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Picture Perfect · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. You probably already know this, but there are
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  Speaker 1: plenty of examples throughout history of questionable medical practices that
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  Speaker 1: somehow work their way into being common knowledge. For instance,
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  Speaker 1: drilling holes into the skull to alleviate headaches, or selling
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  Speaker 1: heroin over the counter, even to children just to treat
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  Speaker 1: a cough, or using ketchup for well many symptoms not
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  Speaker 1: involving French fries. Let's just say that. So to hear
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  Speaker 1: that the Romans had similarly questionable methods of dental hygiene
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  Speaker 1: in the heyday of their empire shouldn't be all that surprising.
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  Speaker 1: It began right around the year one a d, though
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  Speaker 1: the actual point of origin isn't known, and perhaps it's
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  Speaker 1: one of those things best left unknown. One of those
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  Speaker 1: who was the first to do it questions that we
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  Speaker 1: don't really want to know the answer to. But around
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  Speaker 1: that time, Romans started figuring out the cleansing qualities of
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  Speaker 1: decomposing urine. You see, when urine, human or otherwise by
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  Speaker 1: the way, decomposes, it becomes ammonia, which has some pretty
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  Speaker 1: intense cleansing qualities. It's an industrial stain remover, after all,
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  Speaker 1: and has been used to treat stains of all kinds,
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  Speaker 1: from clothing to well teeth. This practice became so commonplace
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  Speaker 1: that Roman authors like Catalysts, freely attested to how his
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  Speaker 1: teeth retained such whiteness from regular application of both human
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  Speaker 1: and animal urine. As they say, if you've got it
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  Speaker 1: flaunted right, as long as you don't care exactly how
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  Speaker 1: you got it. I guess you would think that such
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  Speaker 1: a product would be easy enough to come by in
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  Speaker 1: most densely populated places on the planets at the time,
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  Speaker 1: and for the most part it was easy enough for one.
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  Speaker 1: Throughout Rome, there were public jars where citizens could relieve themselves,
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  Speaker 1: and those jars would then be collected until fully decomposed
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  Speaker 1: into ammonia, at which point it would be resold to
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  Speaker 1: the Roman public as a tool for better dental hygiene. Apparently, though,
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  Speaker 1: that wasn't enough urine for the high society of Romans
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  Speaker 1: eager to keep their teeth white and shining. During the
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  Speaker 1: reign of Emperor Nero, Rome began to import jars of
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  Speaker 1: urine from the Portuguese, because nothing says culture like imported
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  Speaker 1: jars a p In fact, it was such a popular
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  Speaker 1: import that Nero placed attacks on all jars, requiring citizens
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  Speaker 1: to chalk up a little extra for Caesar if they
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  Speaker 1: wanted to indulge in the cleansing benefits of what they
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  Speaker 1: could just produce in jar themselves. While Nero is known
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  Speaker 1: for his share of atrocities and his wide regarded as
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  Speaker 1: one of the worst Roman emperors of all time, perhaps
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  Speaker 1: the strangest addendum to his resume is being the first
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  Speaker 1: Roman emperor to put attacks on p It didn't take
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  Speaker 1: long for anyone boasting pearly white teeth to bear the
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  Speaker 1: insults of the common folk. Thus began the saying you're
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  Speaker 1: full of piss, because well, there was only one way
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  Speaker 1: to get such white teeth at the time, and it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't through laser whitening or bleaching, at least not bleaching
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  Speaker 1: as we know it. And let's take a moment to
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  Speaker 1: mention that these jars were often watered down with either
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  Speaker 1: water or goat's milk, So the density of urine might
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  Speaker 1: not have been that high, but that doesn't take the
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  Speaker 1: primary cleaning ingredients out of it, and we all know
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  Speaker 1: by now what that ingredient was. This wasn't a fad.
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  Speaker 1: The Romans gave us all kinds of lasting inventions, the aqueduct,
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  Speaker 1: for instance, or the postal service, but being the first
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  Speaker 1: to discover the cleansing quality of urine didn't end in
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  Speaker 1: the Roman days. Urine was a mainstay in mouthwash for
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  Speaker 1: almost twenty more century, only being phased out in the Sevres.
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  Speaker 1: But hey, if decomposed urine isn't your thing, there have
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  Speaker 1: been other bizarre things used as mouthwash as well. Maybe
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  Speaker 1: next time I'll tell you all about the many uses
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  Speaker 1: of tortoise blood. As a famous paranormal exterminator once said,
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  Speaker 1: call it fate, call it luck, call it karma. I
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  Speaker 1: believe everything happens for a reason to some being in
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  Speaker 1: the right place at the right time isn't a matter
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  Speaker 1: of happenstance. It was meant to be the direction we
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  Speaker 1: lead in life. They say, isn't by chance? Someone made
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  Speaker 1: it happen, Whether that be our own design or that
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  Speaker 1: of a higher power. Whatever your belief, though, you have
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  Speaker 1: to admit that some things that occur just can't be explained,
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  Speaker 1: and when everything lines up just rights, the impossible often
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  Speaker 1: becomes possible. On the evening of April fourteenth of eighteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty five, President Abraham Lincoln and his wife arrived at
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  Speaker 1: Ford's Theater for a performance of a comedy play our
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  Speaker 1: American cousin. Lincoln had an unsettling dream only days before
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  Speaker 1: in which the President had been killed by an assassin,
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  Speaker 1: and despite his own misgivings about attending the show, he
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  Speaker 1: chose to do so anyway. At ten fifteen pm, actor
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  Speaker 1: and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth entered the Presidential box
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  Speaker 1: and fired a single shot at the back of Lincoln's head.
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  Speaker 1: The wound eventually killed him and sent the nation into mourning.
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  Speaker 1: Booth escaped after jumping from the box onto the stage.
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  Speaker 1: He was apprehended weeks later. Meanwhile, arrangements had to be
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  Speaker 1: made for the president's funeral. Lincoln's body lay in states
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  Speaker 1: in the White House several days later, where the public
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  Speaker 1: could come and visit. A funeral was held on April nineteenth,
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  Speaker 1: and crowds gathered from all over to pay their respects,
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  Speaker 1: after which throngs of mournful Americans followed the casket to
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  Speaker 1: the Capitol. Finally, the late that it was loaded onto
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  Speaker 1: a funeral train bound for Oak Ridge Cemetery in Illinois.
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  Speaker 1: Lincoln may have been born in Kentucky, but he had
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  Speaker 1: always considered Springfield, Illinois his home. However, before the train
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  Speaker 1: reached its destination, it had to make several stops hundreds
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  Speaker 1: in fact, to allow the grieving public along the way
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  Speaker 1: to pay their respects. It passed through Baltimore, Maryland, and Harrisburg,
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  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania on April, followed by a stop for a few
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  Speaker 1: days in Philadelphia. After that, New York City came next.
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  Speaker 1: Lincoln's casket was paraded down Broadway at around two pm
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  Speaker 1: on August. Mounted police led the procession, with military generals
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  Speaker 1: close behind. Roughly eleven thousand American soldiers marched as well,
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  Speaker 1: while various local groups and organizations made up the crowds
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  Speaker 1: along the sidewalks. Mason's laborers, parents and children dressed in
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  Speaker 1: black clamored to get a view of Mr. Lincoln's coffin
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  Speaker 1: as it made its way down the Avenue. Meanwhile, residents
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  Speaker 1: of the homes and mansions along Broadway leaned out of
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  Speaker 1: their windows to watch the event, including an elderly couple
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  Speaker 1: and their grandchildren. A photo taken from a high vantage
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  Speaker 1: point beyond the parade managed to capture the occasion, preserving
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  Speaker 1: the image of the people marching down the street, as
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  Speaker 1: well as the sea of mourners on the sidelines, and
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  Speaker 1: in the top left of the photo, peeking out from
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  Speaker 1: a second story window of someone's home, the photographer coughts
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  Speaker 1: a curious onlooker, one of those rare right place, right
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  Speaker 1: time moments I mentioned earlier. He was a small boy
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  Speaker 1: of only seven years old, the grandchild of an elderly
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  Speaker 1: couple who lived there. He had come with his brother
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  Speaker 1: for a visit and to witness the president's hearst go by.
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  Speaker 1: The boy was a native New Yorker, born on East
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  Speaker 1: twentieth Street in Manhattan to wealthy parents in eighteen fifty four.
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  Speaker 1: As that adventurous young man grew older, he joined the U. S. Army,
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  Speaker 1: then became a cattle rancher at West before returning to
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  Speaker 1: New York to enter the world of politics. He worked
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  Speaker 1: his way up through the New York State Assembly, to
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  Speaker 1: the Board of Police Commissioners, the governorship, until finally becoming
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  Speaker 1: the twenty five President of the United States. Yes, the
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  Speaker 1: little boy who watched Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession from a
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  Speaker 1: New York City window was none other than Theodore Roosevelt.
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  Speaker 1: Like I said, right place, right time, and for one
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  Speaker 1: brief moment, two presidents were within feet of each other
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  Speaker 1: under the most surreal of circumstances. Coincidence perhaps, but at
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  Speaker 1: the very least it was more than a little curious.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah h