August 5, 2025 • 10 mins
Victory and tragedy in equal measures are part of today's Cabient tour.
Order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
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. Radio technology has always
(00:38):
been complicated, but we still use it every day. Wi
Fi operates on radio frequencies, which means that you're probably
listening to this podcast right now. Because of radio, you
probably can't explain how it works.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
But don't worry. I'm not going to ask you to,
but I am going to tell you to feel grateful
because while today we may have our own high functioning
radio transmitters in the form of why Fi routers, one
hundred years ago, a radio transmitter was a rare, expensive
and dangerous piece of equipment that few people had in
their homes, and it took a boxing match of all
things to change that. In nineteen twenty one, Jay Andrew
(01:14):
White was a thirty one year old Radio Corporation of
America employee who had served in the Army Signal Corps
in World War One. This meant that he was a
radio expert, which was still a new technology at the time,
and because of this, he was approached by promoters from
Madison Square Garden who had the crazy idea to transmit
the upcoming fight between world boxing champions Jack Dempsey and
(01:36):
George Carpontier. They wanted to transmit to different radios all
over New England and as far away as Ohio, and
charge people a fee to listen at various local theaters,
and White jumped at the chance to make this happen.
You see, at the time, radio was the domain of
hobbyists and the government, and he knew that this would
prove that the technology deserved a wider place in society.
(01:58):
Working with the team, he set about crew aiding the
infrastructure to make the broadcast possible. The fight would take
place in July at a makeshift arena in New Jersey,
and as such, there was no antenna or transmitter available
at the actual site of the fight. To find suitable equipment,
White and his team had to search far and wide.
The only suitable transmitter they could find belonged to the
(02:19):
United States Navy, and so they had a meeting with
none other than the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin
delan Or Roosevelt, the young future president, believed in helping
civilian projects whenever he could, and so he readily agreed
to lend the transmitter as long as the Navy received
a small cut of the profits. The transmitter was transported
to New Jersey, but it still needed an antenna. White
(02:42):
had to run a telephone line all the way from
the arena to a nearby train station, where he rigged
a massive antenna from a local clock tower. The transmitter
was housed at the station, and White had one of
the assistants guarded day and night. And after this, White
secured a broadcasting license from the government to broadcast his
own unique radio station called WJY. Amateurs were hired across
(03:06):
the country to man their own radio and speaker setups
at local theaters. The promoters did everything they could to
drum up interest in the big day, and then AT
and T came along and tried to ruin the whole thing.
The company, just a few decades old at the time,
came out of nowhere right before the fight and claimed
that they wouldn't allow one of their telephone lines to
(03:26):
be used in a radio broadcast. Essentially, they saw the
Radio Corporation of America RCA as a competitor and didn't
want to help them. White had to think up a
new plan on very short notice. His final workaround proved
to be his cleverest idea so far. He would report
on the fight from ringside, talking on the phone to
one of his assistants at the train station. They would
(03:49):
then type up the play by play commentary for yet
another assistant to read out over the radio. They even
had a gong in the booth to simulate the gong
from the ring. Listeners all over they would actually be
listening to a slightly delayed report of the fight, but
they were none the wiser. But the exciting commentary and
the sound of the gong, they were completely drawn in.
(04:09):
Some listeners even later reported that they could hear the
sound of the crowd, although this was entirely in their imagination.
Jack Dempsey knocked out George Carpontier in the fourth round,
and as excited as the people were to watch the
fight in New Jersey, hundreds of thousands of people around
the country were just as thrilled to be listening in
their own hometowns of course, they had no way of
(04:30):
knowing how much hard work had been done to make
it all possible. In fact, the assistant who read out
the fight over the radio, Jo Smith, ended the match
in worse shape than Carpontier. It seems that he was
temporarily blinded by the bright burning tubes of the radio
transmitter and even burned his hands when one of those
tubes exploded and had to be switched out mid fight.
(04:52):
But it did the trick. Over the next few years,
radio sales skyrocketed, and the rest is history. Men like
Jay Andrew White and Josia Smith let their curiosity guide them,
and it changed entertainment forever. Without them, you might not
be listening to me right now, So be thankful for that,
and for the later developments that made it possible for
your phone to do amazing things like not explode in
(05:15):
your hand or blind you. For most people, fear works
as evolution intended, keeping them out of dangerous situations. But
(05:36):
for others, fear is more of a challenge, a call
to face whatever obstacles might be standing in their way.
Cave divers definitely fall into that second category. They squeeze
into narrow spaces that most of us would only visit
in our nightmares, trying to prove to themselves that it
won't kill them. Most of the time they're right, but
sometimes the cave wins. A word of warning, the story
(05:57):
is not for those with claustrophobia. About an hour south
of Salt Lake City, Utah, is a place called Nutty
Putty Cave. It's not the kind of high ceilinged, stalactite
filled cave that you might be used to. It's a
series of very tight passages, most of them no bigger
than the opening of a washing machine. It was discovered
in nineteen sixty by diver Dale Green, who named it
(06:19):
after the clay that forms in its humid tunnels. Thousands
of divers flocked to the cave every year to test
themselves against its narrow, twisty passages, but the cave was
closed in two thousand and six after multiple rescue missions.
No one died, but one young man was hospitalized for days.
It was becoming too common for divers to go at
nights without proper equipment and then become stuck. Typically, rescue
(06:42):
teams had to then enter the cave, tie a rope
around the stuck person's foot, pulling them free. The cave
eventually reopened in two thousand and nine after the state
instituted an application process for visitors. Now they had to
prove that they had all the necessary training and equipment,
and that very same year, two brothers signed up, Josh
and John Jones. As kids, they'd been on many cave
(07:04):
exploration trips with their father, although they hadn't been on
any trips for a few years. They thought that it
would be a fun way to relive old memories, and
so they descended into the cave headlamps guiding their way.
They crawled through the biggest chamber, first known as the
Big Slide, which is big enough for a diver to
turn around in. But after this they wanted more of
a challenge. Josh and John decided to look for the
(07:27):
birth canal, a narrow passage that only the most experienced
divers could pass through. They proceeded through the most narrow
sections of the cave. These are such tight spaces that
you could stretch out your hand to where it's touching
both the top and the bottom of the cave. At once.
John was in the lead and he thought he was
approaching the birth canal. He thought the cave would open
up there where he could turn back around, but in reality,
(07:49):
he and Josh had made a wrong turn. They were
in an even more narrow, uncharted part of the cave.
Suddenly John fell forward, his body going from fully horizontal
to fully vertical. One arm was trapped underneath him and
the other arm trapped to his side. He was stuck
upside down. At first, Josh, still behind him, thought that
he could pull him free, but it was no use.
(08:12):
Josh crawled back out of the cave and called nine
to one one before returning to his brother. But the
climb from the spot where John was stuck can take
as much as one hour each way. By the time
rescue teams arrived, John was still conscious, but he was frightened.
They tried the traditional pulley system, hammering studs into the
cave walls that could then be rigged with ropes and
(08:32):
pulleys to try to create leverage to pull John out.
They also considered using vegetable oil to slide him out,
but none of these would work. As rescue diver Brandon
Kowala soon realized John was at such an angle that
he couldn't be pulled out without breaking his legs. There
wasn't enough space at the top of the tunnel for
his legs to clear. It would be like trying to
(08:53):
move a couch around a tight corner in an apartment
with no way to pivot. The rescue team even brought
power tools to try and chisel John out, but the
space was too narrow to angle them properly. Eventually, rescue
diver Brandon saw John's legs spasimen blood and fluid had
started to pool in his brain and lungs after being
(09:13):
upside down for hours. His blood couldn't circulate and had
become toxic. He couldn't breathe. John Jones passed away just
before midnight. It was a tragic end to what was
supposed to be a fun family outing. Even more tragically,
the divers couldn't recover John's body. The caves were finally
sealed with cement, having proven that they were more than
(09:35):
humans could handle. A plaque was left in John's honor.
It's a curious tomb, with several winding passageways going in
all directions, but only one of those passageways contains a body,
one that will forever be trapped upside down. I hope
(09:56):
you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities,
subscrib i pre free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more
about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The
show was created by me Aaron Manke in partnership with
how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
(10:18):
you can learn all about it over at the Worldolore
dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
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. Radio technology has always
(00:38):
been complicated, but we still use it every day. Wi
Fi operates on radio frequencies, which means that you're probably
listening to this podcast right now. Because of radio, you
probably can't explain how it works.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
But don't worry. I'm not going to ask you to,
but I am going to tell you to feel grateful
because while today we may have our own high functioning
radio transmitters in the form of why Fi routers, one
hundred years ago, a radio transmitter was a rare, expensive
and dangerous piece of equipment that few people had in
their homes, and it took a boxing match of all
things to change that. In nineteen twenty one, Jay Andrew
(01:14):
White was a thirty one year old Radio Corporation of
America employee who had served in the Army Signal Corps
in World War One. This meant that he was a
radio expert, which was still a new technology at the time,
and because of this, he was approached by promoters from
Madison Square Garden who had the crazy idea to transmit
the upcoming fight between world boxing champions Jack Dempsey and
(01:36):
George Carpontier. They wanted to transmit to different radios all
over New England and as far away as Ohio, and
charge people a fee to listen at various local theaters,
and White jumped at the chance to make this happen.
You see, at the time, radio was the domain of
hobbyists and the government, and he knew that this would
prove that the technology deserved a wider place in society.
(01:58):
Working with the team, he set about crew aiding the
infrastructure to make the broadcast possible. The fight would take
place in July at a makeshift arena in New Jersey,
and as such, there was no antenna or transmitter available
at the actual site of the fight. To find suitable equipment,
White and his team had to search far and wide.
The only suitable transmitter they could find belonged to the
(02:19):
United States Navy, and so they had a meeting with
none other than the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin
delan Or Roosevelt, the young future president, believed in helping
civilian projects whenever he could, and so he readily agreed
to lend the transmitter as long as the Navy received
a small cut of the profits. The transmitter was transported
to New Jersey, but it still needed an antenna. White
(02:42):
had to run a telephone line all the way from
the arena to a nearby train station, where he rigged
a massive antenna from a local clock tower. The transmitter
was housed at the station, and White had one of
the assistants guarded day and night. And after this, White
secured a broadcasting license from the government to broadcast his
own unique radio station called WJY. Amateurs were hired across
(03:06):
the country to man their own radio and speaker setups
at local theaters. The promoters did everything they could to
drum up interest in the big day, and then AT
and T came along and tried to ruin the whole thing.
The company, just a few decades old at the time,
came out of nowhere right before the fight and claimed
that they wouldn't allow one of their telephone lines to
(03:26):
be used in a radio broadcast. Essentially, they saw the
Radio Corporation of America RCA as a competitor and didn't
want to help them. White had to think up a
new plan on very short notice. His final workaround proved
to be his cleverest idea so far. He would report
on the fight from ringside, talking on the phone to
one of his assistants at the train station. They would
(03:49):
then type up the play by play commentary for yet
another assistant to read out over the radio. They even
had a gong in the booth to simulate the gong
from the ring. Listeners all over they would actually be
listening to a slightly delayed report of the fight, but
they were none the wiser. But the exciting commentary and
the sound of the gong, they were completely drawn in.
(04:09):
Some listeners even later reported that they could hear the
sound of the crowd, although this was entirely in their imagination.
Jack Dempsey knocked out George Carpontier in the fourth round,
and as excited as the people were to watch the
fight in New Jersey, hundreds of thousands of people around
the country were just as thrilled to be listening in
their own hometowns of course, they had no way of
(04:30):
knowing how much hard work had been done to make
it all possible. In fact, the assistant who read out
the fight over the radio, Jo Smith, ended the match
in worse shape than Carpontier. It seems that he was
temporarily blinded by the bright burning tubes of the radio
transmitter and even burned his hands when one of those
tubes exploded and had to be switched out mid fight.
(04:52):
But it did the trick. Over the next few years,
radio sales skyrocketed, and the rest is history. Men like
Jay Andrew White and Josia Smith let their curiosity guide them,
and it changed entertainment forever. Without them, you might not
be listening to me right now, So be thankful for that,
and for the later developments that made it possible for
your phone to do amazing things like not explode in
(05:15):
your hand or blind you. For most people, fear works
as evolution intended, keeping them out of dangerous situations. But
(05:36):
for others, fear is more of a challenge, a call
to face whatever obstacles might be standing in their way.
Cave divers definitely fall into that second category. They squeeze
into narrow spaces that most of us would only visit
in our nightmares, trying to prove to themselves that it
won't kill them. Most of the time they're right, but
sometimes the cave wins. A word of warning, the story
(05:57):
is not for those with claustrophobia. About an hour south
of Salt Lake City, Utah, is a place called Nutty
Putty Cave. It's not the kind of high ceilinged, stalactite
filled cave that you might be used to. It's a
series of very tight passages, most of them no bigger
than the opening of a washing machine. It was discovered
in nineteen sixty by diver Dale Green, who named it
(06:19):
after the clay that forms in its humid tunnels. Thousands
of divers flocked to the cave every year to test
themselves against its narrow, twisty passages, but the cave was
closed in two thousand and six after multiple rescue missions.
No one died, but one young man was hospitalized for days.
It was becoming too common for divers to go at
nights without proper equipment and then become stuck. Typically, rescue
(06:42):
teams had to then enter the cave, tie a rope
around the stuck person's foot, pulling them free. The cave
eventually reopened in two thousand and nine after the state
instituted an application process for visitors. Now they had to
prove that they had all the necessary training and equipment,
and that very same year, two brothers signed up, Josh
and John Jones. As kids, they'd been on many cave
(07:04):
exploration trips with their father, although they hadn't been on
any trips for a few years. They thought that it
would be a fun way to relive old memories, and
so they descended into the cave headlamps guiding their way.
They crawled through the biggest chamber, first known as the
Big Slide, which is big enough for a diver to
turn around in. But after this they wanted more of
a challenge. Josh and John decided to look for the
(07:27):
birth canal, a narrow passage that only the most experienced
divers could pass through. They proceeded through the most narrow
sections of the cave. These are such tight spaces that
you could stretch out your hand to where it's touching
both the top and the bottom of the cave. At once.
John was in the lead and he thought he was
approaching the birth canal. He thought the cave would open
up there where he could turn back around, but in reality,
(07:49):
he and Josh had made a wrong turn. They were
in an even more narrow, uncharted part of the cave.
Suddenly John fell forward, his body going from fully horizontal
to fully vertical. One arm was trapped underneath him and
the other arm trapped to his side. He was stuck
upside down. At first, Josh, still behind him, thought that
he could pull him free, but it was no use.
(08:12):
Josh crawled back out of the cave and called nine
to one one before returning to his brother. But the
climb from the spot where John was stuck can take
as much as one hour each way. By the time
rescue teams arrived, John was still conscious, but he was frightened.
They tried the traditional pulley system, hammering studs into the
cave walls that could then be rigged with ropes and
(08:32):
pulleys to try to create leverage to pull John out.
They also considered using vegetable oil to slide him out,
but none of these would work. As rescue diver Brandon
Kowala soon realized John was at such an angle that
he couldn't be pulled out without breaking his legs. There
wasn't enough space at the top of the tunnel for
his legs to clear. It would be like trying to
(08:53):
move a couch around a tight corner in an apartment
with no way to pivot. The rescue team even brought
power tools to try and chisel John out, but the
space was too narrow to angle them properly. Eventually, rescue
diver Brandon saw John's legs spasimen blood and fluid had
started to pool in his brain and lungs after being
(09:13):
upside down for hours. His blood couldn't circulate and had
become toxic. He couldn't breathe. John Jones passed away just
before midnight. It was a tragic end to what was
supposed to be a fun family outing. Even more tragically,
the divers couldn't recover John's body. The caves were finally
sealed with cement, having proven that they were more than
(09:35):
humans could handle. A plaque was left in John's honor.
It's a curious tomb, with several winding passageways going in
all directions, but only one of those passageways contains a body,
one that will forever be trapped upside down. I hope
(09:56):
you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities,
subscrib i pre free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more
about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The
show was created by me Aaron Manke in partnership with
how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
(10:18):
you can learn all about it over at the Worldolore
dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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