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Guardian Angels · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
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  Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. In war, a soldier's primary
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  Speaker 1: goals are to kill the enemy and stay alive. During
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  Speaker 1: the Civil War, however, that second part wasn't so easy.
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  Speaker 1: Musket Balls did immense damage as they tore through flesh,
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  Speaker 1: often taking winding routes and remaining lodged inside the body.
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  Speaker 1: This of course led to infections, which turned into high
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  Speaker 1: fevers and eventually death. Treatment was rudimentary and scarce. Many
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  Speaker 1: people who survived lost limbs to gang green and penicillin
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  Speaker 1: hadn't been discovered yet. The Civil War saw the earth
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  Speaker 1: of an organized ambulance system as a way to safely
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  Speaker 1: and quickly rush injured soldiers to local hospitals. Trains were
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  Speaker 1: also used as mobile medical units, but care itself had
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  Speaker 1: not advanced in any meaningful way. It wasn't like there
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  Speaker 1: was time either. With war raging across the country. However,
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  Speaker 1: some soldiers suffered from gunshot wounds found themselves being healed
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  Speaker 1: by something outside the realm of modern medicine. It was
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  Speaker 1: a phenomenon that had to be seen to be believed.
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  Speaker 1: You might say they had a guardian angel watching over them.
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  Speaker 1: In early April of eighteen sixty two, over forty thousand
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  Speaker 1: Union soldiers had been camped out along the Tennessee River
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  Speaker 1: near the little town of Shiloh. A second division of
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  Speaker 1: roughly twenty additional troops were on their way, but the
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  Speaker 1: Union soldiers, led by Ulysses S. Grant, had no idea
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  Speaker 1: what was coming. Meanwhile, forty thousand Confederate troops were moving
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  Speaker 1: in from the south, hoping to catch Union forces off guard.
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  Speaker 1: On the morning of April sixth, Confederate soldiers emerged from
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  Speaker 1: the nearby woods and surprised Grant's army, beginning what would
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  Speaker 1: become the bloodiest battle of the war. The Battle of
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  Speaker 1: Shiloh lasted two days. Between both sides, over twenty three
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  Speaker 1: thousand lives were lost, more casualties than in any other
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  Speaker 1: battle in American history up to that moment. The surprise
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  Speaker 1: attack didn't matter anyway. The Confederates, with their antiquated weapons,
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  Speaker 1: were forced to retreat while both sides tended to their
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  Speaker 1: dead and wounded. The night after the fight rains started
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  Speaker 1: moving into the area, the soil turned to mud. Injured
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  Speaker 1: soldiers waited for medical support, and then they noticed something
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  Speaker 1: odd about their wounds. They were glowing. No one had
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  Speaker 1: expected it. Being in the middle of nowhere with no
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  Speaker 1: access to proper medicine, as limited as it was at
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  Speaker 1: the time, didn't leave them feeling hopeful. But a miraculous
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  Speaker 1: thing was happening. The soldiers whose wounds had emitted a
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  Speaker 1: soft blue glow survived more often than those whose wounds
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  Speaker 1: had not. They healed faster, they were fewer cases of
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  Speaker 1: infection and amputations. Those who witnessed it started referring to
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  Speaker 1: it as angels glow. If only it had been that divine. Sadly,
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  Speaker 1: angels had not descended upon Shiloh to save the Union troops.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, the truth about their glowing wounds had nothing
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  Speaker 1: to do with guardian angels at all. As it turned out,
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  Speaker 1: the whole area was crawling with nematodes, tiny worms that
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  Speaker 1: ate insect larvae they found in the mud. Well, they
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  Speaker 1: didn't exactly eat the larvae, They burrowed inside it and
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  Speaker 1: then vomited up a special kind of bacteria called photo
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  Speaker 1: herabdous luminescence, and the bacteria was special for two reasons. First,
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  Speaker 1: it killed the larvae from the inside for the nematodes
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  Speaker 1: to eat, and secondly, it gave off a soft blue glow,
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  Speaker 1: and that's what the soldiers were seeing, glowing blue bacteria
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  Speaker 1: thrown up by hungry worms inside their wounds. Kind of gross,
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  Speaker 1: I know, but that's not all. The bacteria didn't just
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  Speaker 1: eat insect larvae. It ate pretty much anything in its path,
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  Speaker 1: including other bacteria that might have caused infections. Those soldiers
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  Speaker 1: had survived at a much higher rate than the rest
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  Speaker 1: of the army did because of nema towed vomit. The
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  Speaker 1: medical profession might not have learned much about proper care
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  Speaker 1: during the worst of the Civil War, but the soldiers
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  Speaker 1: sure learned something else. A cure could always be found
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  Speaker 1: in nature, even in the most unlikely of places. The
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  Speaker 1: greatest minds in history left behind legacies of legendary proportions.
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  Speaker 1: Albert Einstein's theories and research have contributed to some of
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  Speaker 1: the most important scientific discoveries of the last sixty years.
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  Speaker 1: Leonardo di and She's art has influenced not just other
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: artists all over the world, but inventors as well, and
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  Speaker 1: William Shakespeare's impact on literature and theater continues to inspire
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  Speaker 1: new generations of writers everywhere. However, their work is only
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  Speaker 1: part of their genius. We'll never know their hopes and dreams,
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  Speaker 1: the passing thoughts that might have changed the world if
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  Speaker 1: they had been explored, if only there had been some
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  Speaker 1: way to peek inside their minds. Well, one man may
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  Speaker 1: have done exactly that in sev kicking off over two
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  Speaker 1: hundred years of rumor about what happened to one of
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  Speaker 1: the most important historical figures of all time. His name
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  Speaker 1: was Dr Frank Chambers. For years he kept a diarrhea
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  Speaker 1: of his day to day life, and it was in
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  Speaker 1: this record that he wrote some entries about a bold
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  Speaker 1: endeavor that he had undertaken. You see, he wanted something,
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  Speaker 1: something that belonged to a famous literary figure, the aforementioned
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  Speaker 1: Bard of Stratford upon Avon, William Shakespeare. Shakespeare had died
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  Speaker 1: almost two centuries prior, in sixteen sixteen, and his body
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  Speaker 1: had been buried in the Church of the Holy Trinity,
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  Speaker 1: about one hundred miles northwest of London. So Dr Chambers
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  Speaker 1: led a team of gray robbers into the church one
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  Speaker 1: night with a plan to dig up Shakespeare's body. They
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  Speaker 1: weren't after jewels, though, or even a quill pen he
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  Speaker 1: might have been buried with. No, they wanted something else,
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  Speaker 1: a piece of the man himself, specifically his skull, And
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  Speaker 1: according to the stories, Chambers was successful in his pursuit
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  Speaker 1: and reportedly later sold the skull for three hundred British pounds.
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  Speaker 1: But something about these stories never seemed to add up
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  Speaker 1: to a lot of historians. It just seemed too outlandish
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  Speaker 1: to be true. Shakespeare's grave had been unmarked, so successfully
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  Speaker 1: finding it in the dark seemed like a fool's Errand
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  Speaker 1: there was also the inscription, meant to warn away potential robbers,
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  Speaker 1: blessed to be the man that spares these stones, and
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  Speaker 1: cursed be he that moves my bones. That should have
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  Speaker 1: been enough to give anyone pause, but not doctor Chambers allegedly.
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  Speaker 1: Of Course, in his explanation of his exploits, the intrepid
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  Speaker 1: thief may note of several specific details. For example, he
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  Speaker 1: claimed Shakespeare was not buried in a coffin, but wrapped
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  Speaker 1: in cloth and placed into a shallow grave. That only
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  Speaker 1: lessened the credibility of a story. After all, why would
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  Speaker 1: someone as famous and brilliant as William Shakespeare have been
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  Speaker 1: buried in such a common and unfitting way. Unfortunately, there
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  Speaker 1: was no way to be sure. The Church would not
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  Speaker 1: let anyone else exhume the body for verification, and they
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  Speaker 1: heated the bard's final request that no one disturbed his grave.
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  Speaker 1: And so for centuries the rumors of doctor Chambers exploits persisted,
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  Speaker 1: although no one took them too seriously. Scholars and theater
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  Speaker 1: aficionados alike just couldn't accept that such a great mind
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  Speaker 1: might be resting in such a mundane grave. That was
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  Speaker 1: until two thousand sixteen, four hundred years after his death.
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  Speaker 1: That's when archaeolo just found another way to get the
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  Speaker 1: answers they needed. Using ground penetrating radar, the scientists scanned
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  Speaker 1: Shakespeare's grave to get a more accurate picture of what
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  Speaker 1: was inside, and what they found shocked them. Dr Chambers,
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  Speaker 1: who had sworn the truth about his outrageous claims regarding
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  Speaker 1: the writer's grave, had been right all along. William Shakespeare
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  Speaker 1: had in fact been wrapped in cloth before his burial
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  Speaker 1: in a shallow grave only three ft deep. What's more,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps the boldest and strangest claim of all hadn't been
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  Speaker 1: so strange. The head really was missing. No one knows
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  Speaker 1: where it is today or who might have it, but
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  Speaker 1: I like to imagine it's being used in a very
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  Speaker 1: special performance of Hamlet. Dr Frank Chambers confused the literary
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  Speaker 1: world for centuries with his amazing claim, but in the
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  Speaker 1: end it was proven true. He might have been our
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  Speaker 1: predecessor in many ways, but he certainly found a to
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  Speaker 1: get ahead of us. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
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  Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
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  Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
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  Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.