Eyes Wide Open

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Episode Transcript

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.

(00:36):
Charles Lindbergh is a controversial name in American history. He
was an aviator first, but in many ways he was
also one of the first American mass media celebrities, and
like so many celebrities, his downfall was as sharp as
his rise to fame. But before he was a household name,
he had to make his famous NonStop transatlantic flight. While

(00:57):
the average person might worry about mechanical failure or getting
lost at sea, for Charles, the only real issue was
staying awake for such a monumental undertaking. Charles approached his
transatlantic flights as if it were an everyday chore. In
the weeks leading up to his flight, he studied navigation
at his local library. He learned how to track the sun,

(01:17):
the moon, and the stars, and how to calculate his
rate of travel and rate of fuel loss. He needed
to be able to do these things in his head
because he couldn't bring much equipment on board. The plane
was small and made of wood and fabric. Like many
planes of the time, it couldn't handle a lot of weights,
and he would have to dedicate most of that to
the four hundred and fifty one gallons of gasoline that

(01:39):
he would need to make it all the way from
New York to Paris. That was the challenge issued by
an American businessman who wanted to see a pilot from
an Allied nation make a NonStop flight across the Atlantic.
He offered up twenty five thousand dollars as a prize,
which Charles aimed to win. In addition to the gasoline,
Charles packed a bottle of water and a bag of sandwiches,

(01:59):
and that was about it. You would think that he
was just taking a bus cross country, not crossing the
entire Atlantic on his own in a rickety plane. But
that's not to say that Charles wasn't nervous. In fact,
he didn't sleep at all the night before his flight,
and this was a problem because the trip was already
meant to take thirty hours. He'd have to remain alert
the entire time, So now he was running on fumes

(02:21):
at the start and facing another night without sleep, But
of course, this time he'd be hundreds of miles above
the ocean. He took off from New York the morning
of May twentieth, of nineteen twenty seven. The first few
hours were exhilarating and passed without issue. There's always that
first rush of adrenaline whenever you set out on a trip,
much less a historic flight. But by hour number four,

(02:43):
Charles's eyelids started to droop. He snapped awake. He had
to keep himself alert, and so he decided to drop
the plane into the ocean, now maybe not completely beneath
the waves, but just ten feet above the water to
keep himself frosty. The plane required more of his attention
at this height, and the sea spray was nice. He
also believed that planes traveled faster just above the water,

(03:05):
Although this was likely just a superstition. It was enough
to keep him awake for a few more hours, but
then nights started to fall. Imagine trying to keep yourself
awake in the pitch dark with a cool breeze blowing
across your face. He didn't even have the light from
the moon or the stars. As a fog crept across
the sky and engulfed his plane, there was nowhere to

(03:26):
land and nowhere to pull over. He had to keep
going at one hundred miles an hour into pitch black,
and then the sleet started. Icy chunks flicked across his
face and threatened to weigh down the plane. He had
to lower his altitude once again, while also keeping track
of his overall altitude in his head to ensure that
he didn't crash into the ocean. He considered closing the windows,

(03:48):
but then he thought better of it. The ice on
his face might have been painful, but this was the
first time in hours that he didn't feel like closing
his eyes. Finally, mercifully, he saw the sun on the
horizon through the fog until the fog was no more,
and once it dissipated, a welcome site appeared Ireland. He
was close to his destination. Just five hours later, he

(04:09):
finally arrived in Paris, exactly on time. He hadn't slept
for fifty five hours. He was greeted with overwhelming support
from the French people, but all he really wanted from
the French ambassador was a pair of pajamas. In the
years that followed, Charles received endless medals from the US
and other allied nations, but the nineteen thirties were a

(04:29):
traumatic time for him, and his infant son was infamously
kidnapped and murdered. While touring Germany, he saw firsthand the
might of the Nazi air force, and was so frightened
that he became an ardent proponent of isolationism, wanting to
keep America out of the war and blaming the British,
American Jews and Franklin Roosevelt for wanting to involve the US. Ultimately,

(04:50):
this lost him the support of the American people, and
it took him flying missions in the Pacific to regain
some of their respect. He was a complicated man who
quickly found himself out of his depth on the public stage.
Of all his accomplishments, though it's more than curious that
he remains most famous for simply keeping his eyes open.

(05:22):
There are few places on Earth as serene, quiet, and
downright lovely as New Zealand. The island nation is routinely
voted among the most peaceful countries on the planet, but
in the nineteen thirties, its rolling Green Hills were disturbed
by a series of shocking explosions. They weren't caused by
bombs or gunfire. Like the rest of the globe, New

(05:43):
Zealand was enjoying a brief pause between world wars, so
for a moment at least, there was no worry about fighting. Instead,
the explosions were caused by something so perplexing it left
many kiwis scratching their head and in a few cases
they're singed bottoms. The first part person affected was a
dairy farmer named Richard Buckley. One day in April of

(06:04):
nineteen thirty three, Buckley was clearing out a large infestation
of ragwart, a type of yellow flowering weed that's poisonous
to cows. The countryside was covered in this stuff, which
was a serious problem for Buckley because it cut down
on the area where his cattle could graze. After spending
hours killing the weeds, he decided to take a break
and headed inside to his farmhouse. He was just sitting

(06:25):
down to relax by the fire when his pants spontaneously exploded. Now,
fortunately for Buckley, he wasn't wearing them at the time,
having just hung the pants up to dry, but he
was standing close enough that the loud blast threw him backward.
Somehow he had enough presence of mind to scramble back
to his feet, grab the burning trousers, race to the door,

(06:46):
and hurl them out into the yard. It wasn't a
moment too soon. The pants continued to flash and smolder,
erupting in a series of small explosions until there was
almost nothing left of them. Now, as you might imagine,
Buckley was astonished and also relieved who escaped without injury.
But as he soon learned, this close call was just
the beginning. A few days later, a cowboy was riding

(07:07):
his horse through a neighboring farm when his blue jeans
burst into flames. Then another pair of pants detonated while
drying on a clothes line in the sun. In each case,
the fires burned with a strange, almost supernatural intensity, and
they were incredibly difficult to put out. Smothering the flames
with dirt or blankets did nothing. In most instances, the

(07:28):
farmers were forced to just stand back and watch while
their pants burned up. The incidents spread like wildfire. No
pun intended, I swear, and within a few short months,
New Zealand was in the midst of a full on
exploding trouser epidemic. Most of the victims escaped with little
more than burnt buttocks, but some were badly injured, and
there were at least two recorded deaths. And eventually the

(07:49):
affected farmers started to compare notes and realized what they
all had in common. Before their pants had exploded, they
had all been treating ragwort with the same weed killer,
a chemical herbie being pushed by the government known as
sodium chlorate. And here's the thing. While the compound is
effective at killing ragwart, it's also extremely volatile when it's dry.

(08:11):
The farmers always diluted the chemicals with water before spraying
the mixture on their plants, but some droplets inevitably blew
back on their legs, where they blended with the denim fibers.
When the pants dried, the water in the chemical mixture evaporated,
leaving behind tiny, highly flammable crystals. At that point, the
pants were primed for detonation, and it didn't take much

(08:32):
to set them off. Standing close to an open flame,
the friction of rubbing against a horse's saddle, or even
the heat of a sunny day could be enough to
trigger spontaneous combustion. Once the farmers realized their weed killer
was causing the fires, they stopped using it. They still
had a serious weed infestation on their hands, but that
problem eventually sorted itself out when the industry shifted from

(08:53):
dairy to sheep farming. Unlike cows, sheep can digest ragwort
and will eat it happily, making them a natural weedkiller,
and as an added bonus, they don't spontaneously explode, at
least not usually. But if I've learned anything, history has
a way of making exceptions out of every rule. I

(09:16):
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, and

(09:38):
you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore
dot com. And until next time, stay curious.