January 5, 2023 • 12 mins
Today's tour features a story you've probably never heard of, and one you definitely have...you just might not know it yet.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcomed Aaron Mankey'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. There are countries in the world that don't
have the biggest armies or the largest populations, but they
make up for those deficiencies in other ways. Oftentimes, the
smallest nations are the ones with the most patriotic citizens.
(00:48):
After all, they are few and unique. But perhaps none
are fewer or more unique than the residents of one
particular place, the Republic of Milosia. It was first established
on May sixth of nineteen seventy seven as the Grand
Republic of wold Stein under the rule of King James
the First and its prime minister, a young man named
Kevin Boo. Woldstein was a fairly sleepy nation, and its
(01:11):
king wasn't too interested in power or money. After some time, though,
the king ceased being part of Woldstein's progress, and Prime
Minister Bao took over its development. In nineteen eighty, he
renamed it the Kingdom of Edelstein, before re christening it
yet again years later as the Kingdom of Zaria. In fact,
Zaria changed names almost as many times as it changed locations.
It established the presence in Europe around this time, then
(01:33):
moved again in nineteen. Finally, in the mid to late
nineteen nineties, the kingdom found a permanent home when Prime
Minister Bao purchased the necessary land and planted his flag.
He then renounced to the kingdom and installed a provisional
communist government in its place. This was abandoned months later, however,
once Zaria joined a NATO like organization called the United
(01:54):
Provinces of Utopia beginning in nineteen the United Provinces disbanded,
leaving Boo's country without an official government. It also meant
that he was no longer in charge of a real nation,
so on February twenty one, he declared the People's Democratic
Republic of Milosia as officially open for business. That gave
way to its final name eight months later, the Republic
(02:16):
of Milosia. It was no longer the People's Democratic Republic.
Boo was now the president and his micro nation was
about to take some big strides. It hosted an international
Olympic Games for other micro nations in two thousand. It
also supported a new holiday called Norton Day, named for
Joshua Abraham Norton, who briefly named himself the Emperor of
(02:38):
the United States in eighteen fifty nine. In two thousand three,
Milosia branched out and started a colony called Farfala, which
it eventually surrendered two years later. Then in two thousand
and six, it found itself embroiled in a war with
the nearby micro nation of Mustakistan. The battle lasted for weeks,
with Mustakistan launching missiles into Milosia's territory. However, Bow's scrappy
(03:00):
little country prevailed, mostly because the enemy's missiles were nothing
more than model rockets. Mustakistan eventually went dormant several years later,
having never recovered from their loss. But that wasn't the
only war that Milosia had been involved in. Apparently, back
in nineteen eighty three, when Milosia was still called the
Grand Republic of wold Stein, it had received a declaration
of war from East Germany. Obviously, Germany was made whole
(03:24):
again in nineteen nineties, so a notice of war with
a non existent country wouldn't make sense, right, Well, technically,
East Germany still existed thanks to a little place off
Cuba's coast called ernst Thalman Island. It had been gifted
by the Cuban government to East Germany during the nineteen seventies,
so this small parcel of land was all that remained
(03:45):
of the original schism. And because ernst Thalman Island was
still part of East Germany at least symbolically, that meant
the unification wasn't complete, and the war between the two
countries raged on. In fact, it continues to this day.
Malo Jia resides within a desert climate of eleven point
three acres of land. It's capital, Boaston, was named for
(04:07):
its founder and president, Kevin Bow. The country boasts the
population of thirty eight, although four of those residents are
dogs and another four are chickens. The two main languages
spoken there are English, Esperanto and Spanish. There is only
one residence in the entire country. It's called Government House,
and it's where the first family lives. The bank, post office,
(04:28):
and telephone company can be found in Red Square, the
town center, but good luck getting anyone to help you.
The only people working there are mannekins. There's also one
cemetery to the south. You won't find any former Milosians there,
though it's strictly a pet cemetery. As for recreation, the
country has a national sport. It's called Milosian broom ball
(04:49):
and is a variation of an actual sport called broom ball,
which is popular in Canada. However, Milosia's version doesn't use
a special stick to hit the ball. They play with
a real broom and every two years the country holds
an event known as the Misfit Regatta, in which participants
don cardboard boxes and race each other across a small
(05:10):
portion of desert. Some have called it a dry land
boat race. Milosia's revenue comes from several different avenues. It
sells coins, salt stamps, and even war bonds to fund
it's never ending fake battle with East Germany, but the
primary source of income for Milosia is tourism dollars, which
is why it was such a good idea for President
(05:31):
Bao to establish his country in a place that would
be easy for people to reach. He built it in Nevada,
about an hour's drive south of Reno, and I guess
that makes sense that the biggest little country in the
world would sit so close to the biggest little city
in the world. Everybody has that one person who knows
(06:05):
them better than anyone else. It might be a parent
or a childhood friend. In Theodore's case, it was his brother, David.
The two siblings were born in Chicago, Illinois, Theodore in
ninety two and the younger David in ninety Their parents,
Wanda and Theodore Senior, were working class Polish Americans, with
their father employed as a sausage maker who worked hard
(06:26):
to take care of his family. The younger Theodore spent
his formative years in Chicago, where he was well liked
by his friends and teachers. Three years after his brother's birth, however,
the family moved to nearby Evergreen Park, a suburb located
about seventeen miles south of Chicago. It may have been
only a half hour drive from his old home, but
Theodore found his new town and junior High school to
(06:49):
be a whole other world. Still, he tried to make
the best of it. He was tested by his new
school and found to have an i Q of one
dred and sixty seven, high enough for him to skip
the sixth grade, but that meant leaving the classmates of
his own age behind. The older seventh graders bullied and
picked on him. He had few friends and spent much
of his time alone. He did better in high school,
(07:11):
where he fell in with a more academically minded group
of friends. He joined several clubs, played trombone in the
marching band, and proved himself to be something of a
math genius. Once again, he skipped a grade and graduated
high school at the age of fifteen. Think about it.
He could go to college, but he couldn't legally drive
a car yet, and not just any college. Theodora went
(07:32):
to Harvard on a scholarship to pursue a bachelor's degree
in mathematics. Meanwhile, his brother David was growing up back
at home in Evergreen Park. David was also very bright,
but not to the same degree as Theodore. Unfortunately, Theodore
changed quite a bit while he was away at college,
or maybe college changed him. During one of his breaks
at school, he came home to visit his family. David
(07:54):
looked up to his older brother and tried to talk
to him about some of his philosophies and beliefs, but
something is ead Or had shifted. He was becoming a
different person, someone angrier and more isolated. He eventually graduated
from Harvard in nineteen sixty two and pursued both a
master's and a doctoral degree in math from the University
of Michigan. It looked like he had outgrown his awkward
(08:15):
youth to become a respectable young academic. With his whole
life ahead of him, Theodore eventually moved and took a
job as an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
He wasn't cut out for education, though. His students didn't
like his stiff teaching style, and Theodore himself felt out
of place in front of a class full of students,
so he resigned a year and a half later. His brother, David,
(08:38):
on the other hand, went to Columbia University in New
York City graduated in nineteen seventy. He spent his early
college years writing for the school newspaper, but he didn't
wind up pursuing a career in journalism after graduation. Instead,
he worked at his father's factory as a supervisor for
several years before following in his brother's footsteps and becoming
a teacher. David seemed better suited to the profession than
(09:00):
Theodore had been, who had moved out to Montana after
leaving his teaching job and spending a few years back
home with his folks. But the pair still wrote to
each other regularly, at least until David decided to do
the unthinkable He fell in love. It was nineteen nine
and David had met a young woman named Linda, whom
he wanted to marry. When he wrote to Theodore about
(09:20):
his engagement, his brother was incensed. How could David abandon
him like that. Theodore didn't know Linda at all. They
hadn't even met, and yet he hated her and insisted
that David canceled the wedding. But when David didn't stop
his nuptials, the forty eight year old theatre broke all contact,
which was fined by him. He had to focus on
his side project anyway. From the late nineteen seventies and
(09:44):
throughout the nineteen eighties, newspaper headlines began to crop up.
A few times a year. Someone would receive a package
at a university, or a parcel would be stowed away
on an airplane, which would inevitably explode, causing several injuries.
In One of these packages, result did in a man's death,
followed by several that caused deafness and lost fingers and limbs.
(10:07):
Two more people were killed by exploding packages. Was also
the year the person behind the mail bombs published an anonymous,
thirty five thousand word essay explaining why he had sent them.
It was published by The Washington Post on September nineteen,
with coordination from the FBI. They hope that by putting
it out there, a reader might notice something within the
(10:28):
text to help recognize its author. David Shure did. There
was one phrase within the manifesto that stood out among
all the others. It read, you can't eat your cake
and have it too. He remembered how Theodore had always
hated the real idiom you can't have your cake and
eat it too. This alternate version was something their mother
had also said a number of times, and it had
(10:50):
stuck out because of Theodore's insistence that it was more
logically correct that way. Linda and David continued to read
the manifesto and picked up on a number of others
milarities between its wording and the letters that had arrived
from David's brother over the years, so they reached out
to a lawyer who provided the FBI with several of
Theodore's letters. It didn't take long for the Bureau to
(11:12):
match them to the Bomber's other writings. On April three,
FBI agents successfully arrested Theodore Ted Kazinski at his remote
cabin in Lincoln, Montana. Although ever since the world has
known him as the Uni Bomber, no one knew Ted
Kazinski quite like his brother, but it was a relationship
(11:32):
that would ultimately become his downfall. Ted had foolishly tried
to remain anonymous while telling the whole world all about himself.
In other words, he tried to have his cake and
eat it too. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
(11:55):
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com um. 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
(12:17):
next time, stay curious, yeah,
Welcomed Aaron Mankey'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. There are countries in the world that don't
have the biggest armies or the largest populations, but they
make up for those deficiencies in other ways. Oftentimes, the
smallest nations are the ones with the most patriotic citizens.
(00:48):
After all, they are few and unique. But perhaps none
are fewer or more unique than the residents of one
particular place, the Republic of Milosia. It was first established
on May sixth of nineteen seventy seven as the Grand
Republic of wold Stein under the rule of King James
the First and its prime minister, a young man named
Kevin Boo. Woldstein was a fairly sleepy nation, and its
(01:11):
king wasn't too interested in power or money. After some time, though,
the king ceased being part of Woldstein's progress, and Prime
Minister Bao took over its development. In nineteen eighty, he
renamed it the Kingdom of Edelstein, before re christening it
yet again years later as the Kingdom of Zaria. In fact,
Zaria changed names almost as many times as it changed locations.
It established the presence in Europe around this time, then
(01:33):
moved again in nineteen. Finally, in the mid to late
nineteen nineties, the kingdom found a permanent home when Prime
Minister Bao purchased the necessary land and planted his flag.
He then renounced to the kingdom and installed a provisional
communist government in its place. This was abandoned months later, however,
once Zaria joined a NATO like organization called the United
(01:54):
Provinces of Utopia beginning in nineteen the United Provinces disbanded,
leaving Boo's country without an official government. It also meant
that he was no longer in charge of a real nation,
so on February twenty one, he declared the People's Democratic
Republic of Milosia as officially open for business. That gave
way to its final name eight months later, the Republic
(02:16):
of Milosia. It was no longer the People's Democratic Republic.
Boo was now the president and his micro nation was
about to take some big strides. It hosted an international
Olympic Games for other micro nations in two thousand. It
also supported a new holiday called Norton Day, named for
Joshua Abraham Norton, who briefly named himself the Emperor of
(02:38):
the United States in eighteen fifty nine. In two thousand three,
Milosia branched out and started a colony called Farfala, which
it eventually surrendered two years later. Then in two thousand
and six, it found itself embroiled in a war with
the nearby micro nation of Mustakistan. The battle lasted for weeks,
with Mustakistan launching missiles into Milosia's territory. However, Bow's scrappy
(03:00):
little country prevailed, mostly because the enemy's missiles were nothing
more than model rockets. Mustakistan eventually went dormant several years later,
having never recovered from their loss. But that wasn't the
only war that Milosia had been involved in. Apparently, back
in nineteen eighty three, when Milosia was still called the
Grand Republic of wold Stein, it had received a declaration
of war from East Germany. Obviously, Germany was made whole
(03:24):
again in nineteen nineties, so a notice of war with
a non existent country wouldn't make sense, right, Well, technically,
East Germany still existed thanks to a little place off
Cuba's coast called ernst Thalman Island. It had been gifted
by the Cuban government to East Germany during the nineteen seventies,
so this small parcel of land was all that remained
(03:45):
of the original schism. And because ernst Thalman Island was
still part of East Germany at least symbolically, that meant
the unification wasn't complete, and the war between the two
countries raged on. In fact, it continues to this day.
Malo Jia resides within a desert climate of eleven point
three acres of land. It's capital, Boaston, was named for
(04:07):
its founder and president, Kevin Bow. The country boasts the
population of thirty eight, although four of those residents are
dogs and another four are chickens. The two main languages
spoken there are English, Esperanto and Spanish. There is only
one residence in the entire country. It's called Government House,
and it's where the first family lives. The bank, post office,
(04:28):
and telephone company can be found in Red Square, the
town center, but good luck getting anyone to help you.
The only people working there are mannekins. There's also one
cemetery to the south. You won't find any former Milosians there,
though it's strictly a pet cemetery. As for recreation, the
country has a national sport. It's called Milosian broom ball
(04:49):
and is a variation of an actual sport called broom ball,
which is popular in Canada. However, Milosia's version doesn't use
a special stick to hit the ball. They play with
a real broom and every two years the country holds
an event known as the Misfit Regatta, in which participants
don cardboard boxes and race each other across a small
(05:10):
portion of desert. Some have called it a dry land
boat race. Milosia's revenue comes from several different avenues. It
sells coins, salt stamps, and even war bonds to fund
it's never ending fake battle with East Germany, but the
primary source of income for Milosia is tourism dollars, which
is why it was such a good idea for President
(05:31):
Bao to establish his country in a place that would
be easy for people to reach. He built it in Nevada,
about an hour's drive south of Reno, and I guess
that makes sense that the biggest little country in the
world would sit so close to the biggest little city
in the world. Everybody has that one person who knows
(06:05):
them better than anyone else. It might be a parent
or a childhood friend. In Theodore's case, it was his brother, David.
The two siblings were born in Chicago, Illinois, Theodore in
ninety two and the younger David in ninety Their parents,
Wanda and Theodore Senior, were working class Polish Americans, with
their father employed as a sausage maker who worked hard
(06:26):
to take care of his family. The younger Theodore spent
his formative years in Chicago, where he was well liked
by his friends and teachers. Three years after his brother's birth, however,
the family moved to nearby Evergreen Park, a suburb located
about seventeen miles south of Chicago. It may have been
only a half hour drive from his old home, but
Theodore found his new town and junior High school to
(06:49):
be a whole other world. Still, he tried to make
the best of it. He was tested by his new
school and found to have an i Q of one
dred and sixty seven, high enough for him to skip
the sixth grade, but that meant leaving the classmates of
his own age behind. The older seventh graders bullied and
picked on him. He had few friends and spent much
of his time alone. He did better in high school,
(07:11):
where he fell in with a more academically minded group
of friends. He joined several clubs, played trombone in the
marching band, and proved himself to be something of a
math genius. Once again, he skipped a grade and graduated
high school at the age of fifteen. Think about it.
He could go to college, but he couldn't legally drive
a car yet, and not just any college. Theodora went
(07:32):
to Harvard on a scholarship to pursue a bachelor's degree
in mathematics. Meanwhile, his brother David was growing up back
at home in Evergreen Park. David was also very bright,
but not to the same degree as Theodore. Unfortunately, Theodore
changed quite a bit while he was away at college,
or maybe college changed him. During one of his breaks
at school, he came home to visit his family. David
(07:54):
looked up to his older brother and tried to talk
to him about some of his philosophies and beliefs, but
something is ead Or had shifted. He was becoming a
different person, someone angrier and more isolated. He eventually graduated
from Harvard in nineteen sixty two and pursued both a
master's and a doctoral degree in math from the University
of Michigan. It looked like he had outgrown his awkward
(08:15):
youth to become a respectable young academic. With his whole
life ahead of him, Theodore eventually moved and took a
job as an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
He wasn't cut out for education, though. His students didn't
like his stiff teaching style, and Theodore himself felt out
of place in front of a class full of students,
so he resigned a year and a half later. His brother, David,
(08:38):
on the other hand, went to Columbia University in New
York City graduated in nineteen seventy. He spent his early
college years writing for the school newspaper, but he didn't
wind up pursuing a career in journalism after graduation. Instead,
he worked at his father's factory as a supervisor for
several years before following in his brother's footsteps and becoming
a teacher. David seemed better suited to the profession than
(09:00):
Theodore had been, who had moved out to Montana after
leaving his teaching job and spending a few years back
home with his folks. But the pair still wrote to
each other regularly, at least until David decided to do
the unthinkable He fell in love. It was nineteen nine
and David had met a young woman named Linda, whom
he wanted to marry. When he wrote to Theodore about
(09:20):
his engagement, his brother was incensed. How could David abandon
him like that. Theodore didn't know Linda at all. They
hadn't even met, and yet he hated her and insisted
that David canceled the wedding. But when David didn't stop
his nuptials, the forty eight year old theatre broke all contact,
which was fined by him. He had to focus on
his side project anyway. From the late nineteen seventies and
(09:44):
throughout the nineteen eighties, newspaper headlines began to crop up.
A few times a year. Someone would receive a package
at a university, or a parcel would be stowed away
on an airplane, which would inevitably explode, causing several injuries.
In One of these packages, result did in a man's death,
followed by several that caused deafness and lost fingers and limbs.
(10:07):
Two more people were killed by exploding packages. Was also
the year the person behind the mail bombs published an anonymous,
thirty five thousand word essay explaining why he had sent them.
It was published by The Washington Post on September nineteen,
with coordination from the FBI. They hope that by putting
it out there, a reader might notice something within the
(10:28):
text to help recognize its author. David Shure did. There
was one phrase within the manifesto that stood out among
all the others. It read, you can't eat your cake
and have it too. He remembered how Theodore had always
hated the real idiom you can't have your cake and
eat it too. This alternate version was something their mother
had also said a number of times, and it had
(10:50):
stuck out because of Theodore's insistence that it was more
logically correct that way. Linda and David continued to read
the manifesto and picked up on a number of others
milarities between its wording and the letters that had arrived
from David's brother over the years, so they reached out
to a lawyer who provided the FBI with several of
Theodore's letters. It didn't take long for the Bureau to
(11:12):
match them to the Bomber's other writings. On April three,
FBI agents successfully arrested Theodore Ted Kazinski at his remote
cabin in Lincoln, Montana. Although ever since the world has
known him as the Uni Bomber, no one knew Ted
Kazinski quite like his brother, but it was a relationship
(11:32):
that would ultimately become his downfall. Ted had foolishly tried
to remain anonymous while telling the whole world all about himself.
In other words, he tried to have his cake and
eat it too. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
(11:55):
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com um. 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
(12:17):
next time, stay curious, yeah,
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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