Bucket List

You came for some curious exhibits, and today's tour won't disappoint. Just keep an eye on your favorite bucket.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcomed Aaron Menke'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. Wars are not often fought for trivial reasons.
World War One started after the assassination of Archduke Fronts
Ferdinand of Austria Hungary, while World War Two officially began
after Hitler invaded Poland in nineteen thirty nine. Wars are

(00:50):
messy for both sides, so a cause must be justified.
That wasn't the case, however, when two Italian city states
went head to head in their reason was flimsy, nothing
more than a drop in a bucket. Since eleven medieval
Italy had been a battle ground between two factions, the

(01:10):
Guelfs and the Ghibellines. The Guelfs supported the Pope, while
the Ghibillines were on the side of the Holy Roman Empire,
both of whom desired to rule over all Christendom. The
Guelfs and the Ghibillines fought for over three hundred years,
during which time things came to a head between the
capital city of Bologna and the municipality of Modena and
northern Italy. This region was well educated and well off,

(01:33):
but the surplus of money and high literacy rates didn't
stop the two sides from fighting. The future of Christianity
was at stake, as was the land between them. Bologna
was firmly on the side of the Guelfs, while Modena
was Ghibilline territory, and both regions fought regularly over their borders.
One night, a group of Modanese soldiers crossed over into

(01:54):
Bologna without anyone noticing. With no one around a fight,
and not wanting to stir up any trouble, they absconded
with a bucket from a well in the middle of
the city. It was made of oak with iron bands
around it and a metal handle at the top. The
next morning, the Bolonese people noticed the bucket missing and
looked out only to see it on full display by
the enemy. They demanded it be returned at once and order,

(02:17):
which the Modonese ignored. The bucket was now a trophy,
a symbol of their superiority, and the Bolonese were out
of options. With no other course of action available, Bologna
declared war on Modena. The offended city raised an army
of over thirty thousand against Modana's paltry seven thousand men.
To make matters worse for the Modonese, they were stuck

(02:38):
on flat ground while the Bolony surrounded them from a
higher ground. And yet despite their weaker numbers and disadvantaged position,
Modana's army fought valiantly, pushing back against Bologna's forces and
forcing them to retreat. As the Bullonese fled back to
their home territory with their tails between their legs and
no bucket, Modena was close behind. They weren't about to

(03:00):
victory go to waste. They attacked Bologna, tearing down castles
and restricting its water supply, but that was about all
they did. Rather than burn the city to the ground,
Modenese soldiers chosen instead to carry out a humiliating display
of athletic prowess just outside its walls, an act that
was meant to shame the Bolonese for their defeat. Modena

(03:21):
also stole another bucket. About three thousand people died in
the Battle of Zeppolina, with Modena losing five men and
Bologna suffering a loss of It was a bloody fight
over nothing more than an absurd prank, or was it?
You See, that story is often told because of how
unlikely it seems, and that's exactly the problem with it.

(03:43):
It's too good to be true. Well, Dana did take
a bucket from Bologna, but that didn't spark a battle,
it ended it. What had really caused the skirmish was
a steady escalation of attacks on both sides. Bologna went
after Medana's territory in July. In August, and Modena retaliat
it in the fall. The two factions met in the
village of Zappollino, which resided in Bolognese territory. Their armies

(04:06):
varied wildly in size and skill. Modina may have only
had about seven thousand soldiers, but they were far better
trained than Bologna's massive force, which was why they were
able to defeat them so swiftly. The fight lasted about
two hours, and by the end Bologna had been beaten.
Modina then destroyed a sluice on the Reno River, which
cut off Bologna's water supply, and then Modina left, but

(04:29):
not before snatching the wooden bucket from a well outside
the city. After all, what was Bologna going to do
without water anyway. Today, a replica of the bucket hangs
in the bell tower at the Cathedral of Modena. Another
replica is kept under glass at city Hall. The real bucket, however,
is stored deep in the basement of the cathedral, and
the people of Bologna haven't stopped trying to steal it

(04:52):
back all these years later. Maybe they want to make
their city whole again, or maybe they're just itching for
a rematch. Halloween is considered the spookiest time of the year.

(05:16):
Children dress up as ghouls and goblins, terrorizing their neighborhoods
in search of candy, and knife wielding mannekins wearing hockey
masks during the lawns of homeowners looking to scare the
socks off of unsuspecting trick or treaters. It's a fun
time for everyone, or at least it's supposed to be.
The scares to be had at Halloween are meant to
be harmless fun, but in one small town in Pennsylvania

(05:40):
experienced a Halloween fright unlike any other, and it killed
almost two dozen people in the process. The borough of
Dinorah sits along the western edge of the state, about
fifty miles from the Ohio border. Though only two square
miles in size, Donora was once the hotbed of industrial activity.
It also claims Ken Griffey Senior and Junior as hometown heroes.

(06:02):
The burgeoning steel, coal, and agricultural industries brought thousands of
people to Donora in search of work. As of nineteen ten,
it was home to over eight thousand residents. That number
almost doubled once US Steel opened a zinc works facility
and a steel and wire plant in nineteen fifteen. But
with those jobs came something else, something deadly. It appeared

(06:24):
over the town on October twenty seven, nineteen forty eight,
only a few days before Halloween. The annual Children's Halloween
Parade was already under way, with kids of all ages
dressed up marching down the main street to show off
their costumes to parents and spectators lining the road. It
was a yellow cloud, almost like a mist, that covered everything,

(06:44):
and unlike a morning fog, which tends to dissipate after sunrise,
The sickening smug stuck around for days. The local high
school football game on October was almost unplayable, with neither
teen throwing any passes. The whole time. Someone would punt
the ball or kick it across the field and it
would be swallowed by the smog. People in the stands

(07:06):
had a hard and enough time getting to the field.
With such poor visibility on the roads, they couldn't see
anything happening on the field. Donora, by the way, lost
the game to seven. October also marked the first death
as a result of the smog. The victim died at
Donora Hospital around two o'clock in the morning of acute asthma.
In fact, nineteen more residents, including several from the next

(07:29):
town over, died from asthma or a related condition. The
smog had made it impossible for people to breathe. Those
who were still alive checked themselves into the hospital, which
quickly filled up with coughing and wheezing patients. A short
time later, the hospital had no choice but to turn
people away, and Dr William Rongauss walked the streets with
a lantern in his hand and guided ambulances to the

(07:51):
homes where they were needed. The most critical patients were
then carefully driven back to the hospital for oxygen. Fire
Department Chief Russell Davis navigated the dense cloud by scraping
his wheels along the curb as he drove. Anyone who
was still healthy enough to get out of Donora was
encouraged to do so. Unfortunately, the haze was so thick

(08:12):
it was impossible for anyone to see more than a
few inches in front of themselves, so driving out was
out of the question. Instead, many locals just hunkered down
indoors and waited it out. By Halloween Day, the smog
still hadn't lifted, It felt like it might never leave,
and the body count was rising. Finally, just before sunset
on Sunday, October thirty one, the cloud suddenly disappeared, just

(08:35):
as unceremoniously as it had arrived. So what had caused it? Well,
the same zinc plant that had brought jobs to Dinora
had also brought a lot of pollution as well. Local
farmers had actually sued U S Steel for killing their
crops and livestock back in the nineteen twenties, but the
company had fought back, and one in October of all

(08:57):
those zinc and metal pollutants were in the air as usual,
but this time other nature threw a wrench into the
mix in the form of a temperature inversion. Normally, as
the air rises into the atmosphere, it cools. The higher
it goes, the colder that air gets. However, in a
temperature inversion, a layer of cold air is covered by
a layer of warm air, trapping the cold air close

(09:18):
to the Earth's surface. For Donora, Pennsylvania, that cold air
was full of toxic gases and particulates, which formed a
yellow fog that covered the town. Experts believed that had
the smog stuck around any longer, thousands more would have died.
But despite the depths and the toxicity of the mills,
u S Steel was not run out of Donora. The

(09:39):
people there depended on the company for their livelihoods. Even
a government investigation refused to blame them for the twenty
deaths and the six thousand six, instead declaring the temperature
inversion as one of the main causes. The press, on
the other hand, was much less forgiving the story of
the Donora smog disaster of spread far and wide. A

(10:00):
piece was even published in the New Yorker magazine that
went into detail about the ordeal DeNora residents had gone through,
with some subtle hints as to what really caused it.
Some claim that the event kicked off the country's focus
on clean air and emissions, which in turn sparked the
enactment of the Clean Air Act in nineteen sixty three.
With a nationwide goal to reduce air pollutions signed into law,

(10:22):
the people of Donora could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
I hope you've enjoyed 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

(10:45):
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 next time, stay
curious as m