Battle of the Ages

History can be amusing, as these two tales from the Cabinet will illustrate.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Menke'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):
Amusement parks are meant to be fun. You eat a
little funnel cake, you get on a roller coaster, and
then you eject that funnel cake into the nearest garbage
can you know fun? But in between bites of corn
dogs and slurps of lemonade are rides that are meant
to thrill and excite you. But several parks haven't always
been so amusing. In fact, at one time they were

(00:58):
pretty problematic because of the attractions or the food, but
because of how they came to be. Before Six Flags,
Dorney Park and Dollywood, there was Coney Island. Do a
quick search online and you'll likely find early footage from
any of Coney Island's famous parks. You'll see women in
long dresses and men in suits, riding on a scenic

(01:19):
railway or holding on for dear life. As the famous
Cyclone roller coaster shakes its wooden frame. But long before
Coney Island was known as a place for families to
spend the day riding rides and playing games, it was
known by one unfortunate name, Sodom by the Sea. Let's
back up for a moment. Coney Island is located in

(01:39):
southwestern Brooklyn and became a prime vacation spot starting in
the eighteen thirties. It was far enough away from Manhattan
and the other boroughs that many New Yorkers would flock
to its beaches for a quick getaway. The next several
decades were full of growth and development, with the installation
of a ferry as well as several hotels and restaurants. Then,
in eighteen ninety seven, New York businessman George till You

(02:03):
built Steeplechase Park, complete with a ferris wheel, a wild
west side show, and various slide based rides. It was
enticing to locals who were looking for a cheap way
to pass the afternoon, but till You's greed and desire
for growth wound up costing him dearly. You see, he
had secured the rights to another ride built by two
entrepreneurs for his park, but they didn't just want to

(02:25):
license their creation. They saw what till You had built
and decided to go into business as direct competitors to Steeplechase,
and so Fred Thompson and Skip Dundee started working on
the now famous Luna Park. But neither amusement park was
attracting posh elite clients. Coney Island became a haven for
the lower and middle classes who couldn't afford the whole

(02:45):
summer in Spain or winter in Paris, and because of
its close proximity to the rest of New York, its
sandy beaches and ample boardwalk became crammed with vacationers. During
the busiest seasons, music from buskers and bands filled the air,
as fortune tellers and other con artists lured unsuspecting visitors
into their shops, promising them a glimpse of their future

(03:06):
for a nominal fee. Of course, in fact, it bore
more of a resemblance to Pleasure Island in Pinocchio than
Las Vegas. As one writer described it in a nineteen
oh five issue of the Cosmopolitan magazine, Coney Island exists,
he wrote, and will go on existing because into all men,
gentle and simple, poor and rich, including women, by some

(03:26):
mysterious corybantic instinct in their blood has been born a
tragic need of coarse excitement, a craving to be taken
in by some illusion. However palpable, and that course excitement
took form in a number of questionable ways. For example,
Thompson and Dundee brought in an elephant named Topsy to
keep visitors entertained while Luna Park was being built. But

(03:48):
after a short time, Topsy's maintenance and behavior, because after all,
she was a wild animal, had them rethinking their purchase.
Rather than sell her off to a zoo or a circus, though,
they decided to give the people one last show. They
electrocuted her to death, and the whole thing was recorded
on film. The pair also staged displays of indigenous peoples

(04:09):
from the Philippines, portraying them as and I quote, uncivilized
savages to enthrall their white patrons. Of course, as the
years passed by, others like William Reynolds, erected their own
competing parks with bright, flashy attractions, but in the end
only two parks stood the test of time. Luna Park
and Dino's Wonder Wheel amusement Park, which opened in nineteen twenty.

(04:31):
Its famous Wonder Wheel ferris wheel has become as iconic
as the Coney Island Cyclone coaster. During the nineteen seventies
and for the next three decades after that, Coney Island
went through a number of ups and downs, with several
parks and rides falling into disrepair. But today the former
Sodom by the Sea is refreshed and revitalized, and it

(04:51):
welcomes more than five million visitors per year from all
over the country. It's fun for the whole family, and
no elephants have been harmed on the property and at
least a century. In nineteen eighty six, Roy Duncan decided

(05:18):
it was finally time to get to the bottom of
a local rumor. Roy lived on one of the Isles
of Silly, a tiny archipelago just off the coast of
Cornwall in the United Kingdom. For generations, Siloians had claimed
their tiny islands had been at war with the Netherlands.
If there was a war, Roy thought it certainly was
an odd one. He couldn't remember ever seeing a Dutch

(05:39):
army or warship, and neither could his father or grandfather.
There was no battle, no treaties, not even a skirmish
as far as he could tell. So Roy wrote to
the Dutch embassy in London to get to the bottom
of the mystery. The embassy's answer was surprising. According to
their records, the Netherlands had in fact declared war on
the Isles of Silly in sixteen fifty one, and as

(06:01):
far as they could tell, no peace treaty was ever signed.
So technically, the Dutch and the Selonians had been fighting
for three hundred and thirty five years. So how exactly
did a tiny little archipelago full of fishermen become embroiled
in the longest war in history. Well you can blame
Oliver Cromwell for that. Back in sixteen fifty one, England

(06:22):
was in the grip of a bloody civil war. Parliamentarians,
led by Oliver Cromwell, wanted to limit the powers of
the English monarchy and give most of England's legislative power
to a constitutional parliament, thus the name Parliamentarians and their opponents,
the Royalists, wanted the English king to have absolute power.
Cromwell's parliamentarians had swept over the country, pushing the Royalists

(06:44):
back to the furthest point south in England, the tiny
Isles of Scilly. The entire Royalist navy was docked at
the isles, waiting for Cromwell to launch his final attack.
At the same time, the Dutch were fighting their own
war to gain independence from Spain. Early in the con inflict,
England helped the Dutch allies, so when the Netherlands were
finally free of Spanish rule, they wanted to return the favor.

(07:07):
Since England was so divided, the Dutch were forced to
pick aside, and seeing the riding on the wall for
the Royalists, the Dutch backed Cromwell and his parliamentarians. Now
the Royalists, who were docked at the Isles of Silly,
considered this a stab in the back. In retaliation, they
raided Dutch merchants in the English Channel, seizing their ships
and cargo for the Royalist cause. Well. On March thirtieth

(07:29):
of sixteen fifty one, a Dutch lieutenant admiral named Martine
Tromp demanded the Royalists pay the Dutch for what they
had stolen. When the Royalists refused, Tromp declared war on
the only Royalist held land in England, the Isles of Scilly.
In retrospect, it's actually not certain that Trump had the
authority to declare war for an entire country. At the

(07:49):
most Dutch leadership probably expected him to establish a blockade.
It's also pretty unclear if even if Tromp could declare war,
could he declare it on just one small part art
of another nation. Regardless, the declaration stood, and when the
Royalists finally surrendered to Cromwell three months later in June
of sixteen fifty one, the Dutch sailed home without ever

(08:11):
officially ending the war. For years, it became something of
a local legend until Roy Duncan received the Fateful Letter
from the Dutch embassy in nineteen eighty six. Wishing to
bury the hatchets, Roy invited the Dutch ambassador to the
Isles of Silly to end the conflict. On April seventeenth
of nineteen eighty six, the Dutch ambassador arrived at the

(08:32):
Isles of Silly. He brought with him a signed peace
treaty declaring that after three hundred and thirty five years,
the war between the Netherlands and the Isles of Silly
was officially over all without firing a single shot. I
hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.

(08:53):
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. This show
was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with Howstuff 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 Worldoflore dot com.

(09:16):
And until next time, stay curious.