July 3, 2025 • 9 mins
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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.
(00:36):
John was sweating in his stiff uniform under the hot
studio lights. It was October fourth of nineteen fifty seven,
and all that morning he'd been focusing on music. This
wasn't unusual for John. As a test pilot, his mind
was usually on popular mechanics, not popular songs. Today, however,
he was turning in his pilot's license for a chance
(00:57):
to compete on a game show called Name That Tune.
As the cameras started rolling and the orchestra played, the
host of the show introduced John and Eddie, the ten
year old boy who'd be his partner on the show
that night. Noting that John was a military pilot, the
host went slightly off script to ask him a question
that the entire audience was probably wondering. What did he
(01:18):
think of the Russian satellite that was circling the globe
at that very moment. Beyond this being John's debut in
game show Stardom, October fourth of nineteen fifty seven was
the day that Russia launched Sputnik, the first man made satellite,
into orbit. John smiled and responded that this marked the
beginning of a new age of space travel, one that
perhaps his co contestant, Eddie, would participate in someday. John
(01:43):
didn't know it yet, but it was he, not Eddie,
that was about to shoot for the stars. Growing up
in Ohio, John had a fascination with planes from a
young age. After taking his first flight with his father
at eight years old, he spent hours making model planes
and imagining flying them through the clouds. As he grew older,
imagination turned into action. John obtained a private pilot's license
(02:05):
in college in nineteen forty one, clocking hundreds of hours
in the air. By the time the United States entered
World War II in December of forty one, John knew
what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a
fighter pilot for the US military. He served in the
Pacific as a marine pilot, flying fifty seven missions against
Japanese planes. By the time the Korean War rolled around
(02:27):
in the early nineteen fifties, John was known as a
fearless flyer who didn't hesitate to hunt down the Communist
forces faster, better equipped MiG fifteen jets. While he was
patrolling the skies over Korea, he had his first brush
with fame in the form of his wingman, Boston red
Sox Hall of Fame hitter Ted Williams, but in a
few short years it would be John and not Ted
(02:50):
making the headlines. After the war, John began working as
a test pilot for the Navy, and as the years
went on, John found himself behind a desk more often
than he was in the cockpit. Knowing if he didn't
act soon that he would be relegated to paperwork forever.
He came up with a scheme, one that would show
off the Navy's latest technology and cement his status as
(03:11):
a flying star. On July sixteenth of nineteen fifty seven,
John made the first ever supersonic transcontinental flight. He flew
from California to New York in just three hours and
twenty three seconds, a full twenty two minutes less than
the standing record. The moment he exited the cockpit in
New York. He entered a new world where he was
(03:33):
a celebrity. He was profiled in The New York Times
and invited to compete on the game show Name That Tune.
On that game show, he won twenty five thousand dollars,
which he used for his children's college fund. But the
money wasn't the biggest impact from the game show. John's
taping of Name That Tune just so happened to coincide
with the launching of Sputnik, Russia's first satellite, and while
(03:56):
Sputnik was a huge human achievement, it also spiked anxiety
across the globe. The US was terrified that if Russia
controlled space, it would control the world, and so the
race was on to master the final frontier. John shared
these fears. He had spent his whole career fighting America's
enemies in the sky, and if the fight was going
(04:17):
even higher than he wanted to join it. So once
the United States announced that they were recruiting astronauts for
its space program, he was one of the first to
apply and the first to make the cut. On February
twentieth of nineteen sixty two, John's dreams finally came true.
When the spaceship Friendship seven launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida,
(04:38):
John navigated several malfunctions and technical failures, forcing him to
take over manual operation of the spacecraft. Despite that, just
five hours later, they splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean,
and just like that, John Glenn became the first American
astronaut to safely orbit our planet, an achievement that wasn't
(04:58):
just incredible, it was literally out of this world. The
dawn of the twentieth century saw the invention of many
(05:18):
staples of our modern life. The motion picture was slowly
gaining ground as a popular entertainment rather than as a novelty.
The automobile was growing increasingly popular, and in the realm
of cuisine, sweetened carbonated soft drinks were becoming more and
more ubiquitous. While soft drinks had been around for over
one hundred years, the late eighteen hundreds saw the formation
(05:40):
of both Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola companies that would
define the market to the present day. Their immediate popularity
would also inspire a gold rush of food chemists and
entrepreneurs trying to gain a foothold in that market. Among
those was Charles Leiper Grigg, an ad man who saw
the value in creating a distinct drink to counter program
(06:02):
coke and pepsi. You see, both of those drinks were
Cola's extremely high in sugar. Greg believed that he could
invent a so called on coola, a soft drink that
would be just as appealing, but based on an entirely
different set of flavors and ingredients. His first experiment was
with an orange flavor profile, which led to the creation
of a soft drink called Whistle in nineteen nineteen. However,
(06:25):
disputes with the co founder of that company caused him
to disown the invention and strike out on his own.
He attempted to launch another orange drink independently, which he
called Howdy. However, this particular drink never took off. The
market was already being dominated by orange crush, an invention
of the nineteen tens. Greg soon realized that any future
(06:46):
success he might have with soft drinks would not be
among the oranges. He began exploring drinks that were based
not on an orange flavor but lemon. There were many
lemon drinks at the time, but they varied widely by
region and none had properly been franchised. There was no
lemon crush to steal his thunder. He tested a number
of different combinations of flavors around eleven most say, and
(07:09):
eventually settled on a formula that he thought would be
a runaway success. The formula included something called lithium citrate.
Lithium at the time was a popular mood stabilizer, and
it would become a central part of the SODA's marketing
campaign once it hit the shelves in nineteen twenty nine,
two weeks before the stock market crash that triggered the
(07:29):
Great Depression. A cheap beverage that made people feel better
would be in high demand as fortunes plummeted and millions
faced financial ruin. The drink was internally known as BIB
Label Lithiated Lemon Lime Carbonated Soda, but this name would
be a bit of a mouthful, no pun intended. The
marketers who were working with Griggs said that it would
(07:50):
need to be shortened to lithiated Lemon Soda in order
to fit more comfortably on advertisements, but that was not
a particularly catchy name either, not like whistle or the
name they settled on would be much catchier. But to
this day, historians are uncertain exactly where it came from.
It was either the atomic mass of lithium, the size
(08:10):
of the bottles in ounces, or a reference to the
number of ingredients in Grigg's final formula. But whatever the
truth is, we all know what they settled on. Here's
an early advertisement. It reads, seven surprises await you. Seven
natural flavors blended into a new drink. Delight you get
the intensified flavor resulting from the blending of flavors known
(08:31):
to you an invented sugar drink ninety six to one
hundred and four calories per bottle, and this drink, of course,
would be seven up. Almost a century later, it is
still regarded as one of the giants of the soda world,
although in the years since its invention certain adjustments have
needed to be made. Lithium citrate, for instance, is no
(08:53):
longer part of the recipe, but it still occupies the
same unique spot in the soda world that Grig carved
out six years ago. Not bad for a drink that
was once known as litheated lemon. I hope you've enjoyed
today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
(09:13):
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 you can
learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com.
(09:35):
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.
(00:36):
John was sweating in his stiff uniform under the hot
studio lights. It was October fourth of nineteen fifty seven,
and all that morning he'd been focusing on music. This
wasn't unusual for John. As a test pilot, his mind
was usually on popular mechanics, not popular songs. Today, however,
he was turning in his pilot's license for a chance
(00:57):
to compete on a game show called Name That Tune.
As the cameras started rolling and the orchestra played, the
host of the show introduced John and Eddie, the ten
year old boy who'd be his partner on the show
that night. Noting that John was a military pilot, the
host went slightly off script to ask him a question
that the entire audience was probably wondering. What did he
(01:18):
think of the Russian satellite that was circling the globe
at that very moment. Beyond this being John's debut in
game show Stardom, October fourth of nineteen fifty seven was
the day that Russia launched Sputnik, the first man made satellite,
into orbit. John smiled and responded that this marked the
beginning of a new age of space travel, one that
perhaps his co contestant, Eddie, would participate in someday. John
(01:43):
didn't know it yet, but it was he, not Eddie,
that was about to shoot for the stars. Growing up
in Ohio, John had a fascination with planes from a
young age. After taking his first flight with his father
at eight years old, he spent hours making model planes
and imagining flying them through the clouds. As he grew older,
imagination turned into action. John obtained a private pilot's license
(02:05):
in college in nineteen forty one, clocking hundreds of hours
in the air. By the time the United States entered
World War II in December of forty one, John knew
what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a
fighter pilot for the US military. He served in the
Pacific as a marine pilot, flying fifty seven missions against
Japanese planes. By the time the Korean War rolled around
(02:27):
in the early nineteen fifties, John was known as a
fearless flyer who didn't hesitate to hunt down the Communist
forces faster, better equipped MiG fifteen jets. While he was
patrolling the skies over Korea, he had his first brush
with fame in the form of his wingman, Boston red
Sox Hall of Fame hitter Ted Williams, but in a
few short years it would be John and not Ted
(02:50):
making the headlines. After the war, John began working as
a test pilot for the Navy, and as the years
went on, John found himself behind a desk more often
than he was in the cockpit. Knowing if he didn't
act soon that he would be relegated to paperwork forever.
He came up with a scheme, one that would show
off the Navy's latest technology and cement his status as
(03:11):
a flying star. On July sixteenth of nineteen fifty seven,
John made the first ever supersonic transcontinental flight. He flew
from California to New York in just three hours and
twenty three seconds, a full twenty two minutes less than
the standing record. The moment he exited the cockpit in
New York. He entered a new world where he was
(03:33):
a celebrity. He was profiled in The New York Times
and invited to compete on the game show Name That Tune.
On that game show, he won twenty five thousand dollars,
which he used for his children's college fund. But the
money wasn't the biggest impact from the game show. John's
taping of Name That Tune just so happened to coincide
with the launching of Sputnik, Russia's first satellite, and while
(03:56):
Sputnik was a huge human achievement, it also spiked anxiety
across the globe. The US was terrified that if Russia
controlled space, it would control the world, and so the
race was on to master the final frontier. John shared
these fears. He had spent his whole career fighting America's
enemies in the sky, and if the fight was going
(04:17):
even higher than he wanted to join it. So once
the United States announced that they were recruiting astronauts for
its space program, he was one of the first to
apply and the first to make the cut. On February
twentieth of nineteen sixty two, John's dreams finally came true.
When the spaceship Friendship seven launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida,
(04:38):
John navigated several malfunctions and technical failures, forcing him to
take over manual operation of the spacecraft. Despite that, just
five hours later, they splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean,
and just like that, John Glenn became the first American
astronaut to safely orbit our planet, an achievement that wasn't
(04:58):
just incredible, it was literally out of this world. The
dawn of the twentieth century saw the invention of many
(05:18):
staples of our modern life. The motion picture was slowly
gaining ground as a popular entertainment rather than as a novelty.
The automobile was growing increasingly popular, and in the realm
of cuisine, sweetened carbonated soft drinks were becoming more and
more ubiquitous. While soft drinks had been around for over
one hundred years, the late eighteen hundreds saw the formation
(05:40):
of both Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola companies that would
define the market to the present day. Their immediate popularity
would also inspire a gold rush of food chemists and
entrepreneurs trying to gain a foothold in that market. Among
those was Charles Leiper Grigg, an ad man who saw
the value in creating a distinct drink to counter program
(06:02):
coke and pepsi. You see, both of those drinks were
Cola's extremely high in sugar. Greg believed that he could
invent a so called on coola, a soft drink that
would be just as appealing, but based on an entirely
different set of flavors and ingredients. His first experiment was
with an orange flavor profile, which led to the creation
of a soft drink called Whistle in nineteen nineteen. However,
(06:25):
disputes with the co founder of that company caused him
to disown the invention and strike out on his own.
He attempted to launch another orange drink independently, which he
called Howdy. However, this particular drink never took off. The
market was already being dominated by orange crush, an invention
of the nineteen tens. Greg soon realized that any future
(06:46):
success he might have with soft drinks would not be
among the oranges. He began exploring drinks that were based
not on an orange flavor but lemon. There were many
lemon drinks at the time, but they varied widely by
region and none had properly been franchised. There was no
lemon crush to steal his thunder. He tested a number
of different combinations of flavors around eleven most say, and
(07:09):
eventually settled on a formula that he thought would be
a runaway success. The formula included something called lithium citrate.
Lithium at the time was a popular mood stabilizer, and
it would become a central part of the SODA's marketing
campaign once it hit the shelves in nineteen twenty nine,
two weeks before the stock market crash that triggered the
(07:29):
Great Depression. A cheap beverage that made people feel better
would be in high demand as fortunes plummeted and millions
faced financial ruin. The drink was internally known as BIB
Label Lithiated Lemon Lime Carbonated Soda, but this name would
be a bit of a mouthful, no pun intended. The
marketers who were working with Griggs said that it would
(07:50):
need to be shortened to lithiated Lemon Soda in order
to fit more comfortably on advertisements, but that was not
a particularly catchy name either, not like whistle or the
name they settled on would be much catchier. But to
this day, historians are uncertain exactly where it came from.
It was either the atomic mass of lithium, the size
(08:10):
of the bottles in ounces, or a reference to the
number of ingredients in Grigg's final formula. But whatever the
truth is, we all know what they settled on. Here's
an early advertisement. It reads, seven surprises await you. Seven
natural flavors blended into a new drink. Delight you get
the intensified flavor resulting from the blending of flavors known
(08:31):
to you an invented sugar drink ninety six to one
hundred and four calories per bottle, and this drink, of course,
would be seven up. Almost a century later, it is
still regarded as one of the giants of the soda world,
although in the years since its invention certain adjustments have
needed to be made. Lithium citrate, for instance, is no
(08:53):
longer part of the recipe, but it still occupies the
same unique spot in the soda world that Grig carved
out six years ago. Not bad for a drink that
was once known as litheated lemon. I hope you've enjoyed
today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
(09:13):
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 you can
learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com.
(09:35):
And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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