Shell Shocked

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
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. There's a reason so

(00:28):
many people have searched the world for the Holy Grail,
a cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper.
To sit from the cup is to gain internal life,
they say. Other legends of immortality have been passed down
through the ages as well. The ancient Greeks wrote about
a special water in Africa belonging to a people known
as the Macrobians. The water was said to allow these

(00:49):
Macrobians to live well beyond one hundred years of age.
We know that story better today thanks to conquistador Ponce
da Leon, who famously went in search of it during
the fifteen hundreds. Because of his expedition, the concept of
a fountain of youth has spread throughout the world as
something of a common legend. However, poncet Leon looked for

(01:10):
the Fountain of Youth on an island off the coast
of Florida when he should have been searching the Kingdom
of Tonga. The Polynesian sovereign state, eleven miles off the
coast of New Zealand, was once home to a great King, Towey.
Malila came to power in seventeen seventy seven. It was
at that time when he met James Cook, a British
captain of the Royal Navy, who was the first European

(01:32):
explorer to have ever set foot on the shores of
such exotic places as Hawaii and Eastern Australia. Captain Cook
came bearing a gift to which he presented to the
people of Tonga before leaving to see the rest of
the world, and this gift remained on the island to
be cared for by the royal family. It eventually became
clear that this gift was special as Toei Malila, despite

(01:54):
his growing age, continued to live through numerous historical milestones
where other lead ers would abdicate the throne to their
children to eat. Malila kept on ruling. The French Revolution,
the American Civil War, as well as the inventions of
the telegraph, the lightbulb, and the telephone, all occurred while
he was sitting on the Tongan throne. During Malila's reign

(02:16):
as king New York became a bustling metropolis, and two
presidents were assassinated. The horse drawn carriage gave way to
the steam engine, which eventually led to Henry Ford's model
t and to Eat Malila was there to see it all.
When word of the seemingly immortal king made its way
to other countries, their leaders made plans to meet with him.

(02:37):
Queen Elizabeth the Second took a tour of the island
in nineteen fifty three with the express purpose of speaking
with the king. There are even photographs of the two
monarchs walking the royal grounds together. Ten years later, after
having met with the queen and witnessing historical events like
the seeking of the Titanic and the entirety of World
War two, To Eat Malila passed away from natural causes.

(03:00):
He was one hundred eighty eight years old. The thing
about the king, though, was that he hadn't discovered the
Fountain of Youth, nor had the gift that Captain Cook
delivered to him given him immortality. Towey Malila, you see,
was Captain Cook's gift a turtle, a radiated turtle, to
be exact, originally from Madagascar. Captain Cook had found him

(03:21):
during one of his expeditions and took him aboard his ship,
only to present him to the Tongan royal family when
he arrived. Towey Malila wasn't a real king. No turtle
can be, of course, but he was a symbol and
a cultural icon for both the family and the island
as a whole. He holds the Guinness World Record for
longest living tortoise, and his body has been preserved for

(03:44):
display in the Tongan National Center on Tonga's main island
of Tongatapu. However, Touey Malila isn't the only known turtle
to have lived over one hundred fifty years. In the
mid seventeen hundreds, a young aldebra giant tortoise was given
to Robert Clive in a fish with the East India Company,
named Adwaita. The animal lived on his estate for some

(04:05):
time before it was transferred to the Ali poor A
Zoo in India in eight where it lived until it's
death in two thousand six. If zoologist had known its
official birthday, they could have accurately determined his age. For now,
Ti Malila still holds the record, but it is estimated
that Adwaita lived to be even older, passing away at

(04:26):
the ripe old age of two hundred fifty years. It
seems the old fable about the tortoise and the hair
still has a lot to teach us when it comes
to living longer. Slow and steady wins the race. Good

(04:51):
Luck tends to be elusive. Lost lottery tickets, poorly bet
horse race, and a bad hand at poker can ruin
a good time. Some say, once it's found, luck doesn't
stick around for long, so make the most of it
while you have it. Joseph Samuel stumbled upon a bit
of good luck early in his life. Not much is
known about him, though he served seven years in an

(05:13):
English prison for robbery when he was only fourteen years old.
After his sentence was over, he went to Sydney, Australia,
where he didn't quite abandon his old life of petty crime.
In fact, things got worse there. Samuel fell in with
a bad crowd. He and another man named Isaac Simmons
took to robbing houses. On one night in August of
eighteen oh three, Samuel and Simmons entered the home of

(05:36):
a Mrs Mary Breeze. They stole twenty four guineas and
other small coins, as well as a desk. Mrs Breeze
filed the report that night and Constable Joseph Luker decided
to take a look around her property. He must have
found what he was looking for, because the next day,
Lucre's body was discovered right behind Mrs breeze Is home,
making him the first on duty police officer killed in

(05:58):
Australian history. An investigation into the murder was launched immediately,
and it didn't take long for authorities to find Simmons
and Samuel at the center of it all. Samuel, however,
confessed to everything and was sentenced too far more than
a handful of years in prison. He was hanged for
his crimes. Simmons wasn't out of the woods, though. The

(06:18):
police knew that he'd been involved, and so he was
ordered to attend his friend's execution. One month later, Joseph, Samuel,
and another man were escorted to the gallows. They were
given their last rights, but the rabbi attending to Samuel
asked for a final confession before he was hanged. Joseph
recanted his confession, claiming that his accomplice, Isaac Simmons, had

(06:40):
actually told him that he had done it. While the
two were briefly incarcerated. Simmons was in the audience as
he had been instructed, and when the people nearby found out,
they began a turn on him. The man standing beside
Samuel was given a pardon at the eleventh hour. Once
the drama had died down, only Joseph Samuel was to
hang that day. He bowed his head and prayed as

(07:01):
the hangman slipped the noose around his neck. The cart
attached to the rope was told to start moving, holding
Samuel in the air to slowly strangle him to death.
He struggled for several seconds before falling unconscious and falling
onto his face as well. The rope holding him up
had snapped. The executioner and the constables got him on

(07:22):
his feet and prepared him for another try. Once again,
they tightened the noose around his neck and the cart
pulled away. This time, the rope stretched and unraveled, and
he found himself with his two feet on the ground again.
This time, the crowd cheered. While the police figured the
whole thing was to be an unfortunate coincidence, many in

(07:42):
the audience assumed that it was something else, something heavenly. Clearly,
Joseph Samuel was not meant to hang that day. The
police tried one more time to execute him, and as
the cart moved again, the rope gave out, just like
the first time. Samuel, his throat sore and his by
he weakened, had survived three separate hangings in one day.

(08:04):
The crowd could not be contained. They demanded that he
be pardoned, which the governor did right away, citing divine
intervention on behalf of the accused. Sadly, Samuel couldn't beat
the system a fourth time. His crimes got him shipped
out to Newcastle, where he was to work in the mines.
In eighteen oh six, he and a group of seven
other men tried to escape by boat. A storm moving

(08:26):
in caught up with them and their vessel was destroyed.
All eight men were presumed lost at sea. It appears
that Mr Samuel had finally reached the end of his rope.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn

(08:48):
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 you can learn all about it over at
the world of Lore dot com. And until next time,

(09:10):
stay curious, Yeah,