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Rock the Boat · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Off the coast of England, and to be exact, off
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  Speaker 1: the coast of Frinton on Sea in Essex, a fairy
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  Speaker 1: dropped anchor. Its pilot had taken special care to move
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  Speaker 1: it into international waters. Its cruise intent was not strictly legal,
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  Speaker 1: and they didn't want to be hassled by the British authorities.
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  Speaker 1: It was Easter Sunday, March twenty eighth of nineteen sixty four.
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  Speaker 1: A signal went out from the decks, cutting into the
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  Speaker 1: British radio static, a clarion call and a protest. It
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  Speaker 1: was rock and roll, and in this way Radio Caroline
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  Speaker 1: announced itself to a pop and rock star England. It
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  Speaker 1: became a beacon for pop music and forced the establishment
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  Speaker 1: to finally accept the changing tastes of a new generation.
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  Speaker 1: And along the way it utterly changed the landscape of
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  Speaker 1: British broadcasting. You see, before nineteen sixty four, broadcasting was
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  Speaker 1: completely controlled by the BBC. What went on the airwaves
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  Speaker 1: was regulated by the government, who only begrudgingly played popular
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  Speaker 1: music and limited its time on the airwaves. But this
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  Speaker 1: wasn't enough for the British youth, who desperately hungered for
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  Speaker 1: music from the country's growing pop and rock scene. They
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  Speaker 1: wanted the Beatles, they wanted the Rolling Stones, they wanted
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  Speaker 1: rock and roll. But the BBC wasn't listening. So when
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  Speaker 1: an Irish businessman named Ronan O'Reilly saw what was happening
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  Speaker 1: and realized that there was a great opportunity in the
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  Speaker 1: establishment's stubbornness, he had an idea of how to exploit
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  Speaker 1: that opportunity. A station at sea beyond English maritime borders,
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  Speaker 1: a mere three miles from shore. If he weren't broadcasting
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  Speaker 1: from inside Britain, he wouldn't be constrained by their broadcasting laws,
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  Speaker 1: with their censorship and their scheduling constraints. He'd be able
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  Speaker 1: to operate without a license. He could play anything that
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  Speaker 1: he liked for as long as he liked. And mister o'rahi, well,
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  Speaker 1: he really liked rock music, so he bought and converted
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  Speaker 1: a ferry named the me Amigo to be his broadcast station,
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  Speaker 1: and on March twenty eighth, Radio Caroline went live. It
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  Speaker 1: was immediately a massive sensation. The music was exactly what
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  Speaker 1: the younger generation had yearned for all day, every day,
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  Speaker 1: and unlike the stodgy announcers of the BBC Radio Carolines,
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  Speaker 1: DJs were like familiar friends, energetic and funny, and more importantly,
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  Speaker 1: the same age as many of their listeners. This pirate
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  Speaker 1: station built an audience in the millions who tuned in
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  Speaker 1: on transistor radios and listened late into the night. O'rahlei's
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  Speaker 1: gambit had paid off generously. Not only had he filled
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  Speaker 1: a gap in the market, but he'd proven that the
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  Speaker 1: BBC's monopoly on radio fell woefully short in the face
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  Speaker 1: of the cultural wave of rock and roll Revolution. Radio
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  Speaker 1: Caroline stood alone, but only for a short time. Overnight,
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  Speaker 1: new pirate stations popped up as well. The sea seemingly
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  Speaker 1: full of illegal broadcasters. Stations like Radio London, Radio Scotland
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  Speaker 1: and Radio Atlanta were pumping the sounds of the swinging
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  Speaker 1: sixties into the nation. They became so prominent that they
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  Speaker 1: were impossible for the government to ignore, and so in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, Parliament passed the Marine Broadcasting Offenses Act,
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  Speaker 1: which made it illegal for citizens of Britain to work
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  Speaker 1: for the pirate stations and for businesses to advertise on
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  Speaker 1: their stations. With their supply of money and labor drying up,
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  Speaker 1: the newest stations were decimated, but Radio Caroline kept rocking.
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  Speaker 1: Miamigo was a symbol of resistance. The station began to
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  Speaker 1: pull supplies from Dutch waters, worked with complex maritime laws,
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  Speaker 1: and merged with Radio Atlanta to share resources and widen
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  Speaker 1: their reach. They were adaptable, and they managed for years
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  Speaker 1: to pardon the pun stay afloat. Finally, the British media
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  Speaker 1: establishment had to concede that pirate radio had transformed the
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  Speaker 1: media market forever, and as a response to the huge
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  Speaker 1: cultural shift, in the autumn of nineteen sixty seven, the
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  Speaker 1: BBC created Radio One, a station for pop and rock
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  Speaker 1: music that not only tried to reproduce the success of
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  Speaker 1: Pirate radio, but that also employed the very djays that
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  Speaker 1: they had fought so hard against. Radio Caroline kept on
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  Speaker 1: over the following decades, broadcasting, despite bankruptcies and shipwrecks, even
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  Speaker 1: adapting as digital media overtook radio in popularity. It broadcasts
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  Speaker 1: now legally from a new ship and can be heard
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  Speaker 1: not only in Great Britain but all over the world
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  Speaker 1: from its Internet live stream. And through it all, it
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  Speaker 1: still retains its place in broadcast history for its ability
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  Speaker 1: to shape culture. The era of true pirate radio stations
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  Speaker 1: may be decades in the past, but Radio Caroline has
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  Speaker 1: made an impact on it through profound change from the margins.
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  Speaker 1: And when the Miamigo dropped anchor on that Easter Sunday
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four, they may have only set out
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  Speaker 1: to play a little bit of rock and roll, but
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  Speaker 1: that signal they broadcast, well, it started a revolution. He
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  Speaker 1: was a West African king who came to power in
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  Speaker 1: thirteen twelve AD. At first, Mansa Musa essentially was a
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  Speaker 1: regent of the Kingdom of Mali, ruling in his brother's
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  Speaker 1: stead while his brother went on an Atlantic expedition. But
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  Speaker 1: when his brother never returned, he became king. We'll let
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  Speaker 1: you decide if that's the truth or if that's just
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  Speaker 1: the story that he told to explain how he deposed
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  Speaker 1: his brother. Historians are a bit divided. What we do
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  Speaker 1: know is that Musa was a devout Muslim, he likely
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  Speaker 1: would have been introduced to the religion through the trade
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  Speaker 1: routes that ran east to west from Saudi Arabia, and
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  Speaker 1: this contact exposed him to the wisdom and riches of
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  Speaker 1: the Mediterranean and inspired him to expand his empire. He
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  Speaker 1: focused on the non Muslim nations that surrounded Mali. This
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  Speaker 1: included places like Senegal, Nijer, and Mauritania. At its heights
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  Speaker 1: as kingdom spanned two thousand miles. It was essentially the
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  Speaker 1: entire middle portion of the hump of West Africa that
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  Speaker 1: round protruding upper half of Africa that you see when
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  Speaker 1: you look at a map. It's unknown how exactly he
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  Speaker 1: was so effective at conquest, but clearly he was inspired
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  Speaker 1: by what he learned from the East. The most significant
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  Speaker 1: part of his conquest was that many of these nations
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  Speaker 1: were rich in the most important natural resource of the time, gold.
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  Speaker 1: Musa's gold stores were so great that today he'd be
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  Speaker 1: worth an estimated four hundred billion dollars, making him one
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  Speaker 1: of the richest people to have ever lived. And with
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  Speaker 1: all this wealth, he clearly wasn't just going to sit
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  Speaker 1: back and do nothing with it. He attributed his success
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  Speaker 1: to his faith in Islam, and as such he wanted
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  Speaker 1: to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. But that was no
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  Speaker 1: easy task in this time and place. It meant crossing
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  Speaker 1: the Sahara desert by camel, but with four hundred billion
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  Speaker 1: dollars in gold at his disposal, even this wasn't too
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  Speaker 1: great of a challenge for Musa to overcome. He meticulously
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  Speaker 1: planned the expedition, gathering sixty thousand enslaved people, soldiers and
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  Speaker 1: advisers to travel with him. The caravan was really more
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  Speaker 1: of a moving city, with a huge train of livestock
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  Speaker 1: that could be used to sustain all of the people
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  Speaker 1: on the journey, and of course Musa made sure that
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  Speaker 1: they brought plenty of gold with them. There were as
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  Speaker 1: many as one hundred camels loaded down with pure gold.
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  Speaker 1: They made their way across the Sahara, enduring the ankle
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  Speaker 1: twisting sands and intense heat. Sand particles got in their
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  Speaker 1: eyes and mouths, a never ending irritation, but eventually they
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  Speaker 1: arrived in Cairo, the largest city on the route to Mecca.
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  Speaker 1: Musa wanted to show off his wealth, and so he
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  Speaker 1: handed out gold to every major noble in the city.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, he handed out so much gold that he
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  Speaker 1: ruined the local economy. Gold basically became worthless, as there
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  Speaker 1: was more of it than any other good. Undetereared, he
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  Speaker 1: kept going somehow, loading his thousands of men and hundreds
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  Speaker 1: of camels onto ships that crossed the Red Sea. Before
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  Speaker 1: long they were in Mecca. Musa could finally show his
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  Speaker 1: respects to the prophet and the religion that set him
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  Speaker 1: on the path to being such a successful king. When
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  Speaker 1: he returned to Mali, he brought back architects who would
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  Speaker 1: help him build the Jingeraber Mosque in Timbuktu in Mali.
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  Speaker 1: The mosque became instantly iconic for its detailed wood, straw
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  Speaker 1: and mud walls. It's also known for its two slim
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  Speaker 1: towers called minarets. Wood spikes jut out from the walls
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  Speaker 1: and towers, which are a kind of scaffolding that allows
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  Speaker 1: for regular maintenance. Musa also built a university in the city,
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  Speaker 1: which attracted students from all over Africa. Timbuctoo became a
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  Speaker 1: major trade hub for the region and remained that way
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  Speaker 1: for centuries. Mansa Musa's curiosity about the world and his
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  Speaker 1: desire to do more with his life than his predecessors,
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  Speaker 1: led him to completely transforming the region. He died in
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  Speaker 1: thirteen thirty seven, leaving his kingdom to his son. Musa's
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  Speaker 1: descendants managed to hold on to the majority of the
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  Speaker 1: empire throughout the fourteenth century, living up to his legacy
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  Speaker 1: and maintaining their incredible wealth, but the two centuries after
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  Speaker 1: that saw constant civil war among the various factions within
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  Speaker 1: the kingdom. The ruling family in Timbuctoo seemed to lack
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  Speaker 1: the military genius their legendary ancestor. The Kingdom of Mali
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  Speaker 1: finally fell to the Moroccan Empire in fifteen ninety nine,
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  Speaker 1: before eventually falling into the hands of colonizing French forces
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  Speaker 1: in the early twentieth century. The people of Mali didn't
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  Speaker 1: regain independence until nineteen sixty, and the nation has seen
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  Speaker 1: a lots of conflict since then. It's a sad history,
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  Speaker 1: but for those who are curious enough, we can look
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  Speaker 1: back into history and find a time when Mali ruled
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  Speaker 1: all of West Africa and one of the richest men
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  Speaker 1: of all time handed out gold like candy. I hope
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  Speaker 1: you enjoyed today's guided tour through the cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim and
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  Speaker 1: Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show and the people who make it over at
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  Speaker 1: Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link
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  Speaker 1: to the official Cabinet of Curiosities hardcover book, available in
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  Speaker 1: bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook. And
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  Speaker 1: if you're looking for an ad free option, consider joining
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  Speaker 1: our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without the
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  Speaker 1: interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign
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  Speaker 1: up over at patreon dot com slash Grimandmild, and until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.