June 23, 2026 • 10 mins
Humans have always been wildly inventive, but sometimes that characteristic gets us in trouble.
Order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading!
Join our Patreon for ad-free episodes!: https://www.patreon.com/grimandmild
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm 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.
(00:36):
In nineteen seventeen, a young woman named Molly Maggia strolled
into a factory in New Jersey for her first day
of work. Two of her sisters worked in the same factory,
and as she looked around the room, she saw them
sitting together at a workbench. Molly smiled and waved, excited
to join them. A supervisor walked Molly through the long
rows of work benches, where more than one hundred young
(00:58):
women were hunched over with brushes in their hands. Their
job was to paint the numbers onto the dials of
watchfaces with a special luminous paint called undark. Molly sat
down at her seat and gazed into the small bowl
of yellowish paint, which glimmered and glowed like a magical potion.
Molly had never seen anything like it. Her supervisor showed
(01:20):
her the proper technique lip dip paint. She was supposed
to shape the brush into a fine point with her lips,
dip it in the paint, and then paint the numbers
on the watch dial. Molly frowned and asked if the
paint was safe to consume, and the supervisor said yes,
it was all natural and completely harmless. During their lunch break,
(01:42):
Molly sat with her sisters who were painting each other's
nails with the undark paint to make them glow. Across
the room, she saw other workers painting designs onto their
faces and clothing. They were laughing and smiling and shimmering
like they were lit from within. Molly decided that the
hesitation she had felt was unnecess A substance this beautiful
(02:02):
and popular couldn't be dangerous. But after working at the
factory for a few years, Molly woke up one morning
with a terrible toothache. She called in sick to work
and went to the dentist. He pulled out one of
her teeth and sent her away, but the pain didn't
go away. Over the next few months, Molly went back
to the dentist again and again. Her teeth were rotting
(02:23):
and falling out one by one, and even more alarmingly,
the empty sockets weren't healing after the teeth were removed.
They were turning into painful, bleeding ulcers. And then one day,
when the dentist lightly pried open Molly's jaw to get
a better look at her teeth, her entire jawbone crumbled
and broke off into his hand. The dentist was aghast.
(02:45):
He had no idea what was wrong with Molly, and
there was nothing he could do to help her pain.
Molly spent the next few months bedridden, barely able to
eat or speak. Her sisters brought her word that other
workers at the factory were falling in as well. Their
jaws were rotting, their spines collapsed, their pregnancies ended in miscarriage.
(03:06):
No one knew what was happening. The factory owners insisted
that it was just a coincidence and that it had
nothing to do with the undark paint, but the workers
were starting to doubt the paint was really as safe
as they claimed. That fall Molly died of a hemorrhage
at the age of twenty five. Over the coming years,
dozens of other dial painters became sick, including Molly's sisters,
(03:28):
who joined with other workers to file a lawsuits against
the factory. As part of the lawsuit, Molly's body was
exhumed for an autopsy, and what it revealed was that
Molly's bones were radioactive. You see the undark paint glowed
because it contained radium, a radioactive substance that's highly toxic
(03:48):
to human beings. The owners of the Dial factory had
tried to cover up the harmful effects of radium, even
as their healthy young workers dropped dead from it. Over time,
the workers Bega came known as the Radium Girls, and
although there was nothing that could be done to save them,
their deaths led to the creation of several new health
and safety regulations for workers, including the creation of the
(04:12):
Occupational Safety and Health Administration otherwise known to us today
as OSHA. You see them in every grocery store produce
(04:33):
aisle today, the humble banana, the Cavendish banana, to be
more precise. But if you were to get into a
time machine and go back to the late nineteenth century,
that is not the banana that you would find at
the market, and the reason why is a curious tale.
Back then, the banana that everyone bought was the gross Michelle.
(04:53):
It had been introduced to the Americas in the late
nineteenth century, and due to its flavor, thick skin, and
resilientllians when being shipped, it quickly became top banana. It
fueled the growth of many Central American countries and grew
the profits of the massive fruit corporations, including United Fruit Company,
which led to the rise of the concept that we
(05:13):
know today as the banana republic. It's a phrase that
we often hear an unstable country whose economy rests on
a single resource, which then gets exploited by powerful foreign agents.
In this case, those foreign agents were United Fruit and
its competitors. You see, the gross Michelle needed land in
the tropics, and lots of it, and not just for
(05:35):
the massive banana plantations where the fruit would be grown,
but also for railways and ports so that the perishable
Gross Michelle could get to market as quickly as possible.
United Fruit was able to secure land grants in exchange
for building its own railways, but only those that would
serve its own interests. Locals were frequently left out in
the cold, and as more and more of the country's
(05:57):
resources were sucked up by the company, there would be,
in turn more political unrest, and to protect United Fruits business,
the United States government would help topple governments who pushed back,
installing corrupt military dictatorships that were much more friendly to
American interests, all to sell a banana. Very quickly, the
(06:19):
health of a nation's economy became entirely reliant on the
health of the banana plantations, which left local populations vulnerable
to markets that had little to do with themselves, and
United Fruits focus on growing the grossmychelle above all other
varieties would eventually lead to disaster. You see, in order
to have consistent quality of seedless fruit, the bananas weren't
(06:41):
grown from seed, but instead cloned. And because every cloned
plant was identical, every grossmychell had the exact same vulnerabilities.
And so when a soil born fungus exploded onto the
scene in the nineteen twenties and thirties, it tore through
the tropics, massacring the grosser mishell as it went. How well,
(07:02):
this fungus caused Panama disease, which blocked the plant's ability
to absorb and distribute water, and so entire plantations became
rotting banana graveyards, and by the nineteen fifties, the grossmychell
was unable to continue as the corporate crop that it
had been for so long. After some search, the industry
found a new champion, the cavendish, which had a natural
(07:24):
resistance to the fungus, and so farmers pivoted quickly to
the new variety, which proved incredibly successful. Just like the
grossbyshell before, it was a resilient breed and it could
make that long journey from the farm to the grocer
with minimal damage. But most importantly, it could grow in
the same soil that had become toxic for its predecessor,
(07:45):
and along the way it's become the banana that we
all recognize today, and it accounts for ninety nine percent
of the banana trade, which, as you can probably guess,
is a major problem. You see, the industry didn't solve
its fungus problem by replacing one monoculture with another. It's
only really putting off the inevitable because just like the
(08:05):
grossby shell, the cavendish is a clone. Every single one
of the bananas on the market shelves today share the
exact same genes and so all it would take is
a single disease to wipe out the Cavendish, and that
disease has already appeared in the form of tropical race four,
which is a particularly nasty form of the same fungus
(08:26):
that took down the grossmy shell. It's more aggressive and
it can live in the soil far longer, lasting even decades.
And since it's appeared, it has spread like wildfire through
Asia and Australia. In twenty nineteen, it finally made it
to the Americas, the hearts of the banana export industry,
and it's proving nearly impossible to contain naturally. The industry
(08:48):
is trying to fight back using genetic engineering. It's attempting
to take resistant genes from wild bananas and insert them
into the cavendish genome, offering a glimmer of hope. There's
also the possibility of other varieties hitting store shelves, although
many aren't as hardy or as flavorful as the Cavendish,
And so the new fungus continues its relentless spread, leaving
(09:11):
our familiar bananas fate hanging in the balance. Twice now
we've been shown the dangers of monoculture. We can meet
it in the moment through diversification or science, or face
losing one of our everyday staples. And as far as
I'm concerned, only one of those options sounds appealing. I
(09:34):
hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities.
This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim and
Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about
the show and the people who make it over at
Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link
(09:55):
to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in
bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook. And
if you're looking for an ad free option, consider joining
our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without the
interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign
up over at patreon dot com, slash Grimandmild, and until
(10:15):
next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm 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.
(00:36):
In nineteen seventeen, a young woman named Molly Maggia strolled
into a factory in New Jersey for her first day
of work. Two of her sisters worked in the same factory,
and as she looked around the room, she saw them
sitting together at a workbench. Molly smiled and waved, excited
to join them. A supervisor walked Molly through the long
rows of work benches, where more than one hundred young
(00:58):
women were hunched over with brushes in their hands. Their
job was to paint the numbers onto the dials of
watchfaces with a special luminous paint called undark. Molly sat
down at her seat and gazed into the small bowl
of yellowish paint, which glimmered and glowed like a magical potion.
Molly had never seen anything like it. Her supervisor showed
(01:20):
her the proper technique lip dip paint. She was supposed
to shape the brush into a fine point with her lips,
dip it in the paint, and then paint the numbers
on the watch dial. Molly frowned and asked if the
paint was safe to consume, and the supervisor said yes,
it was all natural and completely harmless. During their lunch break,
(01:42):
Molly sat with her sisters who were painting each other's
nails with the undark paint to make them glow. Across
the room, she saw other workers painting designs onto their
faces and clothing. They were laughing and smiling and shimmering
like they were lit from within. Molly decided that the
hesitation she had felt was unnecess A substance this beautiful
(02:02):
and popular couldn't be dangerous. But after working at the
factory for a few years, Molly woke up one morning
with a terrible toothache. She called in sick to work
and went to the dentist. He pulled out one of
her teeth and sent her away, but the pain didn't
go away. Over the next few months, Molly went back
to the dentist again and again. Her teeth were rotting
(02:23):
and falling out one by one, and even more alarmingly,
the empty sockets weren't healing after the teeth were removed.
They were turning into painful, bleeding ulcers. And then one day,
when the dentist lightly pried open Molly's jaw to get
a better look at her teeth, her entire jawbone crumbled
and broke off into his hand. The dentist was aghast.
(02:45):
He had no idea what was wrong with Molly, and
there was nothing he could do to help her pain.
Molly spent the next few months bedridden, barely able to
eat or speak. Her sisters brought her word that other
workers at the factory were falling in as well. Their
jaws were rotting, their spines collapsed, their pregnancies ended in miscarriage.
(03:06):
No one knew what was happening. The factory owners insisted
that it was just a coincidence and that it had
nothing to do with the undark paint, but the workers
were starting to doubt the paint was really as safe
as they claimed. That fall Molly died of a hemorrhage
at the age of twenty five. Over the coming years,
dozens of other dial painters became sick, including Molly's sisters,
(03:28):
who joined with other workers to file a lawsuits against
the factory. As part of the lawsuit, Molly's body was
exhumed for an autopsy, and what it revealed was that
Molly's bones were radioactive. You see the undark paint glowed
because it contained radium, a radioactive substance that's highly toxic
(03:48):
to human beings. The owners of the Dial factory had
tried to cover up the harmful effects of radium, even
as their healthy young workers dropped dead from it. Over time,
the workers Bega came known as the Radium Girls, and
although there was nothing that could be done to save them,
their deaths led to the creation of several new health
and safety regulations for workers, including the creation of the
(04:12):
Occupational Safety and Health Administration otherwise known to us today
as OSHA. You see them in every grocery store produce
(04:33):
aisle today, the humble banana, the Cavendish banana, to be
more precise. But if you were to get into a
time machine and go back to the late nineteenth century,
that is not the banana that you would find at
the market, and the reason why is a curious tale.
Back then, the banana that everyone bought was the gross Michelle.
(04:53):
It had been introduced to the Americas in the late
nineteenth century, and due to its flavor, thick skin, and
resilientllians when being shipped, it quickly became top banana. It
fueled the growth of many Central American countries and grew
the profits of the massive fruit corporations, including United Fruit Company,
which led to the rise of the concept that we
(05:13):
know today as the banana republic. It's a phrase that
we often hear an unstable country whose economy rests on
a single resource, which then gets exploited by powerful foreign agents.
In this case, those foreign agents were United Fruit and
its competitors. You see, the gross Michelle needed land in
the tropics, and lots of it, and not just for
(05:35):
the massive banana plantations where the fruit would be grown,
but also for railways and ports so that the perishable
Gross Michelle could get to market as quickly as possible.
United Fruit was able to secure land grants in exchange
for building its own railways, but only those that would
serve its own interests. Locals were frequently left out in
the cold, and as more and more of the country's
(05:57):
resources were sucked up by the company, there would be,
in turn more political unrest, and to protect United Fruits business,
the United States government would help topple governments who pushed back,
installing corrupt military dictatorships that were much more friendly to
American interests, all to sell a banana. Very quickly, the
(06:19):
health of a nation's economy became entirely reliant on the
health of the banana plantations, which left local populations vulnerable
to markets that had little to do with themselves, and
United Fruits focus on growing the grossmychelle above all other
varieties would eventually lead to disaster. You see, in order
to have consistent quality of seedless fruit, the bananas weren't
(06:41):
grown from seed, but instead cloned. And because every cloned
plant was identical, every grossmychell had the exact same vulnerabilities.
And so when a soil born fungus exploded onto the
scene in the nineteen twenties and thirties, it tore through
the tropics, massacring the grosser mishell as it went. How well,
(07:02):
this fungus caused Panama disease, which blocked the plant's ability
to absorb and distribute water, and so entire plantations became
rotting banana graveyards, and by the nineteen fifties, the grossmychell
was unable to continue as the corporate crop that it
had been for so long. After some search, the industry
found a new champion, the cavendish, which had a natural
(07:24):
resistance to the fungus, and so farmers pivoted quickly to
the new variety, which proved incredibly successful. Just like the
grossbyshell before, it was a resilient breed and it could
make that long journey from the farm to the grocer
with minimal damage. But most importantly, it could grow in
the same soil that had become toxic for its predecessor,
(07:45):
and along the way it's become the banana that we
all recognize today, and it accounts for ninety nine percent
of the banana trade, which, as you can probably guess,
is a major problem. You see, the industry didn't solve
its fungus problem by replacing one monoculture with another. It's
only really putting off the inevitable because just like the
(08:05):
grossby shell, the cavendish is a clone. Every single one
of the bananas on the market shelves today share the
exact same genes and so all it would take is
a single disease to wipe out the Cavendish, and that
disease has already appeared in the form of tropical race four,
which is a particularly nasty form of the same fungus
(08:26):
that took down the grossmy shell. It's more aggressive and
it can live in the soil far longer, lasting even decades.
And since it's appeared, it has spread like wildfire through
Asia and Australia. In twenty nineteen, it finally made it
to the Americas, the hearts of the banana export industry,
and it's proving nearly impossible to contain naturally. The industry
(08:48):
is trying to fight back using genetic engineering. It's attempting
to take resistant genes from wild bananas and insert them
into the cavendish genome, offering a glimmer of hope. There's
also the possibility of other varieties hitting store shelves, although
many aren't as hardy or as flavorful as the Cavendish,
And so the new fungus continues its relentless spread, leaving
(09:11):
our familiar bananas fate hanging in the balance. Twice now
we've been shown the dangers of monoculture. We can meet
it in the moment through diversification or science, or face
losing one of our everyday staples. And as far as
I'm concerned, only one of those options sounds appealing. I
(09:34):
hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities.
This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim and
Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about
the show and the people who make it over at
Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link
(09:55):
to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in
bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook. And
if you're looking for an ad free option, consider joining
our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without the
interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign
up over at patreon dot com, slash Grimandmild, and until
(10:15):
next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
Popular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com