July 24, 2025 • 9 mins
Rebellion and resistence are part of our tour today.
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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):
It was a late night in Eastern Europe in nineteen
forty two, and Tanya was hard at work. She bobbled
and weaved through the dining room, delivering food to hungry
men to the officers who sat at the tables. She
looked like nothing more than a pretty, dark haired waitress.
Rumor was that she was the daughter of a prince
from the country of Georgia, and she hated the Soviets
for killing her father, hated them enough to work in
(00:58):
a Nazi officer's room. As she passed by the table
of drunk soldiers, she paused for a moment to deliver
a very special dish to their table, one that she
had made herself with a few extra ingredients. She smiled
at the SS officer, who gave her a wink and
took a large bite before offering it to his friends,
and then she returned to the kitchen, grabbed her bag
(01:20):
and slipped out the side door. She did not want
to be there when the poison began to work. Tanya
was no Georgian princess. She was really Tatiana Marcus, a
Jewish fem fatale from the Soviet Resistance. Born in nineteen
twenty one in Kiev, then part of the Soviet Union,
Tatiana wasn't a soldier, a spy, or even a trained killer.
(01:41):
She was from a large Jewish family and worked as
a railway secretary in Kiev before moving to Moldova in
nineteen forty. But like millions of others, she suddenly found
herself living in a nightmare as the Nazis invaded the
rest of Europe, and she could only watch from afar
in horror as Kiev, her hometown, quickly became came home
to one of the worst atrocities of the Holocaust. On
(02:03):
September twenty ninth of nineteen forty one, Nazi soldiers forced
the Jewish population of Kiev to assemble at Bobby Yar,
a large ravine on the north side of the city.
Over two days, they systematically murdered over thirty three thousand
Jews and buried them in a mass grave in the Ravine.
In late nineteen forty one, Tatiana returned to Kiev to
(02:24):
the remnants of her friends and family left behind, But
the second she stepped foot into the city, she was
determined to make the Nazis pay. Tatiana obtained fake papers
under a new name, Tanya, and spread rumors about being
a Georgian princess and being sympathetic to the Nazis. This
helped her get jobs infiltrating Nazi spaces, like serving in
(02:45):
a dining hall or working as a secretary in their offices.
This was the perfect cover for a spy, and the
information she carried back to the Soviet underground was invaluable.
But Tatiana didn't want to stop at collecting information. She
wanted to take action, so she started a campaign of
deadly sabotage against the Nazis. In one instance, she and
(03:06):
her father attended a parade of Nazis and distributed bouquets
to passing soldiers rather than handing them the flowers, Though
the two of them threw them at the ground under
the Nazis' feet. The impact set off the grenades hidden
inside the bouquets, which exploded, killing four Nazi soldiers. In
the chaos that followed, Tatiana and her father slipped into
(03:26):
the crowd and disappeared. Another time, she noticed that she'd
caught the eye of a high ranking Nazi official. She
flirted with the man and invited him home, but the
second they entered her apartment, she drew a pistol from
her purse and shot him dead. Tatiana wasn't just courageous,
she was terrifyingly effective. Her missions were precise, personal, and
(03:47):
often carried out in broad daylight. Over the course of
an entire year, Tatiana killed dozens of SS and Gestapo officers,
as well as Nazi informants. In one instance, she even
left a note daring more to come after her. The
note said, all of you fascist reptiles are waiting for
the same fate. Honestly, how do you not love this woman?
(04:09):
But Tatiana's luck, like that of so many resistance fighters,
eventually ran out. In nineteen forty two, she was captured
by the Gestapo, and even then she wouldn't break. Although
brutally tortured for five months, she refused to betray the resistance.
On January twenty ninth of nineteen forty three, Tatiana was
shot by the Nazis. Some sources say that she was
(04:30):
buried in Babi Yar, the same ravine where thousands of
Jews had already been massacred and thousands more civilians of
all backgrounds would be murdered still. In two thousand and six,
Tatiana was honored as an official hero of Ukraine, and
in two thousand and nine a statue of her was
erected at Babi Yar, one of many honoring the people
who were killed there. She didn't survive the war, but
(04:53):
her legacy lives on, not just in medals and memorials,
but in what she represents. Tatiana Marcus stands as a
powerful reminder that resistance doesn't require an army, just the
will to act when it matters most On July seventeenth
(05:22):
of seventeen ninety four, muskeet fire erupted just outside of
Pittsburgh on a sprawling estate known as Bower Hill. United
States militia clashed with a rebel army of over five
hundred men. America wasn't even yet twenty years old, and
already they were battling their own citizens. Both the leaders
of this rebellion died in the gunfire and Bower Hill
(05:43):
was burned to the ground, but it was still a
startling defeat for the United States government. The dead rebels
were seen as martyrs, and the resistance only grew. President
George Washington ordered his cabinet to assemble an even stronger
militia to protect the integrity of the United States. When
few men volunteered, a draft was implemented, and Washington himself
(06:03):
traveled to Pennsylvania to lead the troops, the first and
only time a sitting American president personally took command of
a field army. A militia of twelve thousand strong marched
through western Pennsylvania. They made several arrests along the way,
but there was no more fighting. The protesters dispersed at
the show of force, and the conflict seemed to subside. Ironically,
(06:25):
the cause of all of this commotion was not dissimilar
to one of the founding myths of the American Revolution.
It was caused by tax Three years earlier, the United
States had been suffering from intense amounts of debt. In
order to ease the financial burden on the states, Washington
had implemented attacks on whisky distilleries six to nine cents
(06:45):
a gallon at the suggestion of one Alexander Hamilton. The
subsequent uprising would become known as the Whisky Rebellion. As
the dust settled on the rebellion, it seems that he
recognized the mistake of this tax, pardoning those who had
been arrested for organizing protests against the whiskey tax. But
that was just the first step. Washington knew that it
(07:05):
would take more than a few pardons to fully disperse
the former rebels. Washington reached out to Thomas Jefferson, then
the governor of Virginia, to put together an offer for
the settlers. If they moved to the territory west of Virginia,
they would be offered sixty acres of land to farm
upon on the condition that they used the land to
raise native corn. And all of this resulted in three
(07:28):
important things. First, scores of settlers took Jefferson up on
the offer, causing a wave of migration into the territory. Second,
Jefferson would later be able to successfully run his presidential
campaign on the promise of repealing the whiskey tax. And Third,
the settlers who moved from West Pennsylvania to Virginia produced
(07:49):
much more corn that they knew what to do with,
and so they did what every society does when it
has a surplus of produce. They made it into alcohol.
This process would eventually coalesce into a few key guidelines
at least fifty one percent corn and a certain amount
of time spent aging in an oak barrel. The resulting
whiskey would have a dark brown color and would serve
(08:11):
as a cheap alternative to French cognac. It's the only
liquor native to the United States, and it would eventually
bear the name of the county that started it. A
lifelong Francophile, Thomas Jefferson had named the western most part
of the Virginia territories Bourbon County, Virginia, and in the
mid seventeen nineties it would become Bourbon County, Kentucky. And
(08:32):
this corn based oak barrel aged liquor is obviously known
as Bourbon whisky, usually just shortened to bourbon. It's a
common enough saying that you are what you eat, but
it may be a truer statement that you learn a
lot about a culture based on what it drinks, and
every time you raise a glass of bourbon to your lips,
you're drinking not just spirits, but flavors that trace all
(08:54):
the way back to the Whisky Rebellion. It might be
a beverage, but it's also a curio. This bit of
food for thought. 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
(09:15):
dot com. This 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. 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):
It was a late night in Eastern Europe in nineteen
forty two, and Tanya was hard at work. She bobbled
and weaved through the dining room, delivering food to hungry
men to the officers who sat at the tables. She
looked like nothing more than a pretty, dark haired waitress.
Rumor was that she was the daughter of a prince
from the country of Georgia, and she hated the Soviets
for killing her father, hated them enough to work in
(00:58):
a Nazi officer's room. As she passed by the table
of drunk soldiers, she paused for a moment to deliver
a very special dish to their table, one that she
had made herself with a few extra ingredients. She smiled
at the SS officer, who gave her a wink and
took a large bite before offering it to his friends,
and then she returned to the kitchen, grabbed her bag
(01:20):
and slipped out the side door. She did not want
to be there when the poison began to work. Tanya
was no Georgian princess. She was really Tatiana Marcus, a
Jewish fem fatale from the Soviet Resistance. Born in nineteen
twenty one in Kiev, then part of the Soviet Union,
Tatiana wasn't a soldier, a spy, or even a trained killer.
(01:41):
She was from a large Jewish family and worked as
a railway secretary in Kiev before moving to Moldova in
nineteen forty. But like millions of others, she suddenly found
herself living in a nightmare as the Nazis invaded the
rest of Europe, and she could only watch from afar
in horror as Kiev, her hometown, quickly became came home
to one of the worst atrocities of the Holocaust. On
(02:03):
September twenty ninth of nineteen forty one, Nazi soldiers forced
the Jewish population of Kiev to assemble at Bobby Yar,
a large ravine on the north side of the city.
Over two days, they systematically murdered over thirty three thousand
Jews and buried them in a mass grave in the Ravine.
In late nineteen forty one, Tatiana returned to Kiev to
(02:24):
the remnants of her friends and family left behind, But
the second she stepped foot into the city, she was
determined to make the Nazis pay. Tatiana obtained fake papers
under a new name, Tanya, and spread rumors about being
a Georgian princess and being sympathetic to the Nazis. This
helped her get jobs infiltrating Nazi spaces, like serving in
(02:45):
a dining hall or working as a secretary in their offices.
This was the perfect cover for a spy, and the
information she carried back to the Soviet underground was invaluable.
But Tatiana didn't want to stop at collecting information. She
wanted to take action, so she started a campaign of
deadly sabotage against the Nazis. In one instance, she and
(03:06):
her father attended a parade of Nazis and distributed bouquets
to passing soldiers rather than handing them the flowers, Though
the two of them threw them at the ground under
the Nazis' feet. The impact set off the grenades hidden
inside the bouquets, which exploded, killing four Nazi soldiers. In
the chaos that followed, Tatiana and her father slipped into
(03:26):
the crowd and disappeared. Another time, she noticed that she'd
caught the eye of a high ranking Nazi official. She
flirted with the man and invited him home, but the
second they entered her apartment, she drew a pistol from
her purse and shot him dead. Tatiana wasn't just courageous,
she was terrifyingly effective. Her missions were precise, personal, and
(03:47):
often carried out in broad daylight. Over the course of
an entire year, Tatiana killed dozens of SS and Gestapo officers,
as well as Nazi informants. In one instance, she even
left a note daring more to come after her. The
note said, all of you fascist reptiles are waiting for
the same fate. Honestly, how do you not love this woman?
(04:09):
But Tatiana's luck, like that of so many resistance fighters,
eventually ran out. In nineteen forty two, she was captured
by the Gestapo, and even then she wouldn't break. Although
brutally tortured for five months, she refused to betray the resistance.
On January twenty ninth of nineteen forty three, Tatiana was
shot by the Nazis. Some sources say that she was
(04:30):
buried in Babi Yar, the same ravine where thousands of
Jews had already been massacred and thousands more civilians of
all backgrounds would be murdered still. In two thousand and six,
Tatiana was honored as an official hero of Ukraine, and
in two thousand and nine a statue of her was
erected at Babi Yar, one of many honoring the people
who were killed there. She didn't survive the war, but
(04:53):
her legacy lives on, not just in medals and memorials,
but in what she represents. Tatiana Marcus stands as a
powerful reminder that resistance doesn't require an army, just the
will to act when it matters most On July seventeenth
(05:22):
of seventeen ninety four, muskeet fire erupted just outside of
Pittsburgh on a sprawling estate known as Bower Hill. United
States militia clashed with a rebel army of over five
hundred men. America wasn't even yet twenty years old, and
already they were battling their own citizens. Both the leaders
of this rebellion died in the gunfire and Bower Hill
(05:43):
was burned to the ground, but it was still a
startling defeat for the United States government. The dead rebels
were seen as martyrs, and the resistance only grew. President
George Washington ordered his cabinet to assemble an even stronger
militia to protect the integrity of the United States. When
few men volunteered, a draft was implemented, and Washington himself
(06:03):
traveled to Pennsylvania to lead the troops, the first and
only time a sitting American president personally took command of
a field army. A militia of twelve thousand strong marched
through western Pennsylvania. They made several arrests along the way,
but there was no more fighting. The protesters dispersed at
the show of force, and the conflict seemed to subside. Ironically,
(06:25):
the cause of all of this commotion was not dissimilar
to one of the founding myths of the American Revolution.
It was caused by tax Three years earlier, the United
States had been suffering from intense amounts of debt. In
order to ease the financial burden on the states, Washington
had implemented attacks on whisky distilleries six to nine cents
(06:45):
a gallon at the suggestion of one Alexander Hamilton. The
subsequent uprising would become known as the Whisky Rebellion. As
the dust settled on the rebellion, it seems that he
recognized the mistake of this tax, pardoning those who had
been arrested for organizing protests against the whiskey tax. But
that was just the first step. Washington knew that it
(07:05):
would take more than a few pardons to fully disperse
the former rebels. Washington reached out to Thomas Jefferson, then
the governor of Virginia, to put together an offer for
the settlers. If they moved to the territory west of Virginia,
they would be offered sixty acres of land to farm
upon on the condition that they used the land to
raise native corn. And all of this resulted in three
(07:28):
important things. First, scores of settlers took Jefferson up on
the offer, causing a wave of migration into the territory. Second,
Jefferson would later be able to successfully run his presidential
campaign on the promise of repealing the whiskey tax. And Third,
the settlers who moved from West Pennsylvania to Virginia produced
(07:49):
much more corn that they knew what to do with,
and so they did what every society does when it
has a surplus of produce. They made it into alcohol.
This process would eventually coalesce into a few key guidelines
at least fifty one percent corn and a certain amount
of time spent aging in an oak barrel. The resulting
whiskey would have a dark brown color and would serve
(08:11):
as a cheap alternative to French cognac. It's the only
liquor native to the United States, and it would eventually
bear the name of the county that started it. A
lifelong Francophile, Thomas Jefferson had named the western most part
of the Virginia territories Bourbon County, Virginia, and in the
mid seventeen nineties it would become Bourbon County, Kentucky. And
(08:32):
this corn based oak barrel aged liquor is obviously known
as Bourbon whisky, usually just shortened to bourbon. It's a
common enough saying that you are what you eat, but
it may be a truer statement that you learn a
lot about a culture based on what it drinks, and
every time you raise a glass of bourbon to your lips,
you're drinking not just spirits, but flavors that trace all
(08:54):
the way back to the Whisky Rebellion. It might be
a beverage, but it's also a curio. This bit of
food for thought. 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
(09:15):
dot com. This 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. And until next time,
stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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