February 24, 2026 • 10 mins
Curiosities can happen anywhere. Even on the Seven Seas.
Order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading!
Join our Patreon for ad-free episodes!: https://www.patreon.com/grimandmild
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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):
The Kurral Islands are a relatively remote place off the
east coast of Russia, north of Japan. It's a volcanic
chain that most people would struggle to point out on
a map. The winters are cold, the summers are thick
with fog. Not what one thinks of when you mentioned
volcanic island in the Pacific. During the Cold War, the
Soviet Union maintained a garrison on the island of Iturup.
(00:58):
The garrison was small, had six self propelled barges to
help maintain supply lines between them and the mainland. During
the winter of nineteen fifty nine, most of these barges
were beached in order to protect them from winter storms. However,
in early January of nineteen sixty, Soviet command alerted them
of an incoming supply ship, so two of these barges
(01:20):
were fueled and pushed back out into the sea, where
they were attached with mooring lines. These barges, designated T
ninety seven and T thirty six, were maintained by small
skeleton crews. On January seventeenth, while these men were aboard,
a storm struck. Intense winds battered at the moorings of
both barges. The tether on barge T thirty six snapped
(01:42):
and the one hundred ton ship began to drift in
danger of being swept out to sea. The crew went
to work right away, starting the barges engines in an
attempt to keep her away from the rocks, and all
the while they radioed to shore requesting assistance. At the time,
T thirty six had four men on board and that
was it. They fought that storm on and off for
(02:03):
around ten straight hours until finally the winds led up.
It was a slight relief, although only a temporary one.
You see, they were in the eye of the storm
and they realized that their safest course of action would
be to approach the beach with their barge. Around the
same time, though T ninety seven, the other barge, was
attempting to do the same thing, and it had managed
to beach the barge successfully. As the crew of T
(02:25):
thirty six steered their barge toward a safer part of shore,
the unthinkable happened. They ran out a fuel. There was
nothing the four men on board could do but wait
for the storm to return. The currents carried themselves farther
and farther away from the island until they were floating
in open ocean. Their radio had been damaged during the storm,
(02:46):
so there was no way to call for help anymore.
The last message that they sent to the garrison was
we anticipate disaster. We cannot come ashore. Once the storm sucided,
garrison launched a search party in the surrounding world. They
found wreckage floating in the ocean and assumed the Tea
thirty six had sunk. At the same time, the Tea
thirty six, still very much afloat by the way, was
(03:09):
drifting through the North Pacific on a strong current to
the east, taking them at a speed of seventy eight
miles per day. The water around the Tea thirty six
barge was open and very empty, and even worse, the
strong current meant that fishing was impossible, although the four
men did try their best. TEA thirty six floated through
a stretch of sea reserved for Soviet missile testing, not
(03:31):
seeing a single vessel along the way. On their second
day of floating, they took a complete inventory of their supplies.
Their food was scant, a small supply of cereal, a
loaf of bread, and a bunch of potatoes. During the storm,
diesel fuel had gotten into the potatoes, so those were useless.
Their only source of fresh water was the system that
cooled the engine. They rationed all of these carefully and
(03:54):
collected rain water when they could to stave off their thirst.
Their three day supply of food last for sixteen days
once they ran out, though they boiled leather objects such
as one of their belts, their shoelaces, and the strap
from a walkie talkie so they could eat them. As
you'd imagine, the men lost weight fast, and in the
winter cold, they all had to share one bunk for warmth. However,
(04:17):
none of them turned on each other, all grimly determined
to press on wherever their barge might take them, And then,
after a grueling forty nine days, their ordeal came to
an abrupt end. On March seventh, they were spotted by
helicopters dispatched by the US aircraft carrier, the USS Cure Sarge.
At first, the Russian sailors attempted to explain to the
(04:38):
helicopters that they only needed food and supplies and then
could get back on their own. They feared that accepting
American help would be seen as betrayal by the Soviet Union,
but eventually they caved in and accepted American rescue. The
four Russian soldiers, skinny and disheveled, stumbled aboard the carrier
in a kind of days. They were cautious with how
(04:58):
much they ate, aware of the danger of overeating after starvation. Remarkably,
they received a hero's welcome in both San Francisco and Moscow.
It seems that even in the height of the Cold War,
their achievement was seen as a universal human triumph, because
for as cold as the war might have been, the
open ocean was far colder. We all know the names
(05:33):
of famous Western explorers, people like Christopher Columbus, Francis Drake,
Ferdinand Magellan, but there is one explorer who beat them
all to the punch, exploring the oceans decades before they did.
The explorer in question wasn't European either, but Chinese, and
his name was Janghe. Janghi was born in the early
(05:54):
thirteen seventies in southwestern China to a Muslim family. Unfortunately,
they were caught up in the constant fighting between the
Mongols and the Chinese emperors at the time. When Janghi
was a young boy, his father was killed and he
was captured by the armies of the Ming dynasty. After that,
he was taken to work at the royal courts, which
should have been a significant opportunity to improve his social standing. However,
(06:17):
although medieval China was a fairly prosperous and enlightened place,
service within the court was often brutal. As a result,
Janghi and other young male captives like him were castrated. Now,
this was a common practice at the time. The rationale
was that a eunuch, as these young men were known,
would not have the ability or the desire to have
children and therefore create a dynasty of their own. Therefore,
(06:40):
they could be trusted as the most loyal possible servants
to the emperor. Janghe was then made a servant of
the emperor's son Zudi. Zudi was bold and brash and
prone to getting into trouble, but Janghi, who eventually grew
up into a seven foot tall bodyguard of sorts to
the prince, was always there to keep him safe. When
(07:00):
his father passed away in fourteen oh two, Zudi became emperor.
Now he was fairly arrogant and selfish as an emperor,
looking to expand his authority as much as possible. This
was difficult when the Mongols continued to be a problem
in the west. Zudi actually moved the imperial capital from
Nanjing to Beijing so that he could be closer to
the Great Wall and better direct his armies. But he
(07:23):
had other plans in mind for his friend Janghi. The
new emperor wanted Jenghi to expand Chinese authority across the
Ocean to Southeast Asia and beyond. He believed that all
neighboring countries should acknowledge Chinese superiority and be forced to
trade with China. To this end, Jenghi and Zudi oversaw
the construction of the largest navy the world had ever seen.
(07:45):
They built hundreds of ships, some of them the length
of a soccer field. These huge ships had four to
five masts and double layered hulls where large amounts of
drinking water could be stored. It was still one hundred
years before the era of European exploration, and here they
were making ships more advanced than anything the Europeans would
eventually use. Jenghi set sail. On his first voyage in
(08:08):
fourteen oh five. He had a combined crew numbering in
the tens of thousands. Their flotilla was really more of
a large city. They visited Vietnam, a large part of
Southeast Asian islands like Sumatra and Java. In subsequent voyages,
Jenghi sailed as far as India, Eastern Africa, and even
the Persian Gulf, and in all of these places, Jenghi
(08:29):
would present the leaders with Chinese gifts like silk and porcelain,
and demand valuable goods such as spices and jewels. In return,
the leader had to verbally acknowledge the superiority of the
Chinese Emperor, becoming a vassal state of sorts. Now. Sometimes
Jenghi ran into a leader who wouldn't give in to
his demands. In these cases, he would capture the leader
(08:50):
and take them back to China or they would be
forced to literally bow to the emperor before being returned home.
Jenghi's fleet never made it as far as Europe, not
because as they couldn't, They just didn't have any interest
in doing so. All the evidence they had about Europe
at this time was that it was a poor, violent
place with little in the way of luxury, goods or culture.
(09:11):
Jenghi's seventh and final voyage took place from fourteen thirty
one to fourteen thirty three. Now by this point, Zudi
had passed away and been replaced by his son, who
was much more conservative. He wasn't exactly excited by the
fact that his father had nearly bankrupted the country on
expensive building projects like Janghe's treasure fleet. So Janghe took
(09:32):
his final opportunity to visit Mecca in modern day Saudi Arabia,
an important pilgrimage for many Muslims. It was something that
his father had done, but that he had somehow not
yet had a chance to do. Jenghie passed away shortly after.
Whether he died at sea or in China is it known.
The new emperor had many records of his voyages destroyed,
as well as the entire fleet. It was seen as
(09:54):
a decadent national embarrassment. Only recently have historians been able
to piece the story of Jinghi's life back together. His
voyages may not have been practical, but as we all know,
sometimes curiosity is its own reward. I hope you've enjoyed
today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
(10:17):
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.
(10:39):
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):
The Kurral Islands are a relatively remote place off the
east coast of Russia, north of Japan. It's a volcanic
chain that most people would struggle to point out on
a map. The winters are cold, the summers are thick
with fog. Not what one thinks of when you mentioned
volcanic island in the Pacific. During the Cold War, the
Soviet Union maintained a garrison on the island of Iturup.
(00:58):
The garrison was small, had six self propelled barges to
help maintain supply lines between them and the mainland. During
the winter of nineteen fifty nine, most of these barges
were beached in order to protect them from winter storms. However,
in early January of nineteen sixty, Soviet command alerted them
of an incoming supply ship, so two of these barges
(01:20):
were fueled and pushed back out into the sea, where
they were attached with mooring lines. These barges, designated T
ninety seven and T thirty six, were maintained by small
skeleton crews. On January seventeenth, while these men were aboard,
a storm struck. Intense winds battered at the moorings of
both barges. The tether on barge T thirty six snapped
(01:42):
and the one hundred ton ship began to drift in
danger of being swept out to sea. The crew went
to work right away, starting the barges engines in an
attempt to keep her away from the rocks, and all
the while they radioed to shore requesting assistance. At the time,
T thirty six had four men on board and that
was it. They fought that storm on and off for
(02:03):
around ten straight hours until finally the winds led up.
It was a slight relief, although only a temporary one.
You see, they were in the eye of the storm
and they realized that their safest course of action would
be to approach the beach with their barge. Around the
same time, though T ninety seven, the other barge, was
attempting to do the same thing, and it had managed
to beach the barge successfully. As the crew of T
(02:25):
thirty six steered their barge toward a safer part of shore,
the unthinkable happened. They ran out a fuel. There was
nothing the four men on board could do but wait
for the storm to return. The currents carried themselves farther
and farther away from the island until they were floating
in open ocean. Their radio had been damaged during the storm,
(02:46):
so there was no way to call for help anymore.
The last message that they sent to the garrison was
we anticipate disaster. We cannot come ashore. Once the storm sucided,
garrison launched a search party in the surrounding world. They
found wreckage floating in the ocean and assumed the Tea
thirty six had sunk. At the same time, the Tea
thirty six, still very much afloat by the way, was
(03:09):
drifting through the North Pacific on a strong current to
the east, taking them at a speed of seventy eight
miles per day. The water around the Tea thirty six
barge was open and very empty, and even worse, the
strong current meant that fishing was impossible, although the four
men did try their best. TEA thirty six floated through
a stretch of sea reserved for Soviet missile testing, not
(03:31):
seeing a single vessel along the way. On their second
day of floating, they took a complete inventory of their supplies.
Their food was scant, a small supply of cereal, a
loaf of bread, and a bunch of potatoes. During the storm,
diesel fuel had gotten into the potatoes, so those were useless.
Their only source of fresh water was the system that
cooled the engine. They rationed all of these carefully and
(03:54):
collected rain water when they could to stave off their thirst.
Their three day supply of food last for sixteen days
once they ran out, though they boiled leather objects such
as one of their belts, their shoelaces, and the strap
from a walkie talkie so they could eat them. As
you'd imagine, the men lost weight fast, and in the
winter cold, they all had to share one bunk for warmth. However,
(04:17):
none of them turned on each other, all grimly determined
to press on wherever their barge might take them, And then,
after a grueling forty nine days, their ordeal came to
an abrupt end. On March seventh, they were spotted by
helicopters dispatched by the US aircraft carrier, the USS Cure Sarge.
At first, the Russian sailors attempted to explain to the
(04:38):
helicopters that they only needed food and supplies and then
could get back on their own. They feared that accepting
American help would be seen as betrayal by the Soviet Union,
but eventually they caved in and accepted American rescue. The
four Russian soldiers, skinny and disheveled, stumbled aboard the carrier
in a kind of days. They were cautious with how
(04:58):
much they ate, aware of the danger of overeating after starvation. Remarkably,
they received a hero's welcome in both San Francisco and Moscow.
It seems that even in the height of the Cold War,
their achievement was seen as a universal human triumph, because
for as cold as the war might have been, the
open ocean was far colder. We all know the names
(05:33):
of famous Western explorers, people like Christopher Columbus, Francis Drake,
Ferdinand Magellan, but there is one explorer who beat them
all to the punch, exploring the oceans decades before they did.
The explorer in question wasn't European either, but Chinese, and
his name was Janghe. Janghi was born in the early
(05:54):
thirteen seventies in southwestern China to a Muslim family. Unfortunately,
they were caught up in the constant fighting between the
Mongols and the Chinese emperors at the time. When Janghi
was a young boy, his father was killed and he
was captured by the armies of the Ming dynasty. After that,
he was taken to work at the royal courts, which
should have been a significant opportunity to improve his social standing. However,
(06:17):
although medieval China was a fairly prosperous and enlightened place,
service within the court was often brutal. As a result,
Janghi and other young male captives like him were castrated. Now,
this was a common practice at the time. The rationale
was that a eunuch, as these young men were known,
would not have the ability or the desire to have
children and therefore create a dynasty of their own. Therefore,
(06:40):
they could be trusted as the most loyal possible servants
to the emperor. Janghe was then made a servant of
the emperor's son Zudi. Zudi was bold and brash and
prone to getting into trouble, but Janghi, who eventually grew
up into a seven foot tall bodyguard of sorts to
the prince, was always there to keep him safe. When
(07:00):
his father passed away in fourteen oh two, Zudi became emperor.
Now he was fairly arrogant and selfish as an emperor,
looking to expand his authority as much as possible. This
was difficult when the Mongols continued to be a problem
in the west. Zudi actually moved the imperial capital from
Nanjing to Beijing so that he could be closer to
the Great Wall and better direct his armies. But he
(07:23):
had other plans in mind for his friend Janghi. The
new emperor wanted Jenghi to expand Chinese authority across the
Ocean to Southeast Asia and beyond. He believed that all
neighboring countries should acknowledge Chinese superiority and be forced to
trade with China. To this end, Jenghi and Zudi oversaw
the construction of the largest navy the world had ever seen.
(07:45):
They built hundreds of ships, some of them the length
of a soccer field. These huge ships had four to
five masts and double layered hulls where large amounts of
drinking water could be stored. It was still one hundred
years before the era of European exploration, and here they
were making ships more advanced than anything the Europeans would
eventually use. Jenghi set sail. On his first voyage in
(08:08):
fourteen oh five. He had a combined crew numbering in
the tens of thousands. Their flotilla was really more of
a large city. They visited Vietnam, a large part of
Southeast Asian islands like Sumatra and Java. In subsequent voyages,
Jenghi sailed as far as India, Eastern Africa, and even
the Persian Gulf, and in all of these places, Jenghi
(08:29):
would present the leaders with Chinese gifts like silk and porcelain,
and demand valuable goods such as spices and jewels. In return,
the leader had to verbally acknowledge the superiority of the
Chinese Emperor, becoming a vassal state of sorts. Now. Sometimes
Jenghi ran into a leader who wouldn't give in to
his demands. In these cases, he would capture the leader
(08:50):
and take them back to China or they would be
forced to literally bow to the emperor before being returned home.
Jenghi's fleet never made it as far as Europe, not
because as they couldn't, They just didn't have any interest
in doing so. All the evidence they had about Europe
at this time was that it was a poor, violent
place with little in the way of luxury, goods or culture.
(09:11):
Jenghi's seventh and final voyage took place from fourteen thirty
one to fourteen thirty three. Now by this point, Zudi
had passed away and been replaced by his son, who
was much more conservative. He wasn't exactly excited by the
fact that his father had nearly bankrupted the country on
expensive building projects like Janghe's treasure fleet. So Janghe took
(09:32):
his final opportunity to visit Mecca in modern day Saudi Arabia,
an important pilgrimage for many Muslims. It was something that
his father had done, but that he had somehow not
yet had a chance to do. Jenghie passed away shortly after.
Whether he died at sea or in China is it known.
The new emperor had many records of his voyages destroyed,
as well as the entire fleet. It was seen as
(09:54):
a decadent national embarrassment. Only recently have historians been able
to piece the story of Jinghi's life back together. His
voyages may not have been practical, but as we all know,
sometimes curiosity is its own reward. I hope you've enjoyed
today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
(10:17):
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.
(10:39):
And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
Betrayal Season 5
Saskia Inwood woke up one morning, knowing her life would never be the same. The night before, she learned the unimaginable – that the husband she knew in the light of day was a different person after dark. This season unpacks Saskia’s discovery of her husband’s secret life and her fight to bring him to justice. Along the way, we expose a crime that is just coming to light. This is also a story about the myth of the “perfect victim:” who gets believed, who gets doubted, and why. We follow Saskia as she works to reclaim her body, her voice, and her life. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.