May 14, 2026 • 10 mins
These stories might seem very different, but there are a lot of ways for curious people to leave their mark on the world.
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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):
She grew up in an African paradise. Born in nineteen
forty in Kenya, Wangari Mattai was surrounded by trees, plains,
and rivers. She could see all kinds of exotic animals
rights in her own backyard. By the time she reached adulthood,
new programs in the United States and Kenya encouraged Kenyan
women to receive the education they had previously been denied.
(00:59):
Wangari took advancevantage of this. She had grown up seeing
how women in Kenya were often treated. They were told
to submit to their husbands and be easy to control,
to not develop any skills outside of homemaking, and that
wasn't the life that Wangari wanted. She received an undergraduate
degree in biology at a university in Atchison, Kansas, of
(01:19):
all places, and then a master's degree in biological sciences
at a university in Pittsburgh. She then returned home to
Kenya and attended the University of Nairobi, where in nineteen
seventy one, she became the first woman in all of
East Africa to earn a doctorate a PhD in veterinary anatomy.
Her education was clearly an adventure unto itself, but her
(01:42):
story had only just begun, because as she worked at
the university, more and more women from local villages came
to ask for her help. Their water sources were drying up,
their trees were dying, and they were having to walk
farther and farther for food, water, and firewood. Wangari was
shocked to hear that the paradise she had grown up
in was falling apart. She set out to investigate and
(02:05):
found a clear cause of this problem. Large commercial farms
and tea plantations were diverting water for themselves and driving
the surrounding villages into desolation and poverty. These enterprises were
owned by the wealthy of Kenya and sometimes even by
foreign investors. Putting her degrees into incredible use, Wangari devised
(02:27):
a plan to plant hundreds of trees in the country,
not only would they provide the villages with food and firewood,
Their roots would help the rivers to retain more water. Eventually,
this project, founded in nineteen seventy seven, came to be
known as the Green Belt movement. The project wasn't just
good for the environment, though it also provided women with
(02:48):
employment and educational opportunities. Kenya was backsliding into anti women
policies at the time, once again denying them greater roles
in society. Planting trees helped to restore several villages, and
Whngari felt that Kenya was beginning to turn toward a
sustainable future, But by nineteen eighty nine, it was becoming
(03:08):
increasingly clear that the country's president, Daniel arat moy was
a corrupt dictator, more interested in selling off the country's
resources than helping its people. President Moi wanted to help
a British millionaire build an office park right in the
middle of Uhuru Park, a massive green space in the
center of Nairobi. Wungari couldn't stomach the idea of losing
(03:30):
so many trees in what was already an urban area.
She mobilized an international pressure campaign, bringing attention to the
issue and raising money to sue the government. The courts
sided with Wungari and the plan to build the office
park was blocked. But this is when President Moy decided
to show his true colors. He had Wangari and her
followers arrested and charged with treason. They were set to
(03:53):
be executed, but were saved at the last minute by
humanitarian pressure from the United States. It might have been
surprising to the rest of the world, but Wangari had
seen her whole life how strong women were dealt with
in Kenya. She wasn't afraid, and she was determined to
keep fighting moist government. She continued to grow the green
Belt movement until it spread to thirty other countries, planting
(04:16):
literally millions of trees and providing employment and community for
many disenfranchised people. She spoke out at every opportunity about
corruption in Africa and how Western corporations were continuing to
create inequality there. By two thousand and two, the movement
had thrown its weight behind a candidate name m Y Kibaki,
a challenger to Moy's presidency. Kibaki won the election and
(04:40):
made Wanghari his environmental Minister. She had spent years doing
everything she could to give back to the country that
had provided her with such an idyllic childhood, not only
that she had transformed it into a more sustainable place
and a place where women could have more of a
chance at equality. Wangari had not done any any of
this for the accolades, which made it all the more
(05:02):
surprising to her when in two thousand and four she
became the first African woman to be awarded a Nobel
Peace Prize. This sent a clear message to Western corporations
that their plunder of Africa wasn't just bad for the environment,
it was bad for people. It was truly inhumane. It
might seem curious to some that the environment could be
(05:22):
so closely linked to justice, but after all, people can't
live without land and resources to provide for them, and
it takes brave, tireless individuals like Wangari to remind us
of that sacred connection between humanity and the earth. Elmer
(05:51):
was born in Maine in eighteen eighty, but by the
age of twenty he was headed west to start a
new life after his mother and grandfather died through the Midwest,
falling into a life of crime and joining a band
of outlaws. He was the explosives guy, but he never
quite got the hang of the job. For example, while
trying to crack a safe during a train robbery, Elmer
(06:13):
accidentally used too much dynamite and melted all the silver
coins he was trying to steal. A few months later,
during a bank heist, he managed to blow up the
entire bank except for the safe, which remained unopened. Like
I said, he was not the best at what he did.
One other failure took place in October of nineteen eleven.
That's when Elmer's crew tried to hijack a train carrying
(06:36):
four hundred thousand dollars as it passed through Oklahoma. It
was supposed to be one of the biggest heists in
US history, but when Elmer and his accomplices climbed on board,
they realized they had stopped the wrong train. The safe
was completely empty, and the would be bandits made off
with just forty six dollars and a jug of whiskey.
It would help the story if at this point you
(06:57):
just closed your eyes, gently, shook your head, and muttered
with a sigh, oh Elmer. The very next morning, law
enforcement caught up with Elmer, who was hiding in a
barn in Oklahoma. There was an hour long standoff that
involved a lot of shooting, but it ended when Elmer
was shot in the chest. His body was taken to
a local funeral home and EMBALMD. I mean, that was
(07:18):
their job, right and they did it well. But because
Elmer had no family, his body went unclaimed, not for days,
not for weeks, but for years. And that was when
the second act of his story began. At some point
two carnival promoters purchased Elmer's corpse from the funeral home
and propped him up as an exhibit in their traveling show,
(07:38):
promoting him as the outlaw who would never be captured.
And over the fifty years that followed, his body changed
hands over and over again, making the rounds through more
than a few traveling sideshows. And then in nineteen sixty
eight he was sold to the Hollywood wax Museum, But
when the museum closed for good later that same year,
(07:59):
Elmer's corpse got jumbled up among all the wax mannequins.
And that's a lot, isn't it. Few of us will
take such a journey in life, and Elmer did it
all while stiff as a board. He might not have
been good as an outlaw, but Elmer sure knew how
to get around. In the nineteen seventies, a camera crew
was setting up in an abandoned theme park in Long Beach, California,
(08:20):
called the House of Horrors. They were getting ready to
film an episode of a TV show called The Six
Million Dollar Man. Inside one of the creepy old rides,
which was decorated with skeletons and wax mannekins, the director
looked through the camera's viewfinder and told one of the
crew members to move a glow in the dark mannekin
that was hanging from a noose in the corner of
(08:40):
the frame. The crew member grabbed the hanged man by
the arm, and when he gave it a tug, the
arm snapped off. As the director and the cameraman laughed
about it, the crew member took a closer look and
in the center of the broken arm was a brittle,
white human bone. This was no mannequin. It was an
actual mummified corpse. The film crew stopped laughing and immediately
(09:03):
called the police. When the coroner's office took the mummy in,
they found a few bizarre hints to the man's identity.
His body was riddled with bullets that were more than
seventy years old. In his pockets, they found ticket stubs
to a wax museum, and in his mouth was a
corroded penny dated nineteen twenty four. It took a little
bit of detective work, but they eventually put a name
(09:24):
to the mummy. He was a wild West outlaw named
Elmer McCurdy. In April of nineteen seventy seven, Elmer was
finally buried in a cemetery in Oklahoma. Two feets of
concrete were poured over his grave to ensure that after
all the years of exploitation, Elmer would finally be able
to rest in one piece. I hope you enjoyed today's
(09:50):
guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show was
created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with iHeart Podcasts,
researched and written by the Grim and Mild team, and
produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and
the people who make it over at Grimandmild dot com
slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link to the official
Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online,
(10:14):
as well as ebook and audiobook and if you're looking
for an ad free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's
all the same stories, but without the interruption for a
small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over at
patreon dot com. Slash Grimandmild, 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):
She grew up in an African paradise. Born in nineteen
forty in Kenya, Wangari Mattai was surrounded by trees, plains,
and rivers. She could see all kinds of exotic animals
rights in her own backyard. By the time she reached adulthood,
new programs in the United States and Kenya encouraged Kenyan
women to receive the education they had previously been denied.
(00:59):
Wangari took advancevantage of this. She had grown up seeing
how women in Kenya were often treated. They were told
to submit to their husbands and be easy to control,
to not develop any skills outside of homemaking, and that
wasn't the life that Wangari wanted. She received an undergraduate
degree in biology at a university in Atchison, Kansas, of
(01:19):
all places, and then a master's degree in biological sciences
at a university in Pittsburgh. She then returned home to
Kenya and attended the University of Nairobi, where in nineteen
seventy one, she became the first woman in all of
East Africa to earn a doctorate a PhD in veterinary anatomy.
Her education was clearly an adventure unto itself, but her
(01:42):
story had only just begun, because as she worked at
the university, more and more women from local villages came
to ask for her help. Their water sources were drying up,
their trees were dying, and they were having to walk
farther and farther for food, water, and firewood. Wangari was
shocked to hear that the paradise she had grown up
in was falling apart. She set out to investigate and
(02:05):
found a clear cause of this problem. Large commercial farms
and tea plantations were diverting water for themselves and driving
the surrounding villages into desolation and poverty. These enterprises were
owned by the wealthy of Kenya and sometimes even by
foreign investors. Putting her degrees into incredible use, Wangari devised
(02:27):
a plan to plant hundreds of trees in the country,
not only would they provide the villages with food and firewood,
Their roots would help the rivers to retain more water. Eventually,
this project, founded in nineteen seventy seven, came to be
known as the Green Belt movement. The project wasn't just
good for the environment, though it also provided women with
(02:48):
employment and educational opportunities. Kenya was backsliding into anti women
policies at the time, once again denying them greater roles
in society. Planting trees helped to restore several villages, and
Whngari felt that Kenya was beginning to turn toward a
sustainable future, But by nineteen eighty nine, it was becoming
(03:08):
increasingly clear that the country's president, Daniel arat moy was
a corrupt dictator, more interested in selling off the country's
resources than helping its people. President Moi wanted to help
a British millionaire build an office park right in the
middle of Uhuru Park, a massive green space in the
center of Nairobi. Wungari couldn't stomach the idea of losing
(03:30):
so many trees in what was already an urban area.
She mobilized an international pressure campaign, bringing attention to the
issue and raising money to sue the government. The courts
sided with Wungari and the plan to build the office
park was blocked. But this is when President Moy decided
to show his true colors. He had Wangari and her
followers arrested and charged with treason. They were set to
(03:53):
be executed, but were saved at the last minute by
humanitarian pressure from the United States. It might have been
surprising to the rest of the world, but Wangari had
seen her whole life how strong women were dealt with
in Kenya. She wasn't afraid, and she was determined to
keep fighting moist government. She continued to grow the green
Belt movement until it spread to thirty other countries, planting
(04:16):
literally millions of trees and providing employment and community for
many disenfranchised people. She spoke out at every opportunity about
corruption in Africa and how Western corporations were continuing to
create inequality there. By two thousand and two, the movement
had thrown its weight behind a candidate name m Y Kibaki,
a challenger to Moy's presidency. Kibaki won the election and
(04:40):
made Wanghari his environmental Minister. She had spent years doing
everything she could to give back to the country that
had provided her with such an idyllic childhood, not only
that she had transformed it into a more sustainable place
and a place where women could have more of a
chance at equality. Wangari had not done any any of
this for the accolades, which made it all the more
(05:02):
surprising to her when in two thousand and four she
became the first African woman to be awarded a Nobel
Peace Prize. This sent a clear message to Western corporations
that their plunder of Africa wasn't just bad for the environment,
it was bad for people. It was truly inhumane. It
might seem curious to some that the environment could be
(05:22):
so closely linked to justice, but after all, people can't
live without land and resources to provide for them, and
it takes brave, tireless individuals like Wangari to remind us
of that sacred connection between humanity and the earth. Elmer
(05:51):
was born in Maine in eighteen eighty, but by the
age of twenty he was headed west to start a
new life after his mother and grandfather died through the Midwest,
falling into a life of crime and joining a band
of outlaws. He was the explosives guy, but he never
quite got the hang of the job. For example, while
trying to crack a safe during a train robbery, Elmer
(06:13):
accidentally used too much dynamite and melted all the silver
coins he was trying to steal. A few months later,
during a bank heist, he managed to blow up the
entire bank except for the safe, which remained unopened. Like
I said, he was not the best at what he did.
One other failure took place in October of nineteen eleven.
That's when Elmer's crew tried to hijack a train carrying
(06:36):
four hundred thousand dollars as it passed through Oklahoma. It
was supposed to be one of the biggest heists in
US history, but when Elmer and his accomplices climbed on board,
they realized they had stopped the wrong train. The safe
was completely empty, and the would be bandits made off
with just forty six dollars and a jug of whiskey.
It would help the story if at this point you
(06:57):
just closed your eyes, gently, shook your head, and muttered
with a sigh, oh Elmer. The very next morning, law
enforcement caught up with Elmer, who was hiding in a
barn in Oklahoma. There was an hour long standoff that
involved a lot of shooting, but it ended when Elmer
was shot in the chest. His body was taken to
a local funeral home and EMBALMD. I mean, that was
(07:18):
their job, right and they did it well. But because
Elmer had no family, his body went unclaimed, not for days,
not for weeks, but for years. And that was when
the second act of his story began. At some point
two carnival promoters purchased Elmer's corpse from the funeral home
and propped him up as an exhibit in their traveling show,
(07:38):
promoting him as the outlaw who would never be captured.
And over the fifty years that followed, his body changed
hands over and over again, making the rounds through more
than a few traveling sideshows. And then in nineteen sixty
eight he was sold to the Hollywood wax Museum, But
when the museum closed for good later that same year,
(07:59):
Elmer's corpse got jumbled up among all the wax mannequins.
And that's a lot, isn't it. Few of us will
take such a journey in life, and Elmer did it
all while stiff as a board. He might not have
been good as an outlaw, but Elmer sure knew how
to get around. In the nineteen seventies, a camera crew
was setting up in an abandoned theme park in Long Beach, California,
(08:20):
called the House of Horrors. They were getting ready to
film an episode of a TV show called The Six
Million Dollar Man. Inside one of the creepy old rides,
which was decorated with skeletons and wax mannekins, the director
looked through the camera's viewfinder and told one of the
crew members to move a glow in the dark mannekin
that was hanging from a noose in the corner of
(08:40):
the frame. The crew member grabbed the hanged man by
the arm, and when he gave it a tug, the
arm snapped off. As the director and the cameraman laughed
about it, the crew member took a closer look and
in the center of the broken arm was a brittle,
white human bone. This was no mannequin. It was an
actual mummified corpse. The film crew stopped laughing and immediately
(09:03):
called the police. When the coroner's office took the mummy in,
they found a few bizarre hints to the man's identity.
His body was riddled with bullets that were more than
seventy years old. In his pockets, they found ticket stubs
to a wax museum, and in his mouth was a
corroded penny dated nineteen twenty four. It took a little
bit of detective work, but they eventually put a name
(09:24):
to the mummy. He was a wild West outlaw named
Elmer McCurdy. In April of nineteen seventy seven, Elmer was
finally buried in a cemetery in Oklahoma. Two feets of
concrete were poured over his grave to ensure that after
all the years of exploitation, Elmer would finally be able
to rest in one piece. I hope you enjoyed today's
(09:50):
guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show was
created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with iHeart Podcasts,
researched and written by the Grim and Mild team, and
produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and
the people who make it over at Grimandmild dot com
slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link to the official
Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online,
(10:14):
as well as ebook and audiobook and if you're looking
for an ad free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's
all the same stories, but without the interruption for a
small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over at
patreon dot com. Slash Grimandmild, and until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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