You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

Tales of awkward adventure are featured in today's tour through the Cabinet. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcomed. Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production of
iHeart 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. No one mistakes a super soaker for a
real firearm. The bright colors and unique shape of the
water gun clearly illustrate its use as a harmless weapon
of fun, not war, except for one part, the pump.

(00:49):
You see, water guns like the super Soaker weren't the
first firearms to have air pumps. Back in seventy nine,
Italian gunsmith and inventor Bartolomeo Gerardoni had devised a new
kind of weapon, but rather than rely on gunpowder and
a spark to propel a bullet, his creation used something
a little less explosive air. The Girardoni air rifle could

(01:10):
hold up to twenty rounds in its tube shape magazine,
which was affixed to the side of the barrel, and
loading the chamber was a lot easier than it had
been with conventional rifles. There was no pouring any powder
or tamping down any wadding. All someone had to do
was tip the muzzle forward, then pushed the spring loaded slider.
It would scoop up a ball and push it into position.
When it came time to shoot, the round would eggs

(01:31):
ait the rifle with eight p s I behind it.
Hunters loved it because it was much quieter than a
normal rifle and it didn't start all the animals, and
because there was no gunpowder residue to deal with, it
didn't need to be cleaned as often either. Several guns
were provided to the Habsburgs during the Austro Turkish War
in the seventeen eighties and nineties. However, not every soldier

(01:52):
was capable of wielding such a weapon, so they were
reserved for two rolly and snipers. Unfortunately, the rifles were
all but wiped up by the time that Napoleonic Wars
came to be. The French abhorred it due to its
lack of smoke, and Napoleon himself ordered any Austrian caught
with one to be killed. But somehow one of these
air rifles landed in the possession of Merryweather Lewis of

(02:15):
Lewis and Clark fame. There are numerous mentions of it
in his journal, but he didn't use it to hunt
or attack the native populations. Instead, it was just a
show piece. It's hard to believe, but Louis often brought
out the rifle to demonstrate for the native people's and
their leaders. They had seen guns before, carried on the
shoulders of fur traders entering their lands, but this was

(02:36):
something different. During one incident, a rogue tribal member had
stolen Lewis and Clark's last horse. Looking to get it back,
Louis confronted them. The sue expected trouble and drew back
their bowstrings arrows aimed at the explorers and his men. Now,
Louis didn't want to kick off a war between his
people and the tribes. His orders had been to observe

(02:57):
and report back on the indigenous populations, of course, while
also helping them understand that their lands were being taken
away from them. So he pulled out the rifle, which
caught the eye of the Sioux leader, Black Buffalo. Louis
held it up and aimed it at a cottonwood tree
a hundred yards away. He pulled the trigger four times,
one after the other in rapid succession. Four small rounds

(03:19):
fired straight out, pop pop, pop, pop, but no smoke,
no recoil. The Sioux whispered among themselves as they lowered
their bows. Black Buffalo was enthralled they had just witnessed magic.
Louis was smart enough to keep the device of mystery
from the Sioux. He never let them see how it worked,
and led them to believe that it would never run

(03:39):
out of AMMO. But the real question is where had
he gotten it? After all, the Garadoni air rifle had
been taken out of commission years earlier. Well, historians believe
that Louis had been given the rifle by President Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson had served as a United States Minister to France
in seventy five and had most likely acquired the firearm
during one of his many tree rips. Louis had been

(04:01):
appointed his secretary in eighteen o one and was hand
chosen by Jefferson for the expedition. Unfortunately, the Garadoni air
rifle was not long for this world. For one, it's
firing mechanism was far too fragile and required an expert
gunsmith to make repairs. They were also too expensive to
manufacture and mass. No government would pay to supply an
entire army with air rifles when they could use the

(04:23):
tried and true guns at the time for a fraction
of the price. It may not have revolutionized warfare, but
Bartolomeo Gardoni's air rifle did help shape the American West,
and it didn't have to kill a single person to
do it. Born in Bradford, England, in Maurice Wilson rarely

(04:54):
did what people expected him to. For example, his father
owned a wool mill and the men the family worked
there when they came of age. However, Wilson did not
join his father and brothers as intended. Instead, he enlisted
with the British Army two fights in World War One
when he turned eighteen. He was a capable fighter and
was eventually promoted to captain. In April of nineteen eighteen,

(05:17):
he managed to hold a machine gun post by himself
against an army of enemy Germans. The ordeal earned him
the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. Sadly,
his army career came to an end a few months
later when he was hit by a machine gun fire
and sent home. Wilson was plagued by chronic arm pain
for the rest of his life, and he was left

(05:38):
with a nagging question about what to do with the
rest of his life. He got married in England and
then moved to New Zealand when he met someone new.
After several years spent building a life there, Wilson sailed
to Vancouver, Canada and traveled around North America for a while.
He was a wanderer, a restless soul in search of
meaning in his life. His travels eventually brought him back

(05:59):
home to England, where he had hoped to recenter himself. Unfortunately,
his time in the war and the effects of his
nomadic lifestyle had also caught up with him. Suffering from
rapid weight loss, lethargy, and a bad cough, Wilson fled
to Mayfair in London. He met a man who had
allegedly cured his own illness, along with the illnesses of
over one people, through prayer and fasting. Five weeks later,

(06:23):
Wilson emerged completely healed and with a new lease on life.
The experience had changed him and he wanted to share
it with the world, and to do that he came
up with a bold new idea. As he put it,
I'll perform some task so hard and so exacting that
it could only be carried out by someone aided with
divine help. He'd been in Germany, resting after his five

(06:45):
week intensive healing when it hit him. While reading the newspaper,
he stumbled upon an article about George Mallory's failed attempt
to scale Mount Everest back in ninet. Mallory had been
interviewed by The New York Times one year earlier. When
asked why he wanted a climates he responded, because it's
there as good a reason as any, I guess. Maurice
Wilson sure thought so. But after reading the article, Wilson

(07:08):
believed that he could be the first person to summit Everest.
It would be the perfect demonstration of his newfound faith
in prayer and fasting. But he couldn't do it the
same way Mallory had eight years prior. For one, Nepal
was off limits without help from the British government. He
also needed money to plan the trip, higher climbers and
buy supplies. He thought that he could do it better,

(07:28):
faster and cheaper than those who had tried before and failed,
and so Wilson came up with the bright idea to
fly himself to Everest instead. His plan was foolproof, well
to him, at least to everyone else it was proof
that he was a fool. After departing England, he would
fly himself to the mountain and land his plane about
fourteen thousand feet up from the base. With most of

(07:50):
the distance already covered, He would then climb his way
to the top alone. There was just one problem. Wilson
couldn't fly a plane, but he didn't let a silly
thing like experience stop him from pursuing his dream. Instead,
he bought a three year old de Haviln gypsy moth
biplane named the ever Rest that's rest with a w R.

(08:12):
He then learned how to fly it just well enough
to earn a pilot's license, and I mean barely. After
an engine failure that resulted in three weeks of repairs
in the aircraft, Wilson finally set up for Nepal in
May of nineteen thirty three. He made several refueling stops
in France and Italy. It was even arrested in Tunisia,
but he kept going. He even ignored the bureaucrats who

(08:34):
told him that he couldn't fly over Nepal or Persia.
Nothing was going to stop Wilson from reaching the summit,
not even having his plane impounded in Italy. Authorities forbade
him from entering Tibet, even on foot, so he stayed
in Darjeeling during the winter as he got to work
on a new scheme. With the help of three sherpas,
Wilson dressed up as a Buddhist monk and snuck into

(08:57):
a Tibetan monastery in April of nineteen thirty war. It
was situated right at the base of Mount Everest. From
there he made it to Camp two on the East
Rungbuck Glacier, having dumped many of his supplies along the way.
Wilson set up his tent two miles below Camp three
on April twenty one, which was his birthday. He was
also just shy of the North call a past that

(09:19):
had been carved by glaciers, which sat between Mount Everest
and the Tibetan mountain chong Su. He recorded the day
in his journal, writing it's the weather that's beaten me,
that damned bad luck. Sadly, his luck didn't change. He
was forced to return to the monastery to heal from
a twisted ankle and snow blindness. A little over two

(09:40):
weeks later, he returned to the mountain, reaching Camp three
in only three days, but he refused to stop, leaving
his sherpas behind. Wilson continued to climb. They begged him
to go back to the monastery. It wasn't safe to
go on, but he couldn't return and confirm everyone's doubts
about him. His Sherpaz waited for him to return for

(10:01):
about a month, but he never made it back to
the monastery. Maurice Wilson's body was found one year later.
Journal inte Its final entry was dated May thirty one
of nineteen thirty four. It read, off again, gorgeous day,
A promising start, but I guess the weather had turned.

(10:24):
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 winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast book series and television show,

(10:46):
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
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