October 30, 2025 • 10 mins
Some people make history and their name is never forgotten as a result. Others leave us with key achievements but no identiy. It's a curiosity worthy of the Cabinet.
Order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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):
Alvar slowly blinked his eyes open. The sun had been
beating down on him while he slept, and it was
time to take his surroundings in. Everything seemed to have
a blue tint. While his vision adjusted, his skin stung
all over. It was burnt in raw from the sun,
the saltwater, and the sand. His beard was caked with
the latter, but he slowly climbed to his feet. Looking around,
(00:58):
he saw that he was on an island. The Gulf
of Mexico stretched out to one side, and a small
bay leading to a coastline was on the other. As
his mind came back to him, he remembered that it
was the year fifteen twenty eight. He was on an
expedition to Florida for the Spanish crown, but it had
gone terribly wrong. Hundreds had died from disease, starvation, or
(01:18):
combat with the indigenous peoples. The last of them had
tried to flee to Mexico City on makeshift rafts, but
clearly that had gone just as badly. Looking down at
the beach, he saw several other Spanish sailors recovering as well.
They were now shipwrecked on an unknown land. Despite the
glare from the sun, the men were all freezing. It
(01:38):
was winter, and a cold wind blew across the island.
Alvar huddled near his fellow sailors, wondering where they would
go next, but he didn't have much time to mull
it over before new arrivals to the beach drew his attention.
Nearly one hundred native warriors waded across the bay and
onto the island. They were tall and imposing. Their nipples
(01:59):
and up her lips were pierced with small pieces of wood.
They were unlike anyone Alvar had ever seen. They all
carried bows, and Alvar was sure that they were here
to finish off the expedition. A few of the indigenous
warriors stepped forward, and he was sure that they were
about to start firing, but instead they did something else
that astonished him they started to weep. Soon all the
(02:21):
other warriors joined in they laid their hands on the sailors.
It soon became clear to Alvar and the others that
the tribe was trying to show them sympathy for what
had befallen them. It was a far cry from the
warfare that they had experienced in Florida. These Native Americans
took the sailors back to their huts on the mainland
and shared their fires and food. They mostly ate roots
(02:42):
from the small, water filled plants dotting the arid landscape,
but they would eat just about anything, lizards, spiders, even
deer droppings. While many of Alvar's fellow sailors turned their
noses up at this, he quickly adapted, learning to live
as the native peoples did. Soon he was even working
for them, traveling further inland to trade shells and pearls
(03:03):
for food with other tribes. The Native Americans believed in
healing by laying on hands and breathing uninjured or infected
body parts. They thought that the Spanish, with their lighter skin,
were somehow sent from the heavens and could perform these
healing duties especially well, and so Alvar became known as
a healer, traveling around this strange land selling shells and
(03:25):
breathing on injured body parts. It turns out that none
of the other Spanish sailors were as adaptable as Alvar.
They slowly died from starvation or exposure to the elements.
A dozen decided to try their luck, walking south on
foot to Mexico. At least they thought that it was south.
They still couldn't be sure where they were, but Alvar stayed,
partly to learn more about the native people's and partly
(03:48):
because there was one man there, a Spaniard named Lope
de Oviedo, who was afraid of water and refused to
leave the island. But finally, after many months, Alvar convinced
him to leave by letting him ride across the bay
on his back. They traveled miles barefoot, eventually reuniting with
some of their fellow sailors, only three of whom were left.
They continued south, sometimes meeting friendly native peoples, other times
(04:12):
being taken captive and having to escape. Eventually, though, they
made it back to Mexico, and from there they sailed
back to Spain, but it had been almost ten years
since they first set foot in Florida. They had walked
over two thousand miles barefoot and encountered all kinds of unique,
fascinating cultures. In fact, Alvar and his friends were the
(04:32):
first known Europeans to set foot in some of these places.
Remember that strange land where they were originally shipwrecked. Today
we call it Texas, and Alvar, better known by his
full name Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, was the first
historian of Texas, chronicling everything he saw. His endless curiosity,
(04:52):
even in the face of death, led to copious journals
that give us some of our only insights into the
Native American cultures at that time. Within a few years,
many would die of disease carried by the Europeans. Others
would be wiped out by famine or warfare with the
Spanish or other tribes. So the next time you find
yourself shipwrecked or lost in a strange land, do yourself
(05:14):
a favor and stay curious. It might just be the
best way to make it through alive. Lunch atop a
skyscraper it's one of the most famous photos ever taken.
(05:37):
You've most likely seen it before. It depicts a row
of iron workers sitting along a steel beam. Below them,
the distant buildings of New York City are as clear
as day, but the men on this beam seem unaware
of how high up they are. They're sharing cigarettes, opening
their lunch boxes, talking amongst one another. The one to
the far right of the frame is the only one
(05:58):
who seems aware that they're being footed, squinting toward the
camera with an empty flask balanced upon his knee. The
original nineteen thirty two caption of the photo reads, in part,
while New York's thousands rush to crowded restaurants for their
noonday lunch, these intrepid steel workers atop the seventy story
RCA building in Rockefeller Center get all the air and
(06:21):
freedom they want by lunching on a steel beam with
a sheer drop of over eight hundred feet to the
street level. Honestly, it's no surprise that this image is iconic.
It's both deeply humanizing of these steel workers and also
vertigo inducing, almost impossible to look at without swaying on
your feet a little and being glad that you are
(06:41):
on firm ground. But as with every photograph of daring
and impossible feats, there's one question that many asked themselves
who took this picture? Well, it turns out there are
more photographs from the RCA building, and some of them
are just as dizzying as the lunch picture. One picture
shows a slim man in nineteen thirties attire you know, suspenders,
(07:02):
a tie, high waisted pants, and spats, perched on a
steel beam with both his hands around a bulky camera
pressed up against his chin. It looks as if a
stray gust of wind might blow him away. And this
man is the photographer Thomas Kelly, one of several photographers
who were present on September twentieth of nineteen thirty two,
(07:22):
the day that the famous picture was taken for RCA.
Two of the others were William Lefwich and Charles Ebitts,
and no one can be quite sure which of them
snapped the famous lunch photograph. Like every other case of
contested authorship, this topic is hotly debated among enthusiasts. Originally,
Lewis Hine received credits. He had famously photographed the construction
(07:43):
of the Empire State Building as well, but it's likely
that he was not present for the RCA shoot. So
how do we determine which of these long dead men
took the photo. While Internet sleuths have taken to image
analysis by looking at the skyline behind each of the
photographers and their relative positions on the construction site, they
can make educated guesses about which part of the city
(08:06):
should be on the other end of the camera and
the results. None of the photographs of the photographers show
them taking the famous shot, so back to square one.
In two thousand and three, Corbis Images, a company specializing
in archival images, hired a private investigator to track down
the photographer of the famous picture. The investigator located an
(08:28):
old newspaper article which credits a man known as Hamilton Wright.
But it's possible that mister Wright was not even on
the building at the time. He was the head of
a photography company and he would often get credit for
images taken by people working under his employ But it
does give us at least a possible connection, because at
least one of the photographers that we know of was
(08:48):
employed by the Hamilton Wright company, Charles Ebbitts. Ebitts was
now the favorite candidate for authorship, but the presence of
so many other photographers on the day still cast doubts
on who who was actually responsible. The original glass negative
of the photograph is housed in a storage facility in Pennsylvania.
It's broken in several places, but has been kept in
(09:10):
temperature controlled facilities ever since to make sure the pieces
did not degrade with age. And as for the men
in the photograph itself, well, their identities are even less
certain than the photographer. They were most likely immigrant laborers,
never credited in their time. Whole documentaries have been produced
seeking out the identities of these men in the picture.
(09:31):
Some of them have been positively identified, but others are
lost to history, or perhaps not quite lost. That's the
beautiful thing about photographs like lunch atop a skyscraper. It
may not be much, but an image like this transcends time,
location and profession create an empathy between us and the
men who are working there eighty years ago. That's an
(09:54):
even more towering achievement than the tallest of skyscrapers. 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. This show
was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
(10:18):
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):
Alvar slowly blinked his eyes open. The sun had been
beating down on him while he slept, and it was
time to take his surroundings in. Everything seemed to have
a blue tint. While his vision adjusted, his skin stung
all over. It was burnt in raw from the sun,
the saltwater, and the sand. His beard was caked with
the latter, but he slowly climbed to his feet. Looking around,
(00:58):
he saw that he was on an island. The Gulf
of Mexico stretched out to one side, and a small
bay leading to a coastline was on the other. As
his mind came back to him, he remembered that it
was the year fifteen twenty eight. He was on an
expedition to Florida for the Spanish crown, but it had
gone terribly wrong. Hundreds had died from disease, starvation, or
(01:18):
combat with the indigenous peoples. The last of them had
tried to flee to Mexico City on makeshift rafts, but
clearly that had gone just as badly. Looking down at
the beach, he saw several other Spanish sailors recovering as well.
They were now shipwrecked on an unknown land. Despite the
glare from the sun, the men were all freezing. It
(01:38):
was winter, and a cold wind blew across the island.
Alvar huddled near his fellow sailors, wondering where they would
go next, but he didn't have much time to mull
it over before new arrivals to the beach drew his attention.
Nearly one hundred native warriors waded across the bay and
onto the island. They were tall and imposing. Their nipples
(01:59):
and up her lips were pierced with small pieces of wood.
They were unlike anyone Alvar had ever seen. They all
carried bows, and Alvar was sure that they were here
to finish off the expedition. A few of the indigenous
warriors stepped forward, and he was sure that they were
about to start firing, but instead they did something else
that astonished him they started to weep. Soon all the
(02:21):
other warriors joined in they laid their hands on the sailors.
It soon became clear to Alvar and the others that
the tribe was trying to show them sympathy for what
had befallen them. It was a far cry from the
warfare that they had experienced in Florida. These Native Americans
took the sailors back to their huts on the mainland
and shared their fires and food. They mostly ate roots
(02:42):
from the small, water filled plants dotting the arid landscape,
but they would eat just about anything, lizards, spiders, even
deer droppings. While many of Alvar's fellow sailors turned their
noses up at this, he quickly adapted, learning to live
as the native peoples did. Soon he was even working
for them, traveling further inland to trade shells and pearls
(03:03):
for food with other tribes. The Native Americans believed in
healing by laying on hands and breathing uninjured or infected
body parts. They thought that the Spanish, with their lighter skin,
were somehow sent from the heavens and could perform these
healing duties especially well, and so Alvar became known as
a healer, traveling around this strange land selling shells and
(03:25):
breathing on injured body parts. It turns out that none
of the other Spanish sailors were as adaptable as Alvar.
They slowly died from starvation or exposure to the elements.
A dozen decided to try their luck, walking south on
foot to Mexico. At least they thought that it was south.
They still couldn't be sure where they were, but Alvar stayed,
partly to learn more about the native people's and partly
(03:48):
because there was one man there, a Spaniard named Lope
de Oviedo, who was afraid of water and refused to
leave the island. But finally, after many months, Alvar convinced
him to leave by letting him ride across the bay
on his back. They traveled miles barefoot, eventually reuniting with
some of their fellow sailors, only three of whom were left.
They continued south, sometimes meeting friendly native peoples, other times
(04:12):
being taken captive and having to escape. Eventually, though, they
made it back to Mexico, and from there they sailed
back to Spain, but it had been almost ten years
since they first set foot in Florida. They had walked
over two thousand miles barefoot and encountered all kinds of unique,
fascinating cultures. In fact, Alvar and his friends were the
(04:32):
first known Europeans to set foot in some of these places.
Remember that strange land where they were originally shipwrecked. Today
we call it Texas, and Alvar, better known by his
full name Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, was the first
historian of Texas, chronicling everything he saw. His endless curiosity,
(04:52):
even in the face of death, led to copious journals
that give us some of our only insights into the
Native American cultures at that time. Within a few years,
many would die of disease carried by the Europeans. Others
would be wiped out by famine or warfare with the
Spanish or other tribes. So the next time you find
yourself shipwrecked or lost in a strange land, do yourself
(05:14):
a favor and stay curious. It might just be the
best way to make it through alive. Lunch atop a
skyscraper it's one of the most famous photos ever taken.
(05:37):
You've most likely seen it before. It depicts a row
of iron workers sitting along a steel beam. Below them,
the distant buildings of New York City are as clear
as day, but the men on this beam seem unaware
of how high up they are. They're sharing cigarettes, opening
their lunch boxes, talking amongst one another. The one to
the far right of the frame is the only one
(05:58):
who seems aware that they're being footed, squinting toward the
camera with an empty flask balanced upon his knee. The
original nineteen thirty two caption of the photo reads, in part,
while New York's thousands rush to crowded restaurants for their
noonday lunch, these intrepid steel workers atop the seventy story
RCA building in Rockefeller Center get all the air and
(06:21):
freedom they want by lunching on a steel beam with
a sheer drop of over eight hundred feet to the
street level. Honestly, it's no surprise that this image is iconic.
It's both deeply humanizing of these steel workers and also
vertigo inducing, almost impossible to look at without swaying on
your feet a little and being glad that you are
(06:41):
on firm ground. But as with every photograph of daring
and impossible feats, there's one question that many asked themselves
who took this picture? Well, it turns out there are
more photographs from the RCA building, and some of them
are just as dizzying as the lunch picture. One picture
shows a slim man in nineteen thirties attire you know, suspenders,
(07:02):
a tie, high waisted pants, and spats, perched on a
steel beam with both his hands around a bulky camera
pressed up against his chin. It looks as if a
stray gust of wind might blow him away. And this
man is the photographer Thomas Kelly, one of several photographers
who were present on September twentieth of nineteen thirty two,
(07:22):
the day that the famous picture was taken for RCA.
Two of the others were William Lefwich and Charles Ebitts,
and no one can be quite sure which of them
snapped the famous lunch photograph. Like every other case of
contested authorship, this topic is hotly debated among enthusiasts. Originally,
Lewis Hine received credits. He had famously photographed the construction
(07:43):
of the Empire State Building as well, but it's likely
that he was not present for the RCA shoot. So
how do we determine which of these long dead men
took the photo. While Internet sleuths have taken to image
analysis by looking at the skyline behind each of the
photographers and their relative positions on the construction site, they
can make educated guesses about which part of the city
(08:06):
should be on the other end of the camera and
the results. None of the photographs of the photographers show
them taking the famous shot, so back to square one.
In two thousand and three, Corbis Images, a company specializing
in archival images, hired a private investigator to track down
the photographer of the famous picture. The investigator located an
(08:28):
old newspaper article which credits a man known as Hamilton Wright.
But it's possible that mister Wright was not even on
the building at the time. He was the head of
a photography company and he would often get credit for
images taken by people working under his employ But it
does give us at least a possible connection, because at
least one of the photographers that we know of was
(08:48):
employed by the Hamilton Wright company, Charles Ebbitts. Ebitts was
now the favorite candidate for authorship, but the presence of
so many other photographers on the day still cast doubts
on who who was actually responsible. The original glass negative
of the photograph is housed in a storage facility in Pennsylvania.
It's broken in several places, but has been kept in
(09:10):
temperature controlled facilities ever since to make sure the pieces
did not degrade with age. And as for the men
in the photograph itself, well, their identities are even less
certain than the photographer. They were most likely immigrant laborers,
never credited in their time. Whole documentaries have been produced
seeking out the identities of these men in the picture.
(09:31):
Some of them have been positively identified, but others are
lost to history, or perhaps not quite lost. That's the
beautiful thing about photographs like lunch atop a skyscraper. It
may not be much, but an image like this transcends time,
location and profession create an empathy between us and the
men who are working there eighty years ago. That's an
(09:54):
even more towering achievement than the tallest of skyscrapers. 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. This show
was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
(10:18):
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
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!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!