January 22, 2019 • 9 mins
Some tales from the Cabinet reveal the true importance of people, while others hint at a true story we may never be able to reveal. Today we'll enjoy one of each.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
to the cabinet of curiosities. Being a movie star has
(00:29):
its ups and downs, I assume anyway. Sure you have
fame and fortune, but one bad film and it can
be lights out for your career. As movies get more
and more expensive to make and actors demand more money
for the roles they play, the expectation of success grows
exponentially higher. Studios place a lot of pressure on certain
(00:50):
stars to deliver big box office numbers. It must seem
bad enough for an actor to feel responsible for a
film success, but imagine being an actor and being responsible
for an entire economy. That's Adam Chang's burden to bear.
Chang was the star of a Chinese television drama a
(01:10):
debut in late nineteen two titled The Greed of Man.
The series focused on two childhood friends and their influence
on the Asian stock exchange once they reached adulthood. It
was a soap opera about power, corruption, and family, and
even though it only ran for a short time, it
became a huge hit. Forty episodes aired, and the show
(01:32):
can still be watched in reruns today. Adam Chang played
the character of Ting Hi, a man who spoiler alert,
killed the corrupt leader of the Asian Stock Exchange over
a woman they both loved. The murder resulted in a
catastrophic economic crash, sparking poverty, violence, and even war. And
(01:52):
that was just on the TV show, But reality wasn't
much different. When the series first aired on October, Hong
Kong's Hang Sang index fell by almost six hundred points.
In September two thousand, an unofficial sequel titled Divine Retribution aired,
and the index dropped a total of one thousand, seven
(02:12):
hundred fifteen points, a crash so powerful that it led
to instability across other markets. Fifteen years later, television stations
began airing reruns of The Greed of Man and Divine Retribution,
and the Hang Sang fell once more, by almost five
hundred sixty points that day. If the stock market crashed
(02:32):
every time these television shows aired, then why did networks
show them at all? That's because the eerie phenomenon wasn't
limited to just these two series. The Hang Sang fell
more than two thousand points in November after the series
Instinct first aired, followed by another sharp drop of three
hundred points two years later when a series called Once
(02:53):
Upon a Time in Shanghai debut. The trend continued for
shows like Cold Blood, Warm Heart, Blade Heart, and Master
of Play. Master of Play alone triggered a ten percent
drop from October of all the way to April of
two thousand fifteen, there were fifteen separate instances of the
Hang Sang index posting significant losses, all of which were
(03:15):
tied to the premieres of various television shows, and the
X factor tying them all together Adam Chang. The ting
Hai effect, as it's called, has such a reputation that
academic papers have been written trying to explain where the
phenomenon came from and why it keeps happening. Some economists
believe that superstitious brokers in China sell off stock right
(03:39):
before a change series premiere, thus inadvertently triggering the crash themselves.
What started out as a market anomaly seems to have
become a self fulfilling prophecy, but die hard believers don't
buy that explanation. To them a new Adam Chang series
is a harbinger of doom for their portfolios. Bloggers have
(03:59):
you and called for stations airing Chang series to be
charged with manipulating the markets and for any future projects
of his to be canceled. But the ting high effect
hasn't affected the man supposedly behind it. Despite the pleas
from bloggers and investors, Chang still acts in films and
television shows today with over seventy credits to his name,
(04:21):
and he's not bothered by what people say about him either.
It just can't be true, but I'm used to it now,
he said to him. The whole thing is nothing but
a bit of dramatic fiction. We tend to believe what
(04:48):
we learn in history class is set in stone, it's unchanging.
We don't think about implicit biases or who is writing
the history we read. The going philosophy is if it's
in a text book, it must be true. Nowadays we
know that's not always the case, and that history literally
is written by the victors. Cultures have been lost or
(05:09):
whitewashed due to controversy or inconvenience for those holding the pens.
Take Australia, for example. According to the history books. The
Dutch were the first group of Europeans to set foot
in Australia. In sixteen o six, William Joan Soon and
twenty nine other Dutch sailors navigated its coasts, calling it
New Holland. Years later, the British did what they always
(05:32):
did upon arriving in a new land. They colonized it.
Pretty soon all of Australia belonged to England. Mike I said,
that's what the history books tell us, But the history
books don't tell us everything. If reports are true, Even
the Dutch weren't the first to stroll across Australia's shores.
A century earlier, a group of Portuguese explorers were said
(05:55):
to have crashed off the southern coast, their ship going
lost in what is now Armstrong, but what happened to
the men aboard remains a mystery even now. Reports of
a shipwreck it didn't appear until the nineteenth century, when
dozens of eye witnesses claimed to have seen its surface
from beneath the waves. One moment, it's jagged wooden frame
(06:15):
would rise from the depths, the next it had slipped
away again like a mirage. The mahogany ship, they called it,
though it wasn't actually made of mahogany, its unique design
appeared to be made of a dark wood different from
other vessels. Rumors swirled as stories of the wreck circulated
around the region. It was a Spanish galleon filled with
(06:37):
gold the bloons, or it was really three separate holes
that came and went with the tide. Accounts were varied,
but there was enough consistent detail across all of them
to lend credibility to the original claim that a small
ship not of Dutch origin had crashed and sunk off
the coast of Australia. Original witnesses claimed it came from
(06:58):
Spain or Peru, given the prominence of such ships as
the Santa Isabelle or the Santa Anna. However, the theory
of it being Portuguese was first proposed in in nineteen
seventy seven book by Australian historian Kenneth McIntyre. According to McIntyre,
the mahogany ship had joined two others from Portugal on
a secret expedition to find the Isles of Gold, led
(07:22):
by Portuguese explorer Christa val de Mendonza. The ships set
sail into Spanish owned waters, careful to avoid upsetting Spain
by claiming land within its territory. Upon discovering Australia, one
of the ships crashed, which spooked Mendonza and forced him
and his men to return to Portugal. Any records of
the crash or the voyage were locked away forever never since.
(07:47):
The stories surrounding the Mahogany Ship have turned it from
a myth into a full blown legend. Searches for its
remains have been ongoing since the late eighteen nineties. Towns,
private companies, and nonprofits have all sponsored investigations into the
ship's whereabouts, but nothing has ever turned up. Any artifacts
(08:07):
or wooden pieces dredged up from the water have been
debunked as parts of other wrecks, which have made searching
for this particular ship very difficult. Speculations surrounding the Mahogany
ships provenance has also changed with the passing decades, as
one set of evidence negates another, and historians all over
the world argue as to the vessel's origin. But the
(08:31):
one thing everyone can agree on is that somewhere beneath
the sand and sea is a ghost ship haunting the
minds of those who dare to believe, and one day,
when it finally surfaces for good, it may very well
change everything we know about an entire continent, and for
modern historians, that's sure to give them arise. I hope
(08:59):
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 Mankey in partnership with how
Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
(09:21):
you can learn all about it over at the World
of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
to the cabinet of curiosities. Being a movie star has
(00:29):
its ups and downs, I assume anyway. Sure you have
fame and fortune, but one bad film and it can
be lights out for your career. As movies get more
and more expensive to make and actors demand more money
for the roles they play, the expectation of success grows
exponentially higher. Studios place a lot of pressure on certain
(00:50):
stars to deliver big box office numbers. It must seem
bad enough for an actor to feel responsible for a
film success, but imagine being an actor and being responsible
for an entire economy. That's Adam Chang's burden to bear.
Chang was the star of a Chinese television drama a
(01:10):
debut in late nineteen two titled The Greed of Man.
The series focused on two childhood friends and their influence
on the Asian stock exchange once they reached adulthood. It
was a soap opera about power, corruption, and family, and
even though it only ran for a short time, it
became a huge hit. Forty episodes aired, and the show
(01:32):
can still be watched in reruns today. Adam Chang played
the character of Ting Hi, a man who spoiler alert,
killed the corrupt leader of the Asian Stock Exchange over
a woman they both loved. The murder resulted in a
catastrophic economic crash, sparking poverty, violence, and even war. And
(01:52):
that was just on the TV show, But reality wasn't
much different. When the series first aired on October, Hong
Kong's Hang Sang index fell by almost six hundred points.
In September two thousand, an unofficial sequel titled Divine Retribution aired,
and the index dropped a total of one thousand, seven
(02:12):
hundred fifteen points, a crash so powerful that it led
to instability across other markets. Fifteen years later, television stations
began airing reruns of The Greed of Man and Divine Retribution,
and the Hang Sang fell once more, by almost five
hundred sixty points that day. If the stock market crashed
(02:32):
every time these television shows aired, then why did networks
show them at all? That's because the eerie phenomenon wasn't
limited to just these two series. The Hang Sang fell
more than two thousand points in November after the series
Instinct first aired, followed by another sharp drop of three
hundred points two years later when a series called Once
(02:53):
Upon a Time in Shanghai debut. The trend continued for
shows like Cold Blood, Warm Heart, Blade Heart, and Master
of Play. Master of Play alone triggered a ten percent
drop from October of all the way to April of
two thousand fifteen, there were fifteen separate instances of the
Hang Sang index posting significant losses, all of which were
(03:15):
tied to the premieres of various television shows, and the
X factor tying them all together Adam Chang. The ting
Hai effect, as it's called, has such a reputation that
academic papers have been written trying to explain where the
phenomenon came from and why it keeps happening. Some economists
believe that superstitious brokers in China sell off stock right
(03:39):
before a change series premiere, thus inadvertently triggering the crash themselves.
What started out as a market anomaly seems to have
become a self fulfilling prophecy, but die hard believers don't
buy that explanation. To them a new Adam Chang series
is a harbinger of doom for their portfolios. Bloggers have
(03:59):
you and called for stations airing Chang series to be
charged with manipulating the markets and for any future projects
of his to be canceled. But the ting high effect
hasn't affected the man supposedly behind it. Despite the pleas
from bloggers and investors, Chang still acts in films and
television shows today with over seventy credits to his name,
(04:21):
and he's not bothered by what people say about him either.
It just can't be true, but I'm used to it now,
he said to him. The whole thing is nothing but
a bit of dramatic fiction. We tend to believe what
(04:48):
we learn in history class is set in stone, it's unchanging.
We don't think about implicit biases or who is writing
the history we read. The going philosophy is if it's
in a text book, it must be true. Nowadays we
know that's not always the case, and that history literally
is written by the victors. Cultures have been lost or
(05:09):
whitewashed due to controversy or inconvenience for those holding the pens.
Take Australia, for example. According to the history books. The
Dutch were the first group of Europeans to set foot
in Australia. In sixteen o six, William Joan Soon and
twenty nine other Dutch sailors navigated its coasts, calling it
New Holland. Years later, the British did what they always
(05:32):
did upon arriving in a new land. They colonized it.
Pretty soon all of Australia belonged to England. Mike I said,
that's what the history books tell us, But the history
books don't tell us everything. If reports are true, Even
the Dutch weren't the first to stroll across Australia's shores.
A century earlier, a group of Portuguese explorers were said
(05:55):
to have crashed off the southern coast, their ship going
lost in what is now Armstrong, but what happened to
the men aboard remains a mystery even now. Reports of
a shipwreck it didn't appear until the nineteenth century, when
dozens of eye witnesses claimed to have seen its surface
from beneath the waves. One moment, it's jagged wooden frame
(06:15):
would rise from the depths, the next it had slipped
away again like a mirage. The mahogany ship, they called it,
though it wasn't actually made of mahogany, its unique design
appeared to be made of a dark wood different from
other vessels. Rumors swirled as stories of the wreck circulated
around the region. It was a Spanish galleon filled with
(06:37):
gold the bloons, or it was really three separate holes
that came and went with the tide. Accounts were varied,
but there was enough consistent detail across all of them
to lend credibility to the original claim that a small
ship not of Dutch origin had crashed and sunk off
the coast of Australia. Original witnesses claimed it came from
(06:58):
Spain or Peru, given the prominence of such ships as
the Santa Isabelle or the Santa Anna. However, the theory
of it being Portuguese was first proposed in in nineteen
seventy seven book by Australian historian Kenneth McIntyre. According to McIntyre,
the mahogany ship had joined two others from Portugal on
a secret expedition to find the Isles of Gold, led
(07:22):
by Portuguese explorer Christa val de Mendonza. The ships set
sail into Spanish owned waters, careful to avoid upsetting Spain
by claiming land within its territory. Upon discovering Australia, one
of the ships crashed, which spooked Mendonza and forced him
and his men to return to Portugal. Any records of
the crash or the voyage were locked away forever never since.
(07:47):
The stories surrounding the Mahogany Ship have turned it from
a myth into a full blown legend. Searches for its
remains have been ongoing since the late eighteen nineties. Towns,
private companies, and nonprofits have all sponsored investigations into the
ship's whereabouts, but nothing has ever turned up. Any artifacts
(08:07):
or wooden pieces dredged up from the water have been
debunked as parts of other wrecks, which have made searching
for this particular ship very difficult. Speculations surrounding the Mahogany
ships provenance has also changed with the passing decades, as
one set of evidence negates another, and historians all over
the world argue as to the vessel's origin. But the
(08:31):
one thing everyone can agree on is that somewhere beneath
the sand and sea is a ghost ship haunting the
minds of those who dare to believe, and one day,
when it finally surfaces for good, it may very well
change everything we know about an entire continent, and for
modern historians, that's sure to give them arise. I hope
(08:59):
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 Mankey in partnership with how
Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
(09:21):
you can learn all 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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