July 16, 2024 • 10 mins
Curious tales from both the future and the past are part of your tour through the Cabinet today.
Pre-order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading this November!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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):
Imagine that you're strolling along a beach searching for shells.
You wade through ankle deep water, keeping your eyes peeled
for anything bright, round, or shiny, and then suddenly your
foot brushes against something that feels like a large shell.
You reach your hand into the water and pull out
a glass bottle. But it's not mere trash. The bottle's
(00:56):
top is sealed and there's a letter inside. Discover a
message in a bottle. A find such as this would
be a thrill, a rare chance to hear from someone
all the way across the ocean. The letter's writer would
be a complete mystery to you, except for what they
choose to include in their message. And it makes you wonder,
what if you sent a message of your own, what
(01:19):
would you want the reader to know about you and
the world you come from? In the winter of nineteen
seventy six, a man named Carl began working on such
a message. But it wasn't a letter written in a bottle.
It was a record. Carl had a unique opportunity to
produce something for what could potentially be the biggest audience
the music world had ever known. Now, Carl was a scientist.
(01:41):
He didn't have a background in music, but it was
the nineteen seventies, an era known for musical innovation and experimentation. Plus,
Carl did have a background in math, and he was
fascinated with patterns found in music. However, he also knew
that a great record is more than just a series
of logical patterns, so he needed help from people who
knew more about music than he did. Carl reached out
(02:03):
to some friends and told them about the opportunity. He
explained how music serves as a universal language and told
them that he wanted this project to express human emotion
on a deeper level than any album had before. Carl's
friends found this fascinating they were eager to help him out,
but the project did come with one catch. They had
a few months to get it done, otherwise they would
(02:25):
miss their chance to release it. They had to work fast.
Oh and one more thing to know about the record
is that it was actually more of a mixtape, or,
if you're from the younger generation, a playlist. Carl and
his team weren't producing original tracks. They were compiling famous ones.
To some this might not sound like the best way
to make money, but Carl wasn't out to make a buck.
(02:46):
He was out to make history. His teammates were on
board with this too. Among others, Carlin listed two ethnomusicologists.
They use their knowledge of world music to teach Carl
how the mathematical rules of music can be broken. With
this core principle in mind, the team collected tracks. In all,
they gathered over ninety minutes of content. It included symphonies
(03:07):
by Beethoven and Bach, Chuck Berry's Johnny be Good Greetings
in fifty five languages, the Sound of a Mother kissing
her baby, and Whale Song. But perhaps one of the
most iconic tracks on the album is a recording of
Carl's wife's brain waves that was taken just a couple
of days after the pair got engaged. Many have referred
to this track as the sound of Love. Even with
(03:30):
all of this, though the team completed the project by
their deadline. They even had a little time to spare,
so they came up with another idea. Once all the
tracks were in place, the team thought about the vast
audience that could reach and considered ways to ensure that
it caught the listener's attention. And there was another catch too.
They were only creating one copy of this album, so
(03:52):
to honor its rarity, the team had the record plated
with gold, thus it became known as the Golden Record.
As a final touch, the Golden Record was coded in
a type of uranium that would take over eight billion
years to decay. In the summer of nineteen seventy seven,
it was time to release the Golden Record. There's one
final thing to know about it. Though it wasn't for
(04:12):
sale and the target audience wasn't even human. Carl and
his teammates produced the album for extraterrestrial listeners. You see.
Carl's full name was Carl Sagan, and he was a
world famous astronomer. As NASA prepared to launch the Voyager spacecraft,
Carl had been tasked with finding a way to mark
the ship's launch date and location in case aliens came
(04:34):
across the vessel in deep space. In the past, Carl
had designed plaques for this very same reason, but this
time he wanted to make something that would help alien
life understand the deep emotional complexity of human beings. The
project evolved to include all kinds of earthly wonders. The
record was plated in gold to show that it was
a special gift, and coded in long lasting uranium so
(04:55):
that other intelligent beings could determine how long it had
been in space. In twenty twelve, the Voyager became the
first spacecraft to cross into interstellar space. Only time will
tell whether another life form will find it and be
inspired by the curious creatures known as human beings. In
(05:28):
the year five twenty five BCE, thousands of Egyptian soldiers
stood at attention outside the city of Pelusium, the last
stronghold between their empire and the rugged wilderness of the
Sinai Peninsula. They tensed ready for battle as the Persian
army came into view. This was an old dance to
these soldiers. They had been there many times before, standing
(05:49):
on the battlefield waiting for their enemy, and nearly every
time before they had fended off the invaders. They were
confident that this time would be no different. At least
they were on That was until they heard the sound
that would signal the end of the ancient Egyptian Empire,
the plaintive innocent miao of a cat. The ancient Battle
(06:09):
of Pelusium may have been one of the earliest examples
of an enemy using psychological warfare. Yet one of the
most surprising things about the battle, and in fact, the
entire downfall of Egypt, was that it was supposedly in
response to a petty insult several years before. The Persian
king Cambiasis the Second wanted to strengthen relations between his
(06:30):
kingdom and Egypt, and so he asked the pharaoh Amasus
to send a daughter to him to marry. Amasis was
reluctant to do so, so he sent another woman to Persia,
claiming that she was his daughter. When Cambisas discovered the deception,
he declared war. As the Persians were preparing to invade,
Amasus died, leaving his inexperienced son saw Metek, the third
(06:52):
in charge of the empire. Never having fought a war before,
he prepared to meet the invaders at Pelusium, the city
that guarded the entry to the Nile Delta, although he'd
only been pharaoh for six months. As his scout spotted
Cambiasis's troops heading toward the city, he felt completely confident
that his soldiers were ready to repel the Persian invaders,
and the poor young pharaoh didn't count on Cambiass's unorthodox tactics.
(07:17):
Cambisis believed in knowing his enemy and exploiting even the
smallest weaknesses. He was fascinated with ancient Egyptian culture, and
he knew that at this time, animals were revered by Egyptians.
Many were associated with certain gods and goddesses, and harming
animals was seen as an affront to their divine representative.
As a result, Egyptians were mainly pescatarians, eating mostly grains, vegetables,
(07:41):
and fish. One of the most sacred animals in Egyptian
culture was the cat. They were the special favorites of
the goddess Bastet, who was pictured with a woman's body
in a cat's head. Bastet was a goddess of the
domestic realm, associated with fertility, childbirth, motherhood, and the home,
but was also associated with metting out harsh justice for wrongdoers.
(08:05):
As a result, Egyptians venerated cats, even mummifying them. When
they died, mournful owners would shave their eyebrows to show
their grief. The punishment for killing a cat was harsh
as well. On earth, you were put to death, then
in the afterlife you had to face Bastet's wrath. Knowing
all this, Cambiasis unleashed a veritable army of sacred animals
(08:27):
against the Egyptians. He drove dogs, sheep, birds, dozens upon
dozens of cats, all in front of his soldiers, placing
them at the center of the battlefield. He had his
soldiers paint the cat headed goddess Bastet on their shields
and faced them toward the Egyptian army, and the impact
was immediate. The Egyptians couldn't harm these sacred animals, especially
(08:49):
with their own goddess staring them down from their enemies shields.
They beat a hasty retreat, signaling surrender to the Persians.
The defeats at Pelusium marked the beginning of the end
for Egypt. The Persian army followed the retreating Egyptians, slaughtering
any who remained behind. They chased the Egyptians down the
Nile to the empire's capital at Memphis, and there they
(09:11):
laid siege to the city, ultimately capturing it and imprisoning pharosamitec.
Egypt passed from Persian hands to the Greeks, and eventually
to the Romans. Except for a handful of years here
and there. Ancient Egypt was never again under its own control.
Two thousand, six hundred years of empire, and it was
all lost in one single game of cat and mouse.
(09:39):
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 Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
(10:01):
and you can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore
dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
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):
Imagine that you're strolling along a beach searching for shells.
You wade through ankle deep water, keeping your eyes peeled
for anything bright, round, or shiny, and then suddenly your
foot brushes against something that feels like a large shell.
You reach your hand into the water and pull out
a glass bottle. But it's not mere trash. The bottle's
(00:56):
top is sealed and there's a letter inside. Discover a
message in a bottle. A find such as this would
be a thrill, a rare chance to hear from someone
all the way across the ocean. The letter's writer would
be a complete mystery to you, except for what they
choose to include in their message. And it makes you wonder,
what if you sent a message of your own, what
(01:19):
would you want the reader to know about you and
the world you come from? In the winter of nineteen
seventy six, a man named Carl began working on such
a message. But it wasn't a letter written in a bottle.
It was a record. Carl had a unique opportunity to
produce something for what could potentially be the biggest audience
the music world had ever known. Now, Carl was a scientist.
(01:41):
He didn't have a background in music, but it was
the nineteen seventies, an era known for musical innovation and experimentation. Plus,
Carl did have a background in math, and he was
fascinated with patterns found in music. However, he also knew
that a great record is more than just a series
of logical patterns, so he needed help from people who
knew more about music than he did. Carl reached out
(02:03):
to some friends and told them about the opportunity. He
explained how music serves as a universal language and told
them that he wanted this project to express human emotion
on a deeper level than any album had before. Carl's
friends found this fascinating they were eager to help him out,
but the project did come with one catch. They had
a few months to get it done, otherwise they would
(02:25):
miss their chance to release it. They had to work fast.
Oh and one more thing to know about the record
is that it was actually more of a mixtape, or,
if you're from the younger generation, a playlist. Carl and
his team weren't producing original tracks. They were compiling famous ones.
To some this might not sound like the best way
to make money, but Carl wasn't out to make a buck.
(02:46):
He was out to make history. His teammates were on
board with this too. Among others, Carlin listed two ethnomusicologists.
They use their knowledge of world music to teach Carl
how the mathematical rules of music can be broken. With
this core principle in mind, the team collected tracks. In all,
they gathered over ninety minutes of content. It included symphonies
(03:07):
by Beethoven and Bach, Chuck Berry's Johnny be Good Greetings
in fifty five languages, the Sound of a Mother kissing
her baby, and Whale Song. But perhaps one of the
most iconic tracks on the album is a recording of
Carl's wife's brain waves that was taken just a couple
of days after the pair got engaged. Many have referred
to this track as the sound of Love. Even with
(03:30):
all of this, though the team completed the project by
their deadline. They even had a little time to spare,
so they came up with another idea. Once all the
tracks were in place, the team thought about the vast
audience that could reach and considered ways to ensure that
it caught the listener's attention. And there was another catch too.
They were only creating one copy of this album, so
(03:52):
to honor its rarity, the team had the record plated
with gold, thus it became known as the Golden Record.
As a final touch, the Golden Record was coded in
a type of uranium that would take over eight billion
years to decay. In the summer of nineteen seventy seven,
it was time to release the Golden Record. There's one
final thing to know about it. Though it wasn't for
(04:12):
sale and the target audience wasn't even human. Carl and
his teammates produced the album for extraterrestrial listeners. You see.
Carl's full name was Carl Sagan, and he was a
world famous astronomer. As NASA prepared to launch the Voyager spacecraft,
Carl had been tasked with finding a way to mark
the ship's launch date and location in case aliens came
(04:34):
across the vessel in deep space. In the past, Carl
had designed plaques for this very same reason, but this
time he wanted to make something that would help alien
life understand the deep emotional complexity of human beings. The
project evolved to include all kinds of earthly wonders. The
record was plated in gold to show that it was
a special gift, and coded in long lasting uranium so
(04:55):
that other intelligent beings could determine how long it had
been in space. In twenty twelve, the Voyager became the
first spacecraft to cross into interstellar space. Only time will
tell whether another life form will find it and be
inspired by the curious creatures known as human beings. In
(05:28):
the year five twenty five BCE, thousands of Egyptian soldiers
stood at attention outside the city of Pelusium, the last
stronghold between their empire and the rugged wilderness of the
Sinai Peninsula. They tensed ready for battle as the Persian
army came into view. This was an old dance to
these soldiers. They had been there many times before, standing
(05:49):
on the battlefield waiting for their enemy, and nearly every
time before they had fended off the invaders. They were
confident that this time would be no different. At least
they were on That was until they heard the sound
that would signal the end of the ancient Egyptian Empire,
the plaintive innocent miao of a cat. The ancient Battle
(06:09):
of Pelusium may have been one of the earliest examples
of an enemy using psychological warfare. Yet one of the
most surprising things about the battle, and in fact, the
entire downfall of Egypt, was that it was supposedly in
response to a petty insult several years before. The Persian
king Cambiasis the Second wanted to strengthen relations between his
(06:30):
kingdom and Egypt, and so he asked the pharaoh Amasus
to send a daughter to him to marry. Amasis was
reluctant to do so, so he sent another woman to Persia,
claiming that she was his daughter. When Cambisas discovered the deception,
he declared war. As the Persians were preparing to invade,
Amasus died, leaving his inexperienced son saw Metek, the third
(06:52):
in charge of the empire. Never having fought a war before,
he prepared to meet the invaders at Pelusium, the city
that guarded the entry to the Nile Delta, although he'd
only been pharaoh for six months. As his scout spotted
Cambiasis's troops heading toward the city, he felt completely confident
that his soldiers were ready to repel the Persian invaders,
and the poor young pharaoh didn't count on Cambiass's unorthodox tactics.
(07:17):
Cambisis believed in knowing his enemy and exploiting even the
smallest weaknesses. He was fascinated with ancient Egyptian culture, and
he knew that at this time, animals were revered by Egyptians.
Many were associated with certain gods and goddesses, and harming
animals was seen as an affront to their divine representative.
As a result, Egyptians were mainly pescatarians, eating mostly grains, vegetables,
(07:41):
and fish. One of the most sacred animals in Egyptian
culture was the cat. They were the special favorites of
the goddess Bastet, who was pictured with a woman's body
in a cat's head. Bastet was a goddess of the
domestic realm, associated with fertility, childbirth, motherhood, and the home,
but was also associated with metting out harsh justice for wrongdoers.
(08:05):
As a result, Egyptians venerated cats, even mummifying them. When
they died, mournful owners would shave their eyebrows to show
their grief. The punishment for killing a cat was harsh
as well. On earth, you were put to death, then
in the afterlife you had to face Bastet's wrath. Knowing
all this, Cambiasis unleashed a veritable army of sacred animals
(08:27):
against the Egyptians. He drove dogs, sheep, birds, dozens upon
dozens of cats, all in front of his soldiers, placing
them at the center of the battlefield. He had his
soldiers paint the cat headed goddess Bastet on their shields
and faced them toward the Egyptian army, and the impact
was immediate. The Egyptians couldn't harm these sacred animals, especially
(08:49):
with their own goddess staring them down from their enemies shields.
They beat a hasty retreat, signaling surrender to the Persians.
The defeats at Pelusium marked the beginning of the end
for Egypt. The Persian army followed the retreating Egyptians, slaughtering
any who remained behind. They chased the Egyptians down the
Nile to the empire's capital at Memphis, and there they
(09:11):
laid siege to the city, ultimately capturing it and imprisoning pharosamitec.
Egypt passed from Persian hands to the Greeks, and eventually
to the Romans. Except for a handful of years here
and there. Ancient Egypt was never again under its own control.
Two thousand, six hundred years of empire, and it was
all lost in one single game of cat and mouse.
(09:39):
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 Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
(10:01):
and you can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore
dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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