stepped into the
ring to face him, and she was undefeat. The suitor
knew the deal when he stepped up to wrestle Kutuyan.
He had wagered one hundred horses, and if he won,
she would marry him. If not, she would keep his horses.
(01:12):
Kutuyan was born around twelve sixty, and her extended family
controlled one of the mightiest empires the world had ever known.
It had been founded nearly sixty years earlier by her
great grandfather, tem O Jin, the son of a mongol chieftain.
Temo Jin grew to be a strong, powerful warrior and
would unite the Mongolian tribes, leading them to a conquest
that stretched across the Eurasian continent. He managed to capture
(01:35):
territory from China to Poland all the way down to
Gaza in an unprecedented sweep of brutality and power. Many
will know him by his chosen name, Genghis Khan, meaning
Universal Ruler. Genghis Khan created an era of prosperity for
the Mongolian people. He stabilized taxes and created a new
military style feudal government under which trade flourished, religious tolerance
(01:58):
was practiced, and technology in the arts advanced. Gunpowder, stirrups,
and leather armor were all created under his reign. When
Genghis died in twelve twenty seven, his children and later
grandchildren took control over different sections of the empire, but
by the time Kutu Young was born, the family was
at each other's throats. Kaido Kuto Young's father certainly had
(02:19):
great ambitions for his section of the empire, and he
relied heavily on his children in military conflict. Kuto Young
was raised alongside her fourteen brothers and learned to ride horses,
shoot a bow and arrow, raid, and wrestle with the
best of them. She was tall and strong, and there
were very few who could match her. The wrestling of
that time and place was very different from how it
(02:40):
is today. The match could get incredibly violent and often
involved direct hits like punches and kicks toward an opponent.
There were no weight classes or experienced levels. Anyone could
wrestle anyone, and they didn't stop until the opponent was
on the ground. Although she never backed down from an insult,
she was incredibly disciplined and was a fierce warrior in
her father's military campaigns. Much of the information about kuto
(03:03):
Young comes from one of history's greatest tourists, Marco Polo.
He wrote that in battle, kuto Young was quick, fearless,
and willing to take risks. Sometimes she would quit her
father's side, he wrote, and make a dash at the
host of the enemy, and sees some man thereabouts, as
deftly as a hawk pounces on a bird and carry
him to her father. And this she did many a time.
(03:27):
Genghis Khan's descendants were a dynasty, and like any other dynasty,
they needed airs. Given Kuto Young was her father's favorites,
any of her children would likely succeed him, so he
was eager for her to marry. But she had a condition.
She wouldn't marry anyone who couldn't defeat her in a
wrestling match. Kaido had agreed, although he might not have
known what he was getting into. So the news spread
(03:50):
that if a suitor was willing to wage your horses,
which were and are extremely valuable to the Mongolian people,
they could enter a match to marry Kutu Young. The
number of horses wagered varies from source to source, but
Kuto Young always won and her herd grew to a
staggering size. Despite the track record, suitors still came to
challenge her, confident that they would be different from the
(04:12):
previous ones. One story tells of a young suitor who
was cockier than most and bet one thousand horses that
he would be able to best Kutu Young. Kaido and
his wife liked this candidate and privately asked Kuta Young
if she would swallow her pride and lose on purpose
so that they could add the young man to the family.
Kutu Young smiled and wiped the floor with him. She
(04:33):
did marry, though, but the records are a bit sketchy
on who. Some claim that it was a loyal lieutenant
of her father's. Others say that she fell in love
with Ghazene, the Khan of Persia. There's even a wilder
story about her falling in love with an assassin sent
by Kublai Khan of the Yuan dynasty in China to
kill her father. There's no record of whether any of
them beat her in a wrestling match, though Kaido meant
(04:56):
for his daughter and her children to succeed him, but
her many brothers weren't thrilled with that notion. From here,
Kuto Young's story starts to disappear from history. Her brothers
challenged her position as heir when their father died. She
may have clung to power for a time, but one
of her brothers was appointed to be the Great Khan instead.
Kutu Young died just five years after her father, and
(05:18):
from there largely disappeared from history in the West. But
although she lost her position, no one remembers Kutu Young
as a loser. Enthralled crowds had watched as she stepped
into the ring with one hopeful suitor after another and
trounced each and every one of them. Her sorry opponents
would join the ranks of the many men that she
had bested and walk away without a bride and fewer horses. Today,
(05:42):
Kutu Young is considered one of the great figures in
Mongolian history, and the traditional regalia and victory dances of
Mongolian wrestlers are all designed to honor her. Jeffrey was
(06:08):
having an excellent day. School had gone well, He'd gotten
to spend time with his friends, and it was shaping
up to be a beautiful afternoon. What more could a
little boy in nineteen sixty two possibly want. His father, Robert,
was not having a good day. His boss hadn't liked
a couple of the pitches he'd been working on for
a big project and had rejected them, which sent Robert
(06:29):
and his brother, Richard, also a business partner, into a panic.
Roberts and Richard needed to come up with new ideas quickly,
or else they risked displeasing their boss and potentially losing
out on the project. When Jeffrey got home from school,
he found his dad in a bad mood. He later
recalled the house being dark when he got home, as
his father had closed all of the shades to better
(06:50):
concentrates and hopefully beat his writer's block, or maybe just
to wallow still. Robert rallied when little Jeffrey got home
and asked him how school had been. Like most five
year old's, Jeffrey launched into an explanation of every little
detail of his day before getting to his really big story.
It was vaccination day at school and he had lined
up with all of his classmates to get the polio vaccine.
(07:13):
Schools were instrumental in the distribution of crucial vaccines to children,
and the polio vaccine is one of the most well
known rollouts. To most parents, it was a minor miracle
polio had plagued children for generations. This disease attacks the
nerve cells and even the central nervous system. It causes
muscles to deteriorates, which can result in paralysis, it's most
(07:33):
well known symptom, as well as trouble regulating breathing and
even death. It largely affected children, though adults weren't immune.
If they hadn't already caught the disease. Pictures of children
in iron lungs or trying to relearn to walk with
the help of canes and crutches were a common sight.
Polio seemed to come and go like clockwork. Every summer,
there would inevitably be an outbreak when kids went to
(07:55):
the public pool or other communal activities. These outbreaks never
reached catastrophic levels that we might immediately jump to, though
they peaked in the United States in nineteen fifty two
with nearly sixty thousand cases. Certainly, bubonic plague, the Spanish flu,
and more recently COVID nineteen had higher impacts on the population,
but that didn't mean news of a polio outbreak wasn't
(08:17):
met with alarm. America's most famous polio victim, President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, helped found an organization called the March of Dimes,
which would dedicate time and funds to researching polio in
hopes of finding a vaccine. In nineteen thirty eight, he
appealed to the public as the polio epidemic during the
Great Depression worsened, and he asked for donations. Popular singer
(08:39):
Eddie Cantor joked that the public should send in dimes
to the President's organization, and it worked. Roughly two point
seven million dimes made their way to the White House
and further donations followed. This campaign is what landed FDR's
face on the dime to memorialize his contributions to medical history.
Like the ice bucket Challenge for a LS, the March
(09:00):
of Dimes, as it came to be called, had a
huge effect on polio research. The organization appointed Jonas Salk
to lead the vaccine research efforts in nineteen forty nine,
four years after President Roosevelt died. Salk struck gold in
the nineteen fifties, and his vaccine was given for the
first time on February twenty three of nineteen fifty four
to some children at Arsenal Elementary in Pittsburgh. This was
(09:22):
just the beginning. Soon schools nationwide line their children up
to receive this crucial vaccine, and parents breathed a sigh
of relief as their kids walked out into the world
with a bit more protection. Salk's vaccine and later Albert Sabins,
became an expected part of the school year for first,
second or third graders. Admittedly, these safety benefits were the
last thing on kids minds as they lined up to
(09:43):
get the jab, and even the promise of a piece
of candy afterwards couldn't keep some of them from freaking out.
Like many of us, Jeffrey hadn't been a fan of needles.
Robert knew his son hadn't done well with shots in
the past. In fact, Jeffrey had tried to run away
from nurses who were trying to give him them. Robert
was surprised his son had let anyone give him a
shot with no fuss and asked it if it had hurt.
(10:06):
Jeffrey grinned and said no, that the nurse had given
him a little cup with a sugar cube in it,
and that the shot was inside the cube. Robert stared
at his son for a moment and then went to
call his brother. Jeffrey had no other way of knowing
that he had just helped make musical history. Richard and
Robert Sherman had been hard up for a song idea
for days, and the team had been going round and
(10:27):
round with author P. L. Travers for years trying to
make a movie about her beloved characters. The Sherman Brothers
song through the eyes of love had just been rejected,
and they needed to come up with something to replace
it fast. Hence the writer's block. After all, no one
wanted to disappoint the Great Walt Disney. Jeffrey's conversation with
(10:48):
his father about an ordinary day at school had sparked
an extraordinary idea that would resonate with generations of children
who didn't want to take their medicine, and they would
learn that lesson in the film Mary Poppins, because sometimes
all you do need is a spoonful of sugar to
help the medicine go down. I hope you've enjoyed today's
(11:11):
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 Stuff Works. I
make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
book series, and television show, and you can learn all
(11:33):
about it over at the World of Lore dot com.
And until next time, stay curious.
Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, 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 the Cabinet
(00:27):
of Curiosities. The young man had come far, but he
had one more challenge to overcome before he could claim
his prize. The stakes were high. He had bet one
hundred of his finest horses. He turned to face his
(00:47):
opponent on the mat, ready to wrestle for an exquisite prize,
the hand of a beautiful woman. But she wouldn't be
watching from the sidelines. Oh no. She stepped into the
ring to face him, and she was undefeat. The suitor
knew the deal when he stepped up to wrestle Kutuyan.
He had wagered one hundred horses, and if he won,
she would marry him. If not, she would keep his horses.
(01:12):
Kutuyan was born around twelve sixty, and her extended family
controlled one of the mightiest empires the world had ever known.
It had been founded nearly sixty years earlier by her
great grandfather, tem O Jin, the son of a mongol chieftain.
Temo Jin grew to be a strong, powerful warrior and
would unite the Mongolian tribes, leading them to a conquest
that stretched across the Eurasian continent. He managed to capture
(01:35):
territory from China to Poland all the way down to
Gaza in an unprecedented sweep of brutality and power. Many
will know him by his chosen name, Genghis Khan, meaning
Universal Ruler. Genghis Khan created an era of prosperity for
the Mongolian people. He stabilized taxes and created a new
military style feudal government under which trade flourished, religious tolerance
(01:58):
was practiced, and technology in the arts advanced. Gunpowder, stirrups,
and leather armor were all created under his reign. When
Genghis died in twelve twenty seven, his children and later
grandchildren took control over different sections of the empire, but
by the time Kutu Young was born, the family was
at each other's throats. Kaido Kuto Young's father certainly had
(02:19):
great ambitions for his section of the empire, and he
relied heavily on his children in military conflict. Kuto Young
was raised alongside her fourteen brothers and learned to ride horses,
shoot a bow and arrow, raid, and wrestle with the
best of them. She was tall and strong, and there
were very few who could match her. The wrestling of
that time and place was very different from how it
(02:40):
is today. The match could get incredibly violent and often
involved direct hits like punches and kicks toward an opponent.
There were no weight classes or experienced levels. Anyone could
wrestle anyone, and they didn't stop until the opponent was
on the ground. Although she never backed down from an insult,
she was incredibly disciplined and was a fierce warrior in
her father's military campaigns. Much of the information about kuto
(03:03):
Young comes from one of history's greatest tourists, Marco Polo.
He wrote that in battle, kuto Young was quick, fearless,
and willing to take risks. Sometimes she would quit her
father's side, he wrote, and make a dash at the
host of the enemy, and sees some man thereabouts, as
deftly as a hawk pounces on a bird and carry
him to her father. And this she did many a time.
(03:27):
Genghis Khan's descendants were a dynasty, and like any other dynasty,
they needed airs. Given Kuto Young was her father's favorites,
any of her children would likely succeed him, so he
was eager for her to marry. But she had a condition.
She wouldn't marry anyone who couldn't defeat her in a
wrestling match. Kaido had agreed, although he might not have
known what he was getting into. So the news spread
(03:50):
that if a suitor was willing to wage your horses,
which were and are extremely valuable to the Mongolian people,
they could enter a match to marry Kutu Young. The
number of horses wagered varies from source to source, but
Kuto Young always won and her herd grew to a
staggering size. Despite the track record, suitors still came to
challenge her, confident that they would be different from the
(04:12):
previous ones. One story tells of a young suitor who
was cockier than most and bet one thousand horses that
he would be able to best Kutu Young. Kaido and
his wife liked this candidate and privately asked Kuta Young
if she would swallow her pride and lose on purpose
so that they could add the young man to the family.
Kutu Young smiled and wiped the floor with him. She
(04:33):
did marry, though, but the records are a bit sketchy
on who. Some claim that it was a loyal lieutenant
of her father's. Others say that she fell in love
with Ghazene, the Khan of Persia. There's even a wilder
story about her falling in love with an assassin sent
by Kublai Khan of the Yuan dynasty in China to
kill her father. There's no record of whether any of
them beat her in a wrestling match, though Kaido meant
(04:56):
for his daughter and her children to succeed him, but
her many brothers weren't thrilled with that notion. From here,
Kuto Young's story starts to disappear from history. Her brothers
challenged her position as heir when their father died. She
may have clung to power for a time, but one
of her brothers was appointed to be the Great Khan instead.
Kutu Young died just five years after her father, and
(05:18):
from there largely disappeared from history in the West. But
although she lost her position, no one remembers Kutu Young
as a loser. Enthralled crowds had watched as she stepped
into the ring with one hopeful suitor after another and
trounced each and every one of them. Her sorry opponents
would join the ranks of the many men that she
had bested and walk away without a bride and fewer horses. Today,
(05:42):
Kutu Young is considered one of the great figures in
Mongolian history, and the traditional regalia and victory dances of
Mongolian wrestlers are all designed to honor her. Jeffrey was
(06:08):
having an excellent day. School had gone well, He'd gotten
to spend time with his friends, and it was shaping
up to be a beautiful afternoon. What more could a
little boy in nineteen sixty two possibly want. His father, Robert,
was not having a good day. His boss hadn't liked
a couple of the pitches he'd been working on for
a big project and had rejected them, which sent Robert
(06:29):
and his brother, Richard, also a business partner, into a panic.
Roberts and Richard needed to come up with new ideas quickly,
or else they risked displeasing their boss and potentially losing
out on the project. When Jeffrey got home from school,
he found his dad in a bad mood. He later
recalled the house being dark when he got home, as
his father had closed all of the shades to better
(06:50):
concentrates and hopefully beat his writer's block, or maybe just
to wallow still. Robert rallied when little Jeffrey got home
and asked him how school had been. Like most five
year old's, Jeffrey launched into an explanation of every little
detail of his day before getting to his really big story.
It was vaccination day at school and he had lined
up with all of his classmates to get the polio vaccine.
(07:13):
Schools were instrumental in the distribution of crucial vaccines to children,
and the polio vaccine is one of the most well
known rollouts. To most parents, it was a minor miracle
polio had plagued children for generations. This disease attacks the
nerve cells and even the central nervous system. It causes
muscles to deteriorates, which can result in paralysis, it's most
(07:33):
well known symptom, as well as trouble regulating breathing and
even death. It largely affected children, though adults weren't immune.
If they hadn't already caught the disease. Pictures of children
in iron lungs or trying to relearn to walk with
the help of canes and crutches were a common sight.
Polio seemed to come and go like clockwork. Every summer,
there would inevitably be an outbreak when kids went to
(07:55):
the public pool or other communal activities. These outbreaks never
reached catastrophic levels that we might immediately jump to, though
they peaked in the United States in nineteen fifty two
with nearly sixty thousand cases. Certainly, bubonic plague, the Spanish flu,
and more recently COVID nineteen had higher impacts on the population,
but that didn't mean news of a polio outbreak wasn't
(08:17):
met with alarm. America's most famous polio victim, President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, helped found an organization called the March of Dimes,
which would dedicate time and funds to researching polio in
hopes of finding a vaccine. In nineteen thirty eight, he
appealed to the public as the polio epidemic during the
Great Depression worsened, and he asked for donations. Popular singer
(08:39):
Eddie Cantor joked that the public should send in dimes
to the President's organization, and it worked. Roughly two point
seven million dimes made their way to the White House
and further donations followed. This campaign is what landed FDR's
face on the dime to memorialize his contributions to medical history.
Like the ice bucket Challenge for a LS, the March
(09:00):
of Dimes, as it came to be called, had a
huge effect on polio research. The organization appointed Jonas Salk
to lead the vaccine research efforts in nineteen forty nine,
four years after President Roosevelt died. Salk struck gold in
the nineteen fifties, and his vaccine was given for the
first time on February twenty three of nineteen fifty four
to some children at Arsenal Elementary in Pittsburgh. This was
(09:22):
just the beginning. Soon schools nationwide line their children up
to receive this crucial vaccine, and parents breathed a sigh
of relief as their kids walked out into the world
with a bit more protection. Salk's vaccine and later Albert Sabins,
became an expected part of the school year for first,
second or third graders. Admittedly, these safety benefits were the
last thing on kids minds as they lined up to
(09:43):
get the jab, and even the promise of a piece
of candy afterwards couldn't keep some of them from freaking out.
Like many of us, Jeffrey hadn't been a fan of needles.
Robert knew his son hadn't done well with shots in
the past. In fact, Jeffrey had tried to run away
from nurses who were trying to give him them. Robert
was surprised his son had let anyone give him a
shot with no fuss and asked it if it had hurt.
(10:06):
Jeffrey grinned and said no, that the nurse had given
him a little cup with a sugar cube in it,
and that the shot was inside the cube. Robert stared
at his son for a moment and then went to
call his brother. Jeffrey had no other way of knowing
that he had just helped make musical history. Richard and
Robert Sherman had been hard up for a song idea
for days, and the team had been going round and
(10:27):
round with author P. L. Travers for years trying to
make a movie about her beloved characters. The Sherman Brothers
song through the eyes of love had just been rejected,
and they needed to come up with something to replace
it fast. Hence the writer's block. After all, no one
wanted to disappoint the Great Walt Disney. Jeffrey's conversation with
(10:48):
his father about an ordinary day at school had sparked
an extraordinary idea that would resonate with generations of children
who didn't want to take their medicine, and they would
learn that lesson in the film Mary Poppins, because sometimes
all you do need is a spoonful of sugar to
help the medicine go down. I hope you've enjoyed today's
(11:11):
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 Stuff Works. I
make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
book series, and television show, and you can learn all
(11:33):
about it over at the World of Lore dot com.
And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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