June 24, 2025 • 10 mins
Sometimes bringing in an outsider can be destructive, while other times it creates progress. Either way, these two tales give us a curious view of history.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke'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. Nightingale, lark, falcon, crow, snipe, loon, seagull, heron, turtle, dove, magpie.
(00:45):
What do these birds all have in common? Well, here's
a hint in the form of a quote. The cuckoo,
then on every tree mocks married men, for thus sings
he cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo. That's right. All these birds appear
in the works of William Shakespeare, which is perhaps a
fancy way of saying that they were all common knowledge
(01:06):
in Elizabethan England. Throughout the Bard's works, birds are a
flexible metaphor, their symbols for pining love, for men and women,
behaving like fools, for the devastation wrought by war. More
than sixty species of birds come up this way. Romeo
and Juliet famously argue over the call of a nightingale
or a Lark, an argument that stands for the fear
(01:28):
that dawn has come and Romeo must flee for his life.
Over the years, Shakespeare's work has been viewed through various
cultural lenses and experience growing pains when it traveled from
England to America. As the new cultural identity of the
United States emerged, British actors looked down on Americans trying
to perform the Bard's greatest works. Different acting styles emerged,
(01:51):
and arguments within the theatrical world began that continue to
this present day. But did you know that Shakespeare's influence
on the New World was a little more than cultural.
There was even an environmental impact as well. In eighteen
ninety fifty one, years after the Macbeth inspired Astor Place
riots that we've already covered on this show, a man
(02:12):
named Eugene Shefflin stepped out into New York's Central Park.
As the story goes, he was a huge fan of
William Shakespeare and also an amateur ornithologist. This man just
loved birds, and when he traveled to Central Park that day,
he brought with him sixty European starlings that he had
imported with some help. You see, he was an influential
(02:33):
member of the American Acclimization Society, a group that sought
to introduce European flora and fauna to America. They had
previously introduced European sparrows and blackbirds to Central Park and
were eager to see how successful starlings would be. Shefflin
first released sixty starlings and then came back with forty more.
(02:54):
They eagerly found home amongst the hollows in the trees,
muscling out the other birds. Unlike a ten to introduce
the nightingale, bullfinches, and skylarks, this one was a success,
for better or for worse. Over the following decades, the
United States realized that as a group, starlings were something
of a menace. They proliferated madly across the country, eventually
(03:17):
reaching a population of two hundred million in the US alone,
and when commercial aviation took off, starlings were their biggest problem.
The most deadly bird strike of all time occurred in
nineteen sixty when starlings brought down an airplane as it
took off from Boston. Despite their size, their bodies are
extremely dense, making them a hazard for aircraft of all types.
(03:40):
And damage they do to farmers crops numbers in the
billions of dollars, stealing grain and produce. Experts have pointed
out that declining numbers of woodpeckers and bluebirds could be
attributed to how many starlings live in the continental us.
Whether this is true or not, the result is a startling.
One European starling, one of the few bird species that
(04:01):
are unprotected by law. Hunters and trappers can kill as
many as they like without consequence, as could farmers who
want to protect their crops from these creatures. Of course,
they are so small that they evade most natural predators,
and the same is true for human hunters. They're just
too little and too many to fully control. And all
of this because of Shakespeare and a single line in
(04:24):
Henry the fourth Part one, Act one, Scene three. In
the scene, one of the characters reflects on the king's
attitude toward one of his enemies, and I quote he
said he would not ransom Mortimer, forbade my tongue to
speak of Mortimer. But I will find him when he
lies asleep, and in his ear, I'll hollow Mortimer. Nay,
(04:44):
I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing
but Mortimer, and give it to him to keep his
anger still in motion. And it makes you wonder if
Shakespeare had not chosen this particular metaphor for the rant,
the entire landscape of North America might be different. It
feels like, in discussing the trajectory of the European starlings,
(05:05):
we've discovered a new version of the butterfly effect. Maybe
we should call it the Starling effect. Now that's something
that would be worth writing a play about. In nineteen
(05:28):
fifty five, Soviet newspapers were awash with stories on the
future of space exploration. Humankind was not destined to remain
on Earth. They insisted, our future lay in the stars,
and the charge into that great unknown would be led
not by the West but by the Russians. And cementing
these bold proclamations was a somewhat mundane development. Moscow had
(05:50):
just approved the formation of a new commission to study
interplanetary space. In other words, nothing had been built yet.
The science still had to be done, but the so
Soviet Union was ready to spend the rubles to make
it happen. The news was picked up by the American media.
Sources setting off alarm bells in Washington, DC. In July,
(06:10):
the Eisenhower administration announced plans to launch a satellite into
orbit by nineteen fifty eight, and thus the spark had
been lit, thrusters primed and ready, all systems go. The
space race had begun. But here's the thing. Though Soviet
articles that stirred the US into action, they were a lie,
or at least a massive exaggeration. The man behind them
(06:34):
was a scientist named Sergei Korlev, who had spent the
last decade building missiles for the Soviet Union. Korlev was
convinced that his rockets had greater purposes than just blowing
people up, and had recently lobbied the Soviet government to
create a satellite program. The response had been lukewarm at best.
Moscow wasn't interested in throwing away money on science without
(06:56):
a clear military purpose. But Korlev wasn't to give up.
He rewrote the proposal for a less expensive program and
then got to work drumming up enthusiasm. He put out
speculative articles that first got Russians and then Americans hyped
about the possibilities of space travel, and then, when Washington
took the bait, Korlov knew his gambit had paid off.
(07:18):
Soviet leadership reversed course, embracing the program that he had
asked for, and suddenly he had everything he needed, permission, funding,
and the authority to move forward. And move forward he did.
Korlev personally oversaw the design and construction of the world's
first artificial satellite, Sputnik I. The polished metal sphere equipped
(07:39):
with four and ten I was small, simple, and built
in record time. On October fourth of nineteen fifty seven,
it was launched into orbit with an R seven intercontinental
ballistic missile, the first rocket of its kind engineered by
Korlev himself. The launch of Sputnik ignited a frenzy in
the West, spurrying the US government to accelerate its own
(08:00):
space program. Meanwhile, Korlev's bosses in Moscow were over the moon.
No pun intended with his splashy success and gave him
the green light for even more ambitious projects. Korlev didn't
let the momentum go to waste either. Just a month
after Sputnik one, he launched Sputnik two, carrying the first
living passenger into orbit, a dog named Laika. Then in
(08:22):
nineteen sixty one, he achieved the unthinkable. He put the
first human, Yuri Gagarin, into space aboard the vostok Ie.
Every major Soviet space milestone of the era bore his fingerprints.
Yet despite all he had done for the Soviet Union,
Moscow kept the identity of Sputnik's creator a secret until
after his death, almost like they were ashamed of their
(08:44):
greatest rocket scientists. And maybe they were. You see, at
the time Korlev started his space program, he was technically
a political prisoner. In nineteen thirty eight, during Stalin's purges,
he was arrested on falsified charges of anti Soviet activities
and sent to the Gulag, where he nearly died of
malnutrition and abuse. Only the desperate need for missile engineers
(09:07):
during World War II saved his life. He was quietly
pulled from the camps and forced to work under strict
supervision designing weapons for a regime that had nearly killed him.
Even after his later rehabilitation, Korlev remained under constant surveillance,
unable to travel abroad or even be publicly named as
the leader of the Soviet space program. But there was
(09:30):
an even more damning reason Moscow might have wanted to
keep his identity under wraps one that undermines the Soviet
Union's early claim to superiority in the space race, because
the man who created Sputnik didn't even call the Soviet
Union home. That's right, Sergei Korlov wasn't Russian. He was
(09:50):
born in Ukraine. 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
(10:13):
winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
and television show, and you can learn all about it
over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manke'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. Nightingale, lark, falcon, crow, snipe, loon, seagull, heron, turtle, dove, magpie.
(00:45):
What do these birds all have in common? Well, here's
a hint in the form of a quote. The cuckoo,
then on every tree mocks married men, for thus sings
he cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo. That's right. All these birds appear
in the works of William Shakespeare, which is perhaps a
fancy way of saying that they were all common knowledge
(01:06):
in Elizabethan England. Throughout the Bard's works, birds are a
flexible metaphor, their symbols for pining love, for men and women,
behaving like fools, for the devastation wrought by war. More
than sixty species of birds come up this way. Romeo
and Juliet famously argue over the call of a nightingale
or a Lark, an argument that stands for the fear
(01:28):
that dawn has come and Romeo must flee for his life.
Over the years, Shakespeare's work has been viewed through various
cultural lenses and experience growing pains when it traveled from
England to America. As the new cultural identity of the
United States emerged, British actors looked down on Americans trying
to perform the Bard's greatest works. Different acting styles emerged,
(01:51):
and arguments within the theatrical world began that continue to
this present day. But did you know that Shakespeare's influence
on the New World was a little more than cultural.
There was even an environmental impact as well. In eighteen
ninety fifty one, years after the Macbeth inspired Astor Place
riots that we've already covered on this show, a man
(02:12):
named Eugene Shefflin stepped out into New York's Central Park.
As the story goes, he was a huge fan of
William Shakespeare and also an amateur ornithologist. This man just
loved birds, and when he traveled to Central Park that day,
he brought with him sixty European starlings that he had
imported with some help. You see, he was an influential
(02:33):
member of the American Acclimization Society, a group that sought
to introduce European flora and fauna to America. They had
previously introduced European sparrows and blackbirds to Central Park and
were eager to see how successful starlings would be. Shefflin
first released sixty starlings and then came back with forty more.
(02:54):
They eagerly found home amongst the hollows in the trees,
muscling out the other birds. Unlike a ten to introduce
the nightingale, bullfinches, and skylarks, this one was a success,
for better or for worse. Over the following decades, the
United States realized that as a group, starlings were something
of a menace. They proliferated madly across the country, eventually
(03:17):
reaching a population of two hundred million in the US alone,
and when commercial aviation took off, starlings were their biggest problem.
The most deadly bird strike of all time occurred in
nineteen sixty when starlings brought down an airplane as it
took off from Boston. Despite their size, their bodies are
extremely dense, making them a hazard for aircraft of all types.
(03:40):
And damage they do to farmers crops numbers in the
billions of dollars, stealing grain and produce. Experts have pointed
out that declining numbers of woodpeckers and bluebirds could be
attributed to how many starlings live in the continental us.
Whether this is true or not, the result is a startling.
One European starling, one of the few bird species that
(04:01):
are unprotected by law. Hunters and trappers can kill as
many as they like without consequence, as could farmers who
want to protect their crops from these creatures. Of course,
they are so small that they evade most natural predators,
and the same is true for human hunters. They're just
too little and too many to fully control. And all
of this because of Shakespeare and a single line in
(04:24):
Henry the fourth Part one, Act one, Scene three. In
the scene, one of the characters reflects on the king's
attitude toward one of his enemies, and I quote he
said he would not ransom Mortimer, forbade my tongue to
speak of Mortimer. But I will find him when he
lies asleep, and in his ear, I'll hollow Mortimer. Nay,
(04:44):
I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing
but Mortimer, and give it to him to keep his
anger still in motion. And it makes you wonder if
Shakespeare had not chosen this particular metaphor for the rant,
the entire landscape of North America might be different. It
feels like, in discussing the trajectory of the European starlings,
(05:05):
we've discovered a new version of the butterfly effect. Maybe
we should call it the Starling effect. Now that's something
that would be worth writing a play about. In nineteen
(05:28):
fifty five, Soviet newspapers were awash with stories on the
future of space exploration. Humankind was not destined to remain
on Earth. They insisted, our future lay in the stars,
and the charge into that great unknown would be led
not by the West but by the Russians. And cementing
these bold proclamations was a somewhat mundane development. Moscow had
(05:50):
just approved the formation of a new commission to study
interplanetary space. In other words, nothing had been built yet.
The science still had to be done, but the so
Soviet Union was ready to spend the rubles to make
it happen. The news was picked up by the American media.
Sources setting off alarm bells in Washington, DC. In July,
(06:10):
the Eisenhower administration announced plans to launch a satellite into
orbit by nineteen fifty eight, and thus the spark had
been lit, thrusters primed and ready, all systems go. The
space race had begun. But here's the thing. Though Soviet
articles that stirred the US into action, they were a lie,
or at least a massive exaggeration. The man behind them
(06:34):
was a scientist named Sergei Korlev, who had spent the
last decade building missiles for the Soviet Union. Korlev was
convinced that his rockets had greater purposes than just blowing
people up, and had recently lobbied the Soviet government to
create a satellite program. The response had been lukewarm at best.
Moscow wasn't interested in throwing away money on science without
(06:56):
a clear military purpose. But Korlev wasn't to give up.
He rewrote the proposal for a less expensive program and
then got to work drumming up enthusiasm. He put out
speculative articles that first got Russians and then Americans hyped
about the possibilities of space travel, and then, when Washington
took the bait, Korlov knew his gambit had paid off.
(07:18):
Soviet leadership reversed course, embracing the program that he had
asked for, and suddenly he had everything he needed, permission, funding,
and the authority to move forward. And move forward he did.
Korlev personally oversaw the design and construction of the world's
first artificial satellite, Sputnik I. The polished metal sphere equipped
(07:39):
with four and ten I was small, simple, and built
in record time. On October fourth of nineteen fifty seven,
it was launched into orbit with an R seven intercontinental
ballistic missile, the first rocket of its kind engineered by
Korlev himself. The launch of Sputnik ignited a frenzy in
the West, spurrying the US government to accelerate its own
(08:00):
space program. Meanwhile, Korlev's bosses in Moscow were over the moon.
No pun intended with his splashy success and gave him
the green light for even more ambitious projects. Korlev didn't
let the momentum go to waste either. Just a month
after Sputnik one, he launched Sputnik two, carrying the first
living passenger into orbit, a dog named Laika. Then in
(08:22):
nineteen sixty one, he achieved the unthinkable. He put the
first human, Yuri Gagarin, into space aboard the vostok Ie.
Every major Soviet space milestone of the era bore his fingerprints.
Yet despite all he had done for the Soviet Union,
Moscow kept the identity of Sputnik's creator a secret until
after his death, almost like they were ashamed of their
(08:44):
greatest rocket scientists. And maybe they were. You see, at
the time Korlev started his space program, he was technically
a political prisoner. In nineteen thirty eight, during Stalin's purges,
he was arrested on falsified charges of anti Soviet activities
and sent to the Gulag, where he nearly died of
malnutrition and abuse. Only the desperate need for missile engineers
(09:07):
during World War II saved his life. He was quietly
pulled from the camps and forced to work under strict
supervision designing weapons for a regime that had nearly killed him.
Even after his later rehabilitation, Korlev remained under constant surveillance,
unable to travel abroad or even be publicly named as
the leader of the Soviet space program. But there was
(09:30):
an even more damning reason Moscow might have wanted to
keep his identity under wraps one that undermines the Soviet
Union's early claim to superiority in the space race, because
the man who created Sputnik didn't even call the Soviet
Union home. That's right, Sergei Korlov wasn't Russian. He was
(09:50):
born in Ukraine. 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
(10:13):
winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
and television show, and you can learn all about it
over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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