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Ratted Out · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
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  Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
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  Speaker 1: 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. It's easy to love furry, fluffy animals like dogs, cats,
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  Speaker 1: and rabbits. There are pets and family members, and they're
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  Speaker 1: responsible for some of the best videos on the Internet.
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  Speaker 1: But so many animals are misunderstood and maligned simply for
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  Speaker 1: acting the way nature intended. People didn't think too much
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  Speaker 1: about shark attacks before the nineteen seventies, but in a
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  Speaker 1: film came out that changed the way you see the
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  Speaker 1: water and what lies beneath it forever. Steven Spielberg's Jaws
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  Speaker 1: was a runaway hit in the first official summer blockbuster,
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  Speaker 1: but it also led to the decimation of shark populations
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  Speaker 1: all over the globe. Each year, more than a hundred
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  Speaker 1: million sharks are killed, sometimes for their fins, other times
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  Speaker 1: out of fear that they may bite a human. Sure,
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  Speaker 1: great whites take a nibble from time to time, but
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  Speaker 1: not because we're tasty. It's because they think we're something else,
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  Speaker 1: but they don't know for sure until they get a taste.
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter whether they're snakes or sharks or spiders.
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  Speaker 1: There are just some creatures that don't get any love
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  Speaker 1: from us humans. I think it's because they haven't had
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  Speaker 1: the right kind of pr Take the rat, for example, Tiny, furry,
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  Speaker 1: and very smart. According to the National Human Genome Research
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  Speaker 1: Institute in Maryland, we have more in common with those
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  Speaker 1: long tailed rodents than we do with other meat eating animals,
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  Speaker 1: and yet rats are often depicted as garbage eating scavengers
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  Speaker 1: full of disease. After all, they were believed to be
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  Speaker 1: the source of the Black plague for hundreds of years
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  Speaker 1: until it was proven that the fleas on their backs
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  Speaker 1: were the real cause of the spread. But one Canadian
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  Speaker 1: province hated rats so much it went to extreme lengths
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  Speaker 1: to get rid of them forever. Alberta is the sixth
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  Speaker 1: largest Canadian province and is responsible for billions of dollars
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  Speaker 1: in agricultural exports each year, so it's important to keep
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  Speaker 1: its farms free of pests. That's why in nineteen forty two,
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  Speaker 1: the Ministry of Agricultural and Food instituted the Agricultural Pests
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  Speaker 1: Act of Alberta. It stated that any creature or critter
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  Speaker 1: posing a threat to the province's farms was officially put
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  Speaker 1: on a to kill list. Rats were added in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: fifty They had come from Eastern Canada scurrying their way
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  Speaker 1: to Alberta to feed on grains, scraps of food and crops,
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  Speaker 1: and people were ready. It took a year or so
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  Speaker 1: to prepare, with the province going to great lengths to
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  Speaker 1: educate the public on how the problem was going to
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  Speaker 1: be addressed. They held conferences, handed out brochures and put
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  Speaker 1: up posters all over the municipalities, specifically in high risk
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  Speaker 1: areas like train stations and schools. From June of nineteen
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  Speaker 1: fifty two until July of the following year, Alberta spread
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  Speaker 1: more than a hundred and forty thousand pounds of arsenic
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  Speaker 1: trioxide powder. Thousands of buildings and farms along the province's
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  Speaker 1: eastern border were covered in it. The local human population
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  Speaker 1: wasn't too happy about the treatment, as the powder didn't
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  Speaker 1: just affect the rodents. People, pets, and livestock were also
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  Speaker 1: hurt by it. Despite the government, telling them that only
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  Speaker 1: the rats would be affected. Over the ten years that followed,
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  Speaker 1: the rat population skyrocketed until it finally stopped around nineteen
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  Speaker 1: fifty nine. Infestations then plummeted. From nineteen sixty to nineteen eighty,
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  Speaker 1: the number of live rat infestations fluctuated, but were never
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  Speaker 1: as high as they were before and during the nineteen fifties.
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  Speaker 1: This was mostly due to the work done by the
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  Speaker 1: Agriculture and Food Ministry, but nature also played a part.
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  Speaker 1: You see, certain mountainous and forested areas outside of Alberta
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  Speaker 1: have made it difficult for rats to make it into
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  Speaker 1: the province. It's also illegal for anyone in Alberta to
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  Speaker 1: own a rat. Research laboratories are only allowed to have
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  Speaker 1: them with special permits. Because of all the hard work
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  Speaker 1: in eliminating rats over the previous fifty years, two thousand
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  Speaker 1: two marked the first year in Alberta's history without a
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  Speaker 1: single rat infestation. The next five years saw only two
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  Speaker 1: infestations crop up, and they were dealt with swiftly. Alberta
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  Speaker 1: was basically rat free ever since, well, except for a
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  Speaker 1: freak accident in two thousand four, when someone with almost
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  Speaker 1: a dozen domestic Norway rats released them into a Calgary neighborhood.
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  Speaker 1: The locals wasted no time. Like the angry mob at
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  Speaker 1: the end of Frankenstein, they chased every last rodent down
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  Speaker 1: with brooms and shovels before they had a chance to reproduce.
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  Speaker 1: The person who set them free initially was never discovered,
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  Speaker 1: although that might be a good thing, considering that they
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  Speaker 1: might have met a similar or treatment not many people
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  Speaker 1: know that rats are smart, resourceful, and even loyal. They're
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  Speaker 1: like tiny dogs, but they're maligned because of what they
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  Speaker 1: really are, reproductive eating machines. It's hard to blame the
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  Speaker 1: people of Alberta for how they reacted to the threat
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  Speaker 1: that rats pose to their crops. But the next time
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  Speaker 1: you encounter one in a pet store or even on
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  Speaker 1: a subway platform, watch it. See how it learns and
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  Speaker 1: figures out how to operate in a world so much
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  Speaker 1: bigger than itself. The rat doesn't know it's hated. It's
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  Speaker 1: simply doing what the rest of us are trying to
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  Speaker 1: do all the time, get through one more day and
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  Speaker 1: survive the rat race. Life is full of consequences, big
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  Speaker 1: ones too. Like the novel Futility, which discussed the sinking
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  Speaker 1: of a fictional British ocean liner called the titan after
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  Speaker 1: hitting an iceberg, a book by the Way that came
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  Speaker 1: out fourteen years before the real Titanic met the exact
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  Speaker 1: same fate. But sometimes it's hard to accept something as
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  Speaker 1: a coincidence. When we look at how so many disparate
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  Speaker 1: threads line up exactly the right way for something to happen,
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  Speaker 1: we can't shake the notion that it wasn't an accident,
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  Speaker 1: that maybe the coincidence had been planned all along. That
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  Speaker 1: was the accusation facing British educator and crossword compiler Leonard
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  Speaker 1: Daw in nineteen forty four. Daw was born in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty nine and got to start as an amateur football
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  Speaker 1: player that's soccer for those of US state side. But
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  Speaker 1: after the nineteen thirteen season he made two big decisions. First,
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  Speaker 1: he joined the British Army to fight in World War One. Second,
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  Speaker 1: he left football behind forever for a career in teaching.
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  Speaker 1: For a few years after the war, Daw taught science
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  Speaker 1: at a few different institutes around London, eventually settling in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen six at Strands School, a boy's grammar school in
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  Speaker 1: South London. But a year earlier, he had also taken
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  Speaker 1: a different job as a crossword compiler for the Daily
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  Speaker 1: Telegraph newspaper. He was tasked with composing new clues every
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  Speaker 1: day and assembling them into a complete puzzle. He juggled
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  Speaker 1: both jobs for nearly twenty years, teaching kids science while
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  Speaker 1: coming up with five letter words for things like displeasing.
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  Speaker 1: But one day, in early June of nine, dag got
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  Speaker 1: a rude awakening. A pair of agents from m I five,
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  Speaker 1: the British Security Service, arrived at his school looking for him.
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  Speaker 1: They took him in for questioning, along with a coworker
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  Speaker 1: from the newspaper. Locked in a small room for days,
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  Speaker 1: Dawes was subjected to lines of questioning about his occupation,
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  Speaker 1: not as a teacher, but as a puzzle maker. You see,
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  Speaker 1: the agency had noticed some odd things about several cross
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  Speaker 1: words over the past year. In one from early May seventeen,
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  Speaker 1: Across asked for a four letter word for one of
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  Speaker 1: the United States. The correct answer in that particular puzzle
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  Speaker 1: it was Utah. A few weeks later, three Down wanted
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  Speaker 1: a five letter word meaning red Indian on the Missouri.
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  Speaker 1: The answer that filled the boxes perfectly, oh mahaw and
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  Speaker 1: the puzzle just one week after that featured an eight
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  Speaker 1: letter answer Overlord. Now separately, these clues and answers didn't
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  Speaker 1: amount to anything, they were just words, but together they
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  Speaker 1: took on a whole new meaning because oh mahaw happened
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  Speaker 1: to be the code name for one of the beaches
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  Speaker 1: that the Allies planned to storm on June six, otherwise
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  Speaker 1: known as d Day. Utah was another. Other answers, like Gold,
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  Speaker 1: Juno and Sword were code names for beaches that the
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  Speaker 1: Canadian and British forces were also planning to land on,
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  Speaker 1: and every one of them had shown up in a
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  Speaker 1: Daily Telegraph crossword puzzle during the year. The most important
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  Speaker 1: answer of although Overlord, was the name of the whole
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  Speaker 1: Allied operation, which involved the cooperation of all three countries,
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  Speaker 1: and since Daw had been responsible for each of the
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  Speaker 1: puzzles creation, he was officially their prime suspect. M I
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  Speaker 1: five kept him for hours, asking about his allegiance and
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  Speaker 1: whether he had been contacted by Nazi agents. Despite his
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  Speaker 1: service to his country in World War One, it was
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  Speaker 1: feared that he had been turned, but Daw answered their
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  Speaker 1: questions as truthfully as he could. No one had been
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  Speaker 1: in touch from the other side, they were just puzzles.
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  Speaker 1: The m I five agents persisted, though, sure that this
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  Speaker 1: had to be more than a coincidence, and yet no
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  Speaker 1: matter how hard they pushed, Daw wouldn't break. Earlier that year,
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  Speaker 1: a pamphlet published by the Nazis and distributed in southern
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  Speaker 1: England outlawed how German spies had hidden the identity of
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  Speaker 1: one of Hitler's secret weapons in the black squares of
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  Speaker 1: a crossword puzzle. The British agents were certain the Nazis
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  Speaker 1: were up to their old tricks again now, but they
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  Speaker 1: didn't have any solid evidence. It took days of intense interrogation,
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  Speaker 1: but by the end of it all they were no
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  Speaker 1: closer to an answer than they had been at the start.
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  Speaker 1: The good news was that nothing had been spoiled in
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  Speaker 1: the publishing of those clues. When June six finally came,
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  Speaker 1: the Allies successfully stormed the beaches of Normandy and went
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  Speaker 1: on to win the war. Hitler didn't think the coastal
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  Speaker 1: invasion was anything to worry about, so he didn't have
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  Speaker 1: a large number of troops standing by, so had Leonard
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  Speaker 1: Daw actually defected and turned traitor to help the Nazis
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  Speaker 1: With crossword clues probably not, but while he was being
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  Speaker 1: questioned by m I five, Daw told them that he
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  Speaker 1: sometimes had his students help him come up with clues
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  Speaker 1: for the puzzles. Those same children lived in a part
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  Speaker 1: of England with numerous American military bases nearby, and they
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  Speaker 1: often overheard soldiers use certain words in conversation, so it
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  Speaker 1: was likely that terms such as omaha and overlord were
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  Speaker 1: heard in passing by the students and then told to
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  Speaker 1: their teacher, Mr. Daw so that he could finish his puzzles. Sadly,
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  Speaker 1: that explanation didn't remove the doubt and suspicion that followed
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  Speaker 1: him for almost ten years after his arrest. But Leonard
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  Speaker 1: Daw was no trader. He was simply an innocent bystander
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  Speaker 1: who found himself in a puzzling situation. I hope you've
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
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  Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
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  Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
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  Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with How Stuff Works.
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  Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
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  Speaker 1: a podcast book series and television show, and you can
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  Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the world of lore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious, ye