Blowing Up

We often refer to fame as "blowing up", and these two famous individuals both experienced that. To one degree or another.

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Episode Transcript

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. To earn a title like the Conqueror, one
must well conquer, and not just a little either, maybe
even when it's not appropriate. That's what William the First did,
after all, enough to stave off his alternative title, William

(00:50):
the Bastard, although there are many who would argue that
he deserved that one much more. After a twenty year
reign of conquering and not being much loved by his people,
William the Career was keeping himself entertained by partaking in
a little recreational rating against his French adversary, King Philip. However,
if you put yourself in enough deadly situations, it's likely

(01:10):
that death will soon win the day, and eventually it did.
While the exact nature of William's ultimate demise isn't agreed upon,
the general consensus is that he fell hard onto the
wooden pommel of his saddle, which ruptured and internal organs
so severely that he couldn't be saved, which admittedly sounds
pretty painful. Immediately after, he was taken from the battlefield
to a medical facility in ruin Que, the deathbed scene

(01:35):
where he has seen to his last will and testament
among many a quibbling relative and or attendant, eager for
his crown, his sword, his armor, his everything. William did
not leave anything up to chance in securing his legacy,
though a mirror image of how protective he was of
his kingdom during his reign. But in life at least
he could see to it that his rules were followed,

(01:56):
whereas in death, well not so much. In fact, in
the end, everything more or less came undone. As soon
as William passed away, his attendance collected his belongings, as in,
they took all of his stuff for themselves and promptly
vacated the premises, leaving the corpse of the conquering king
naked on the floor. Not exactly what anyone would imagine
themselves looking like moments after death, let alone a king

(02:19):
who had earned himself such a fearsome nickname as the conqueror. Fortunately,
after some time passed, a traveling night happened by the
baffling situation and began the embalming process all by himself.
By this point, though, the body had already begun to decompose,
but the night pretended not to notice and proceeded anyway.
After that came the seventy mile journey from Ruan to Khan.

(02:42):
On the way, bacteria began to seep into Williams intestines
and fill his body with the gas that all things considered,
should never be allowed to reach the open air. Upon
reaching Khan, monks came to meet the corpse of the king,
but before they could proceed with the rights and eulogies,
a fire broke out in town, and the body was
again left unattended for far longer than any cadaver should be.

(03:04):
He was essentially a quickly inflating gas bag. As everyone
reconvened to forgive any wrongs William might have done against
them a funeral right at the time, a rather loud
man yelled out that the king had stolen land from
his own family. A debate ensued, all while the body
of the king progressed uncomfortably closer to something that no
one wanted to look at. Eventually, though, a payment was

(03:26):
agreed upon to get the man to go away his
pockets bulging, but that wasn't the only thing that was
expanding the King's body. Now hours passed the recommended burial
time had begun to bloat. The funeral attendants hastily tried
to lower the king into the stone sarcophagus, but unfortunately
for them, he wouldn't fit no matter how hard they
pushed or wriggled or folded, and apparently they pushed a

(03:49):
bit too much. Picture, if you will, a large water
balloon being forced into a small box, because that's essentially
what we had here. Suddenly, his swollen ball burst, causing
and I quote, an intolerable stench that assailed nostrils of
the bystanders and the whole crowd. The bits and pieces
were forced into the steaming grave. The funeral finished as

(04:13):
quickly as possible, and everyone moved on, having seen Williams
last and most probably disgusting conquest. Many of us dream

(04:35):
of accomplishing something great within our lifetimes. They might be
to climb the tallest mountain, or star in a movie,
or even something as simple as starting our own business,
but few get to do anything close to those feats.
They live their lives, retire and hope they left some
kind of lasting impression on a small piece of the world.
And then there's Pelee Hould. Hohold was alive during a

(04:57):
time when people were doing great, big things all the time.
Time he lived during the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment,
which gave women the right to vote. He was also
there when Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. But Hould wasn't going
to sit back and let others have all the glory.
He wanted to go out and make a name for
himself too, and to do that he would have to
travel the world. It started with a contest. Hold was

(05:20):
born and raised in Denmark and saw a story on
the front page of his country's newspaper, Politic n The
paper wanted to pay tribute to the one birthday of
French author Jules Verne. Verne, who had written such popular
tales as twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and Journey
to the Center of the Earth, had inspired numerous authors
over the years, and this time he had inspired the

(05:42):
paper to put on a competition. Borrowing from the plot
of one of his other stories, Around the World in
eighty Days. Politican picked one person out of hundreds to
undertake a difficult challenge circumnavigate the globe in forty six days,
just over half the time in Verne's novel. It seems
they believe all of the advances of the modern world
should make such an endeavor a piece of cake. Of

(06:04):
the many potential contestants it was hooled they picked. The
rules were quite simple too. He could use any method
to travel the world except by plane. He kicked off
his trip on March one of ninety eight by going
to England, followed by a jump over to Scotland. From
there he went to Canada, Japan, Korea, China, the Soviet Union,

(06:25):
Poland and Germany. And he did all of it almost
entirely by himself. But there were of course reporters from
Politican who followed him on his journey, documenting it for
the paper. But he managed the trip mostly on his own,
at least so he thought. Hold didn't realize that Politican
readers had been keeping track of him as well, and
his story had exploded beyond the margins of that paper.

(06:47):
His exploits were being read about by thousands of people
in all the countries he was visiting. At the end
of his forty four day journey. When he finally came
back home to Denmark, there were twenty thousand people waiting
to see him. He was a celebrity and his travels
were all anyone could talk about, mainly because he wasn't
just anyone. He was a fifteen year old boy scout.

(07:09):
He'd been working in a car dealership before being chosen
for the contest, which had only been open to teenage
boys to begin with. Hold would later write about his
eventful trip in a memoir he called a boy Scout
around the world, and people were inspired by what he'd accomplished,
perhaps none more than George Remy, also a boy Scott
in his youth. Remy was a Belgian illustrator who drew

(07:31):
cartoons and comic strips for his local papers. In ninety nine,
he debuted a new character partly based on his brother Paul.
Paul's rounded face and puffed up quiff hairstyle made him
the perfect reference for the look of Remy's latest creation,
a globe trotting reporter with a small dog for a
best friend. Now Hold never had a dog with him,

(07:52):
but outside of that, all of the similarities were uncanny.
Hold had a youthful look, red hair, and freckles, just
like Remy's character. He'd also documented his travels all over
the world. Remy, under the pen name er J, combined
these two real people into one fictional entity, a Belgian
reporter who often found himself embroiled in some kind of

(08:13):
international mystery along with his dog, Snowy pell. Hold certainly
didn't realize it at the time, but his exploits had
led to the creation of the popular literary character Tintin,
one who would endure for the next ninety years. Now
that's one long and curious journey. I hope you've enjoyed

(08:36):
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 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

(08:58):
learn all about it over the world of Lore dot
Come and until next time, stay curious. Yeah,