June 17, 2021 • 10 mins
One of the best places to find curiosities is in our childhood, and the delights and games we once took part in. Today's tour will give you a taste of the good old days.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
I Heart Radio 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
(00:27):
of Curiosities. There's nothing wrong with the little competition. In fact,
experts claim it drives both sides toward better innovation and improvement.
Think about it, how would a professional athlete know how
fast they could run if they didn't have a competitor
(00:49):
to try and beat. Some of the great inventions of
our day are a result of competition. The mobile computers
we all have in our pockets would most likely not
have arrived so soon if it weren't for the competition
between in a number of companies, and the war of
the currents in the eighteen eighties between alternating current and
direct current gave us the home electrical systems we have today.
(01:10):
So we can't fault Daniel Burnham for thinking about his
own competition and wanting to do better. He was an
architect with an unusual and rare project. Take a massive
section of Chicago and turn it into an attraction that
would captivate the world. Just a year before, in eighteen
eighty nine, the city of Paris played host to the
(01:30):
World Exhibition, and standing tall in the center of their
wonders and entertainment was a structure that we all take
for granted today, the Eiffel Tower. So with Chicago on
the cusp of hosting their own World's Columbian Exhibition, Daniel
was in desperate need of something even bigger, more impressive
than that. Thankfully, there were a lot of options submitted,
(01:51):
but none seemed to sparkle with the wonder that he
was aiming for. Honestly, for a while, he sort of
just felt like he was spinning his wheels, moving from
one proposed to the next, getting interested, before ultimately realizing
the idea was impossible, or too expensive, or both. But
that's when he met George. George was a young civil
engineer with a lot of innovation in his blood. As
(02:13):
a child, his family moved around a bit from his
birth state of Illinois to the much drier climate of Nevada.
His father had been a horticulturalist, and in the eighteen
seventies took on the responsibility of beautifying Carson City by
importing hundreds of trees from out east. George, though, wanted
to build things. He spent a brief amount of time
at the California Military Academy before pursuing his engineering degree,
(02:36):
and by eighty one he was in that weird position
so many college graduates find themselves in even today, fully trained,
hungry for opportunity, and looking for work. But instead of
getting a job somewhere else, he hired himself by starting
a company that tested the intricate steel structures of bridges.
But when George heard that the planners of the World's
(02:58):
Columbian Exhibition we're looking for and engineering feats, he saw
his chance to really turn some heads. He drafted up
his proposal and sent it over, and Daniel Burnham loved it.
His fellow planners, though, weren't so sure. Was it spectacular, absolutely,
but how would it work? After all, it seemed to
be far too complex to be viable. So when his
(03:19):
idea was rejected, George insisted that it would work by
providing studies that he paid for out of his pocket
to prove the safety and functionality of the design. He
even found his own investors to cover the cost of
building it, to make it even easier on the planning committee,
and finally they agreed, and George immediately got to work.
And what he ended up building in was both breathtaking
(03:42):
to the people who first saw it and familiar to
many of us today. It was a massive wheel that
stood over two hundred sixty feet high, mounted on a
central axle. Hanging off the outer edge of that wheel
at regular intervals were forty passenger cars, each capable of
seating about sixty people. It was like a giant metal
spider web that just turned and turned, taking occupants on
(04:06):
a steam powered circular twenty minute ride above Chicago. And
the world fell in love with George's new invention, as
any trip to a local fair might tell you. Today,
even the great city of London has their own permanent version,
the London I. But it wasn't a happy ending for George.
The exhibition in Chicago withheld three quarters of a million
(04:27):
dollars in profit, worth tens of millions of dollars today,
and the loss ultimately drove him into bankruptcy. George died
from typhoid fever three years after his great Wheel took
its first spin. At the young age of just thirty seven,
and while most people have forgotten his personal story, you'd
be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't know his name,
(04:49):
George Washington Ferris, the father of the Ferris Wheel. Death
affects everyone differently. Not only do mourning rituals vary from
(05:10):
culture it's a culture, but death itself can hit each
individual in its own way. The loss of an estranged
relative might not gardner many tears, but losing a close
friend who saw us through a bad time in our
lives might cause intense heartache. Every death is unique, as
are its effects on our mental health. One particular activity, though,
(05:31):
has captivated mourners for hundreds of years. What started out
as a way to literally raise the dead has now
become a rite of passage for teenage girls everywhere. It's
true origins are unknown, but historians can at least trace
the practice back to a book called The Diary of
Samuel Peeps. Samuel was a member of parliament during the
(05:51):
seventeenth century and began writing in his diary on New
Year's Day of sixteen sixty. Over the course of the
next ten years, he kept a daily account of his days,
including observations on things such as English politics and the
arts of the time. However, on July one six, Samuel
recorded a particular story that had been told to him
(06:11):
by a friend of his name, Mr. Brisbane, who had
witnessed something akin to witchcraft while in France. He'd watched
as four young girls each knelt on one knee around
a boy lying on the ground. He was on his back,
giving the appearance that he had died, and each girl
placed one finger underneath him. Then they recited a short poem,
each girl whispering a line of it into the ear
(06:34):
of the one next to her. Here lies a dead body,
stiff as a stick, cold as marble, light as a spirit,
rise in the name of Jesus Christ. The lines were
uttered in round robin style as the girls proceeded to
lift the boy off the ground with only their outstretched fingers.
Brisbane couldn't believe his eyes. Surely it had been an illusion,
(06:58):
so when it was over, he told the boy to
get up and move out of the way, and then
brought in a much larger man to take his place.
Sure Enough, the girls chanted the same incantation again, each
one reciting a single line, and lifted the hefty newcomer
over their heads, each one using only a single finger.
Where had the girls learned such a game. It's possible
(07:19):
it had been passed down from people who had never
actually seen it as a game, people who really wanted
to raise those they've lost. Decades earlier, from sixty to
sixteen thirty two, France had seen a monumental loss of
a million people to a plague epidemic. The constant reminder
of death, watching family and friends succumb to it every
(07:41):
day had most likely affected the surviving children, and one
way to make something like death less scary was to
turn it into a game, a game where someone could
literally be raised from the dead. Throughout history, other attempts
to lift people with the lightest of touches has also
been recorded, as in an eighteen five The Seven volume
by one Robert Conger Pell. In the book, Pell described
(08:04):
how a man lying on a bench with his legs
fully extended could be lifted by two people standing on
each side of him. In order for the lift to
be successful, though the two men both needed to inhale
at the same time just before the lift. At eighty three,
inventor and scientist David Brewster wrote about a similar experiment
as Pells. In Brewster's version, however, the subject being raised
(08:27):
had to adhere to a set of rules. For one,
they needed to be heavier than anyone else in the group,
and second, the person was asked to lay across two chairs,
with one to support his back and one to hold
up his legs. Four people then stood around him to
buy his legs and two near his shoulders. Their first
lift often went poorly, with no one able to get
(08:48):
him in the air. It wasn't until everyone took a
deep breath, including the person being lifted, that he was
finally able to be hoisted with ease. It was as
if the air in his lungs had turned him into
a loon. The exercise is still performed today, though it's
not done by science minded adults anymore. It's played as
a game at places like slumber parties, and it goes
(09:10):
by the catchy name of light as a feather stiff
as a board. Physics does the um heavy lifting, with
each person taking on an equal amount of the subject's
body weight at the same time. Their coordinated efforts allow
them to lift a person off the ground as though
they weigh almost nothing at all, and thankfully there's no
(09:31):
witchcraft required. 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 Manky
in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
(09:52):
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 Lore dot Come and until
next time, stay curious. Yeah,
Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
I Heart Radio 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
(00:27):
of Curiosities. There's nothing wrong with the little competition. In fact,
experts claim it drives both sides toward better innovation and improvement.
Think about it, how would a professional athlete know how
fast they could run if they didn't have a competitor
(00:49):
to try and beat. Some of the great inventions of
our day are a result of competition. The mobile computers
we all have in our pockets would most likely not
have arrived so soon if it weren't for the competition
between in a number of companies, and the war of
the currents in the eighteen eighties between alternating current and
direct current gave us the home electrical systems we have today.
(01:10):
So we can't fault Daniel Burnham for thinking about his
own competition and wanting to do better. He was an
architect with an unusual and rare project. Take a massive
section of Chicago and turn it into an attraction that
would captivate the world. Just a year before, in eighteen
eighty nine, the city of Paris played host to the
(01:30):
World Exhibition, and standing tall in the center of their
wonders and entertainment was a structure that we all take
for granted today, the Eiffel Tower. So with Chicago on
the cusp of hosting their own World's Columbian Exhibition, Daniel
was in desperate need of something even bigger, more impressive
than that. Thankfully, there were a lot of options submitted,
(01:51):
but none seemed to sparkle with the wonder that he
was aiming for. Honestly, for a while, he sort of
just felt like he was spinning his wheels, moving from
one proposed to the next, getting interested, before ultimately realizing
the idea was impossible, or too expensive, or both. But
that's when he met George. George was a young civil
engineer with a lot of innovation in his blood. As
(02:13):
a child, his family moved around a bit from his
birth state of Illinois to the much drier climate of Nevada.
His father had been a horticulturalist, and in the eighteen
seventies took on the responsibility of beautifying Carson City by
importing hundreds of trees from out east. George, though, wanted
to build things. He spent a brief amount of time
at the California Military Academy before pursuing his engineering degree,
(02:36):
and by eighty one he was in that weird position
so many college graduates find themselves in even today, fully trained,
hungry for opportunity, and looking for work. But instead of
getting a job somewhere else, he hired himself by starting
a company that tested the intricate steel structures of bridges.
But when George heard that the planners of the World's
(02:58):
Columbian Exhibition we're looking for and engineering feats, he saw
his chance to really turn some heads. He drafted up
his proposal and sent it over, and Daniel Burnham loved it.
His fellow planners, though, weren't so sure. Was it spectacular, absolutely,
but how would it work? After all, it seemed to
be far too complex to be viable. So when his
(03:19):
idea was rejected, George insisted that it would work by
providing studies that he paid for out of his pocket
to prove the safety and functionality of the design. He
even found his own investors to cover the cost of
building it, to make it even easier on the planning committee,
and finally they agreed, and George immediately got to work.
And what he ended up building in was both breathtaking
(03:42):
to the people who first saw it and familiar to
many of us today. It was a massive wheel that
stood over two hundred sixty feet high, mounted on a
central axle. Hanging off the outer edge of that wheel
at regular intervals were forty passenger cars, each capable of
seating about sixty people. It was like a giant metal
spider web that just turned and turned, taking occupants on
(04:06):
a steam powered circular twenty minute ride above Chicago. And
the world fell in love with George's new invention, as
any trip to a local fair might tell you. Today,
even the great city of London has their own permanent version,
the London I. But it wasn't a happy ending for George.
The exhibition in Chicago withheld three quarters of a million
(04:27):
dollars in profit, worth tens of millions of dollars today,
and the loss ultimately drove him into bankruptcy. George died
from typhoid fever three years after his great Wheel took
its first spin. At the young age of just thirty seven,
and while most people have forgotten his personal story, you'd
be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't know his name,
(04:49):
George Washington Ferris, the father of the Ferris Wheel. Death
affects everyone differently. Not only do mourning rituals vary from
(05:10):
culture it's a culture, but death itself can hit each
individual in its own way. The loss of an estranged
relative might not gardner many tears, but losing a close
friend who saw us through a bad time in our
lives might cause intense heartache. Every death is unique, as
are its effects on our mental health. One particular activity, though,
(05:31):
has captivated mourners for hundreds of years. What started out
as a way to literally raise the dead has now
become a rite of passage for teenage girls everywhere. It's
true origins are unknown, but historians can at least trace
the practice back to a book called The Diary of
Samuel Peeps. Samuel was a member of parliament during the
(05:51):
seventeenth century and began writing in his diary on New
Year's Day of sixteen sixty. Over the course of the
next ten years, he kept a daily account of his days,
including observations on things such as English politics and the
arts of the time. However, on July one six, Samuel
recorded a particular story that had been told to him
(06:11):
by a friend of his name, Mr. Brisbane, who had
witnessed something akin to witchcraft while in France. He'd watched
as four young girls each knelt on one knee around
a boy lying on the ground. He was on his back,
giving the appearance that he had died, and each girl
placed one finger underneath him. Then they recited a short poem,
each girl whispering a line of it into the ear
(06:34):
of the one next to her. Here lies a dead body,
stiff as a stick, cold as marble, light as a spirit,
rise in the name of Jesus Christ. The lines were
uttered in round robin style as the girls proceeded to
lift the boy off the ground with only their outstretched fingers.
Brisbane couldn't believe his eyes. Surely it had been an illusion,
(06:58):
so when it was over, he told the boy to
get up and move out of the way, and then
brought in a much larger man to take his place.
Sure Enough, the girls chanted the same incantation again, each
one reciting a single line, and lifted the hefty newcomer
over their heads, each one using only a single finger.
Where had the girls learned such a game. It's possible
(07:19):
it had been passed down from people who had never
actually seen it as a game, people who really wanted
to raise those they've lost. Decades earlier, from sixty to
sixteen thirty two, France had seen a monumental loss of
a million people to a plague epidemic. The constant reminder
of death, watching family and friends succumb to it every
(07:41):
day had most likely affected the surviving children, and one
way to make something like death less scary was to
turn it into a game, a game where someone could
literally be raised from the dead. Throughout history, other attempts
to lift people with the lightest of touches has also
been recorded, as in an eighteen five The Seven volume
by one Robert Conger Pell. In the book, Pell described
(08:04):
how a man lying on a bench with his legs
fully extended could be lifted by two people standing on
each side of him. In order for the lift to
be successful, though the two men both needed to inhale
at the same time just before the lift. At eighty three,
inventor and scientist David Brewster wrote about a similar experiment
as Pells. In Brewster's version, however, the subject being raised
(08:27):
had to adhere to a set of rules. For one,
they needed to be heavier than anyone else in the group,
and second, the person was asked to lay across two chairs,
with one to support his back and one to hold
up his legs. Four people then stood around him to
buy his legs and two near his shoulders. Their first
lift often went poorly, with no one able to get
(08:48):
him in the air. It wasn't until everyone took a
deep breath, including the person being lifted, that he was
finally able to be hoisted with ease. It was as
if the air in his lungs had turned him into
a loon. The exercise is still performed today, though it's
not done by science minded adults anymore. It's played as
a game at places like slumber parties, and it goes
(09:10):
by the catchy name of light as a feather stiff
as a board. Physics does the um heavy lifting, with
each person taking on an equal amount of the subject's
body weight at the same time. Their coordinated efforts allow
them to lift a person off the ground as though
they weigh almost nothing at all, and thankfully there's no
(09:31):
witchcraft required. 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 Manky
in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
(09:52):
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 Lore dot Come and until
next time, stay curious. Yeah,
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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