March 14, 2023 • 10 mins
Some people come up with curious ideas that are worth talking about long after they're gone. Today's tour covers two of those tales.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio 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 of Curiosities.
(00:36):
Sometimes you just want to pack your bags and get
away from it all for a while, and a regular
vacation just won't cut it. You need sun, you need sand,
You need your own micronation. A micronation is a piece
of territory whose residence demand that they be recognized as
an independent nation. However, they're usually tiny and rarely considered
self governing because they don't technically exist under international lot.
(01:00):
Most micro nations never get the approval they need from
the other countries. That doesn't mean people stop trying, though.
Plenty of people have attempted to form their own micronations
in the past hundred years, people like Lester. Lester was
born on April first of nineteen fifteen and was the
baby of the family. He already had an older brother
far away fighting in the Great War, and four older
(01:22):
sisters who didn't have much time for a toddler, with
his sisters outmost of the day and his doctor father
making house calls. Little Lester was largely raised by his
mother and his grandparents. He became fascinated with his absent brother,
always playing with his old toys, going through his books,
and trying on his clothes. To Lester, there was no
one better in the world than his big brother, Ernie.
(01:44):
Ernie didn't always feel the same, as anyone with little
siblings knows, they get on your nerves better than anyone else.
Ernie called him Lester de Pester, which was later lovingly
shortened to the Pest. Still, Lester watched everything his big
brother did and even dreamed of being an ambulance driver
and a writer when he grew up, just like Ernie.
(02:06):
That would certainly come to pass. In nineteen forty one,
when the United States entered World War Two, Lester served
in both France and Germany, and those experiences would make
up the bulk of his first novel, The Sound of
the Trumpet, published in nineteen fifty three. He wrote six
other books, but couldn't quite catch up to his brother.
Of all his books, The Biography of his brother, published
(02:27):
in nineteen sixty two was the most successful. You see,
his brother Ernest Miller Hemingway had more influence on Lester
than anyone, which made his untimely death in July of
nineteen sixty one all the more heartbreaking. There was a
hole in Leicester Depestor's life, and he decided to fill
it with the money from the sale of his book
My Brother Ernest Hemingway. Lester resolved to get away from
(02:50):
it all. He would start his own country. He relied
heavily on something called the Guano Islands Act of eighteen
fifty six, which basically said any US citizen could claim
and mine any unclaimed island that contained soil enriching guano deposits,
guano being accumulated bird droppings, which certainly wouldn't make my
top ten of beach destinations. But to each their own. Now,
(03:14):
were there a large number of bird poop islands waiting
to be claimed? No? But did that stop Lester from
creating his own micronation also No. On July fourth of
nineteen sixty four, Lester wrote a good sized homemade raft
a few miles off the coast of Jamaica. Once he'd
found his perfect destination. He tied his raft to an
old car engine and dropped anchor. This, he declared, was
(03:36):
the micronation of New Atlantis. Well, at least half of
it was. The half of his raft was New Atlantis.
The rest belonged to the United States, in keeping with
the Guano Act, which said that any claimed island had
to be claimed on behalf of the US of A.
Couldn't just have American citizens creating new countries, willy nilly,
could we? Lester took his new country extremely seriously. He
(03:59):
wrote an institution, or he borrowed one anyway. Really it
was just the United States Constitution, with New Atlantis replacing
United States in the text. His wife Doris, created a flag,
and Lester even created a national currency of carabeans and
shark teeth, which he called scruples. Oh yeah, Lester wasn't
Alane out there. Sure, the raft was small, but he
(04:21):
had plans to expand. For the permanent residence. His wife
and two daughters lived there with him, as well as
his assistant and a PR specialist named Edward K. Moss.
Lester was elected president amazing right, though the idea seemed ridiculous.
Most described Lester as decent and well meaning. He even
received a letter from the White House calling him acting
(04:41):
President of New Atlantis allegedly, but his term as president
didn't last. Lester had trouble securing investments and new residents,
and money disappeared quickly. Unfortunately, the mainland didn't accept scruples.
New Atlantis was trying to raise money for marine research
by producing and selling their own st amps. However, despite
some lovely designs, the Universal Postal Union didn't recognize their
(05:06):
legitimacy and the stamps were void. Disaster struck in nineteen
sixty six when a storm blew in and the tether snapped.
High winds and waves dragged New Atlantis out to see. Luckily,
no one was injured, but New Atlantis was no more.
A few pieces of the micronations still survived, though, including
its stamps, thanks to the attention of a dedicated librarian.
(05:27):
Lester never lost hope in New Atlantis and tried to
track her supposed trajectory around the Caribbean, but it was
never discovered. Maybe it's floating out there somewhere, waiting, like
all good micronations, to be recognized. Music, arts, and literature
(05:57):
are important components of the human experience. All three our
avenues to our emotions and help us better understand the
world we live in. A song has the ability to
let us process heartbreak or grief, while a good book
may open our eyes to perspectives we never would have
considered before. But one thing we don't often think about
is actually something we interact with every day, even when
(06:20):
we don't realize it. It's on our walls and ceilings,
our phones, our purses, and our cars. It's literally everywhere.
What is it color? We tend to only notice color
during certain activities, such as picking an outfit out or
painting a room, but color plays a greater part in
our lives than we know. Certain colors like red can
(06:41):
evoke love and romance, while blues and greens can make
a person feel calm and relaxed. And when he expanded
his Mount Vernon home, George Washington chose bold colors for
the rooms inside to show off his status. But during
the nineteenth century, one woman believed that color could do
more than convey wealth or alter moods. She believed that
(07:01):
emotions and mental states themselves could be charted along a
color scale. In other words, that feelings and colors were
connected spiritually. Her name was Annie Bessant. Born in London,
England in eighteen forty seven. Bessant was a socialist and
women's rights activist for much of her life before joining
the Theosophical Society around eighteen ninety three. Theosophy was a
(07:24):
religion founded in New York City in eighteen seventy five.
Those who followed its teachings believed in a secret cabal
of spiritual experts who called themselves the Masters, who were
based in Tibet. Bessant, along with fellow theosophist C. W. Ledbetter,
compiled a series of Theosophist teachings into a book called
Thought Forms, A Record of Clairvoyant Investigations, published in nineteen
(07:47):
oh five. One of the book's core concepts centered around
color and its meaning. It taught that thoughts are things,
and that the quality of the thought determined the color
attributed to it. For example, a certain shade of light
blue might signify a devotion to a noble ideal, while
black was equated with malicious thoughts. Soon enough, this juxtaposition
(08:09):
of colors and thoughts bled out from Theosophy into the mainstream.
Artists jumped on board and came up with a new
movement called synchromism, which tied colors to music. In shorts,
a painter could create a painting using a specific arrangement
of pigments, similar to how a composer would arrange notes
in a symphony. The synchromism movement didn't gain a large following,
(08:30):
but the idea that colors affected moods certainly did. Eventually,
other industries found ways to make color a putter of
their marketing strategies. Art Deco buildings were suddenly being adorned
with dyed concrete and terra cotta in different hues. DuPont
invented a new kind of lacquer they called Duco, meant
to give automobiles a vibrant boost. To brighten up the road,
(08:51):
Magazines began printing ads in color rather than black and white,
allowing readers to get a good look at the new products,
all in their technicolor glory, and the paint company Sherman
Williams started pitching the idea of painting one's house multiple
times a year, using different colors depending on the season. Suddenly,
color wasn't something to be disregarded or ignored. Henry Ford
(09:13):
even walked back his famous line about the Model T
being available in any color the customer wanted, as long
as it was black. He started selling his Model A
in a variety of hues to keep up with the
new color forward movement sweeping the nation. Many companies also
looked in nature for inspiration. According to a nineteen twenty
eight issue of The Saturday Evening Post, motor cars and
(09:33):
I quote are borrowing their hues from the waters of
the Nile and the sands of Arabia, the plumage of birds,
and the fire of gems, and nothing has changed ever since.
During the nineteen fifties, typewriters, which had been instruments of
productivity found in the office, came in colors like those
used on automobiles. Color became an important part of the
(09:54):
equation for a large swath of consumer goods, and for
many people it's still the most important opponent. Even now.
When we go to the hardware store to buy paint,
we're not buying red or yellow or green. We're buying eggshell,
vermilion or dead salmon. That last one is a real
paint color, by the way. And we have Annie Bessant
(10:14):
and the Theosophist movement to thank for it. 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 Mank in partnership with how
(10:36):
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 Loore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio 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 of Curiosities.
(00:36):
Sometimes you just want to pack your bags and get
away from it all for a while, and a regular
vacation just won't cut it. You need sun, you need sand,
You need your own micronation. A micronation is a piece
of territory whose residence demand that they be recognized as
an independent nation. However, they're usually tiny and rarely considered
self governing because they don't technically exist under international lot.
(01:00):
Most micro nations never get the approval they need from
the other countries. That doesn't mean people stop trying, though.
Plenty of people have attempted to form their own micronations
in the past hundred years, people like Lester. Lester was
born on April first of nineteen fifteen and was the
baby of the family. He already had an older brother
far away fighting in the Great War, and four older
(01:22):
sisters who didn't have much time for a toddler, with
his sisters outmost of the day and his doctor father
making house calls. Little Lester was largely raised by his
mother and his grandparents. He became fascinated with his absent brother,
always playing with his old toys, going through his books,
and trying on his clothes. To Lester, there was no
one better in the world than his big brother, Ernie.
(01:44):
Ernie didn't always feel the same, as anyone with little
siblings knows, they get on your nerves better than anyone else.
Ernie called him Lester de Pester, which was later lovingly
shortened to the Pest. Still, Lester watched everything his big
brother did and even dreamed of being an ambulance driver
and a writer when he grew up, just like Ernie.
(02:06):
That would certainly come to pass. In nineteen forty one,
when the United States entered World War Two, Lester served
in both France and Germany, and those experiences would make
up the bulk of his first novel, The Sound of
the Trumpet, published in nineteen fifty three. He wrote six
other books, but couldn't quite catch up to his brother.
Of all his books, The Biography of his brother, published
(02:27):
in nineteen sixty two was the most successful. You see,
his brother Ernest Miller Hemingway had more influence on Lester
than anyone, which made his untimely death in July of
nineteen sixty one all the more heartbreaking. There was a
hole in Leicester Depestor's life, and he decided to fill
it with the money from the sale of his book
My Brother Ernest Hemingway. Lester resolved to get away from
(02:50):
it all. He would start his own country. He relied
heavily on something called the Guano Islands Act of eighteen
fifty six, which basically said any US citizen could claim
and mine any unclaimed island that contained soil enriching guano deposits,
guano being accumulated bird droppings, which certainly wouldn't make my
top ten of beach destinations. But to each their own. Now,
(03:14):
were there a large number of bird poop islands waiting
to be claimed? No? But did that stop Lester from
creating his own micronation also No. On July fourth of
nineteen sixty four, Lester wrote a good sized homemade raft
a few miles off the coast of Jamaica. Once he'd
found his perfect destination. He tied his raft to an
old car engine and dropped anchor. This, he declared, was
(03:36):
the micronation of New Atlantis. Well, at least half of
it was. The half of his raft was New Atlantis.
The rest belonged to the United States, in keeping with
the Guano Act, which said that any claimed island had
to be claimed on behalf of the US of A.
Couldn't just have American citizens creating new countries, willy nilly,
could we? Lester took his new country extremely seriously. He
(03:59):
wrote an institution, or he borrowed one anyway. Really it
was just the United States Constitution, with New Atlantis replacing
United States in the text. His wife Doris, created a flag,
and Lester even created a national currency of carabeans and
shark teeth, which he called scruples. Oh yeah, Lester wasn't
Alane out there. Sure, the raft was small, but he
(04:21):
had plans to expand. For the permanent residence. His wife
and two daughters lived there with him, as well as
his assistant and a PR specialist named Edward K. Moss.
Lester was elected president amazing right, though the idea seemed ridiculous.
Most described Lester as decent and well meaning. He even
received a letter from the White House calling him acting
(04:41):
President of New Atlantis allegedly, but his term as president
didn't last. Lester had trouble securing investments and new residents,
and money disappeared quickly. Unfortunately, the mainland didn't accept scruples.
New Atlantis was trying to raise money for marine research
by producing and selling their own st amps. However, despite
some lovely designs, the Universal Postal Union didn't recognize their
(05:06):
legitimacy and the stamps were void. Disaster struck in nineteen
sixty six when a storm blew in and the tether snapped.
High winds and waves dragged New Atlantis out to see. Luckily,
no one was injured, but New Atlantis was no more.
A few pieces of the micronations still survived, though, including
its stamps, thanks to the attention of a dedicated librarian.
(05:27):
Lester never lost hope in New Atlantis and tried to
track her supposed trajectory around the Caribbean, but it was
never discovered. Maybe it's floating out there somewhere, waiting, like
all good micronations, to be recognized. Music, arts, and literature
(05:57):
are important components of the human experience. All three our
avenues to our emotions and help us better understand the
world we live in. A song has the ability to
let us process heartbreak or grief, while a good book
may open our eyes to perspectives we never would have
considered before. But one thing we don't often think about
is actually something we interact with every day, even when
(06:20):
we don't realize it. It's on our walls and ceilings,
our phones, our purses, and our cars. It's literally everywhere.
What is it color? We tend to only notice color
during certain activities, such as picking an outfit out or
painting a room, but color plays a greater part in
our lives than we know. Certain colors like red can
(06:41):
evoke love and romance, while blues and greens can make
a person feel calm and relaxed. And when he expanded
his Mount Vernon home, George Washington chose bold colors for
the rooms inside to show off his status. But during
the nineteenth century, one woman believed that color could do
more than convey wealth or alter moods. She believed that
(07:01):
emotions and mental states themselves could be charted along a
color scale. In other words, that feelings and colors were
connected spiritually. Her name was Annie Bessant. Born in London,
England in eighteen forty seven. Bessant was a socialist and
women's rights activist for much of her life before joining
the Theosophical Society around eighteen ninety three. Theosophy was a
(07:24):
religion founded in New York City in eighteen seventy five.
Those who followed its teachings believed in a secret cabal
of spiritual experts who called themselves the Masters, who were
based in Tibet. Bessant, along with fellow theosophist C. W. Ledbetter,
compiled a series of Theosophist teachings into a book called
Thought Forms, A Record of Clairvoyant Investigations, published in nineteen
(07:47):
oh five. One of the book's core concepts centered around
color and its meaning. It taught that thoughts are things,
and that the quality of the thought determined the color
attributed to it. For example, a certain shade of light
blue might signify a devotion to a noble ideal, while
black was equated with malicious thoughts. Soon enough, this juxtaposition
(08:09):
of colors and thoughts bled out from Theosophy into the mainstream.
Artists jumped on board and came up with a new
movement called synchromism, which tied colors to music. In shorts,
a painter could create a painting using a specific arrangement
of pigments, similar to how a composer would arrange notes
in a symphony. The synchromism movement didn't gain a large following,
(08:30):
but the idea that colors affected moods certainly did. Eventually,
other industries found ways to make color a putter of
their marketing strategies. Art Deco buildings were suddenly being adorned
with dyed concrete and terra cotta in different hues. DuPont
invented a new kind of lacquer they called Duco, meant
to give automobiles a vibrant boost. To brighten up the road,
(08:51):
Magazines began printing ads in color rather than black and white,
allowing readers to get a good look at the new products,
all in their technicolor glory, and the paint company Sherman
Williams started pitching the idea of painting one's house multiple
times a year, using different colors depending on the season. Suddenly,
color wasn't something to be disregarded or ignored. Henry Ford
(09:13):
even walked back his famous line about the Model T
being available in any color the customer wanted, as long
as it was black. He started selling his Model A
in a variety of hues to keep up with the
new color forward movement sweeping the nation. Many companies also
looked in nature for inspiration. According to a nineteen twenty
eight issue of The Saturday Evening Post, motor cars and
(09:33):
I quote are borrowing their hues from the waters of
the Nile and the sands of Arabia, the plumage of birds,
and the fire of gems, and nothing has changed ever since.
During the nineteen fifties, typewriters, which had been instruments of
productivity found in the office, came in colors like those
used on automobiles. Color became an important part of the
(09:54):
equation for a large swath of consumer goods, and for
many people it's still the most important opponent. Even now.
When we go to the hardware store to buy paint,
we're not buying red or yellow or green. We're buying eggshell,
vermilion or dead salmon. That last one is a real
paint color, by the way. And we have Annie Bessant
(10:14):
and the Theosophist movement to thank for it. 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 Mank in partnership with how
(10:36):
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 Loore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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