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Itsy Bitsy · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  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. Fashion doesn't sit still. It's constantly changing every decade,
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  Speaker 1: every year, every season. Sometimes certain trends return, like the
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  Speaker 1: bell bottom craze of the nineteen nineties, and sometimes they
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  Speaker 1: rightly go away forever, like the polyester leisure suits of
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  Speaker 1: the seventies. But one clothing item has withstood the test
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  Speaker 1: of time, existing for thousands of years across a variety
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  Speaker 1: of cultures, even though it is widely considered to be
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  Speaker 1: a modern creation. It started in fifty sid b c.
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  Speaker 1: In the ancient city of catalhu Yuck, the ruins of
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  Speaker 1: which can be found today in modern day Turkey. During
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  Speaker 1: this era, an image of the mother goddess of the
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  Speaker 1: native people was crafted. The image showed her wearing two
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  Speaker 1: strips of cloth, one covering her chest and the other
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  Speaker 1: covering her lower half, as she sat upon two leopards.
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  Speaker 1: A similar outfit was seen thousands of years later in
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  Speaker 1: fourteen hundred b c. It was depicted in Greek vases, urns,
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  Speaker 1: and artwork, and was often seen on women participating in
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  Speaker 1: athletic activities throughout history. Evidence of this garment was also
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  Speaker 1: found in ancient Roman mosaics, Greek sculptures, and Latin literature.
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  Speaker 1: It is almost as old as time itself. However, even
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  Speaker 1: though this article of clothing was worn commonly and publicly,
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  Speaker 1: it became increasingly seen as immodest and vulgar by more
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  Speaker 1: conservative minded individuals as time war on. It was until
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  Speaker 1: one man decided to tackle it head on and drag
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  Speaker 1: it into the sunshine of the modern age. His name
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  Speaker 1: was Louis Rayard, born in France in eighteen seven. He'd
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  Speaker 1: worked as an automotive engineer until his mother's death around
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  Speaker 1: nineteen forty. She had owned a clothing business, and Louis
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  Speaker 1: took it upon himself to step into her shoes. No
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  Speaker 1: pun intended running the company from that point on. Sometimes
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  Speaker 1: he would stroll the nearby beaches and he would note
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  Speaker 1: how the women couldn't get the kind of sun tan
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  Speaker 1: they wanted. Their swimsuits covered too much of their bodies,
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  Speaker 1: so they would roll the fabric back to expose more
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  Speaker 1: of their skin. And this gave him an idea. What
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  Speaker 1: if they didn't have to roll up the fabric, What
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  Speaker 1: if they could wear a swimsuit that exposed their middrift
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  Speaker 1: for them instead. It took several years, due in part
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  Speaker 1: to the war effort and fabric shortages, but by ninety
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  Speaker 1: six Louis had come up with just the thing, and
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  Speaker 1: so had someone else. Jacques Heim, also from France, had
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  Speaker 1: gotten his start working for his parents for Company Me.
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  Speaker 1: Just like Louis, Jacques took the reins and started running
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  Speaker 1: it himself some years later, eventually broadening its offerings beyond
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  Speaker 1: fur coats and stoles. The company's new Cotur line included dresses,
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  Speaker 1: and Jacques also started producing clothes for young girls. But
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  Speaker 1: aside from all of that, he made a bathing suit.
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  Speaker 1: It was comprised of a ruffled bandeau and a pair
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  Speaker 1: of short bottoms with a thin strip of middrift exposed
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  Speaker 1: between them. He called it the Atom French four Adam
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  Speaker 1: and advertised it by pain sky writers to write out
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  Speaker 1: the phrase the World's smallest bathing suit in the sky
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  Speaker 1: over a popular resort but Jackaim didn't have Louis Royard's
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  Speaker 1: marketing prowess. Louis knew what people wanted to see. He
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  Speaker 1: would use even less fabric than his competitor, a meager
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  Speaker 1: four small triangles tied together that amounted to no more
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  Speaker 1: than thirty square inches of material. It had to be
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  Speaker 1: seen to be believed. All he needed was a model. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: no one wanted to wear it, as there wasn't much
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  Speaker 1: there to begin with. But he eventually found his model
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  Speaker 1: in a young nineteen year old dancer named Micheline Bernardini.
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  Speaker 1: She worked at a local music hall and agreed to
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  Speaker 1: be photographed in louise new bathing suit. On July five,
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  Speaker 1: he took her to a public swimming pool in Paris
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  Speaker 1: and introduced her to the crowd. She made quite a splash.
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  Speaker 1: The bottoms of her new swimsuit stopped just below her
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  Speaker 1: navel and exposed more of her backside than any other
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  Speaker 1: suit on the market, and as promised, her middrift was
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  Speaker 1: fully exposed. Newspapers printed photos of her in the ensemble
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  Speaker 1: too great acclaim, mostly from men. However, it was banned
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  Speaker 1: in several countries and even a few places in the
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  Speaker 1: United States. Over time, however, it gained in popularity among
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  Speaker 1: swimmers and beach goers, and despite Joaquim beating Louis Royard
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  Speaker 1: to market with his design, it was Louie's name for
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  Speaker 1: the product that ultimately stuck. He had named his swim
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  Speaker 1: suit after the location of a US atomic test site
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  Speaker 1: near the later called Bikini a Toll. So with one
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  Speaker 1: word and a few pieces of fabric, two men brought
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  Speaker 1: a seventy year old garment into the twentieth century with
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  Speaker 1: the invention of the bikini, and Louis even managed to
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  Speaker 1: outdo his competition. A few weeks after Jacques had his
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  Speaker 1: slogan written across the Sky for the resort, Louis hired
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  Speaker 1: his own skywriters to do the same, except this time
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  Speaker 1: he had them write something better smaller, it said, than
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  Speaker 1: the smallest bathing suit in the world. Comedian and filmmaker
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  Speaker 1: Mel Brooks famously said, rhetoric does not get you anywhere,
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  Speaker 1: because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric.
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  Speaker 1: But if you can bring these people down with comedy,
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  Speaker 1: they stand no chance. He understood that in order to
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  Speaker 1: rob evil people of their power, he had to make
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  Speaker 1: them the butt of the joke. Perhaps no work of
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  Speaker 1: his exemplifies this more than the musical number Springtime for
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  Speaker 1: Hitler from Brooks's nineteen sixty seven film The Producers, the
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  Speaker 1: over the top Broadway performance in which Nazis sing and
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  Speaker 1: dance paying tribute to a giant poster of their leader
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  Speaker 1: as the Hitler character entered the scene, and its portrayed
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  Speaker 1: as a laughable beateneck not a fearsome dictator. But what
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  Speaker 1: mel Brooks might not have known at the time was
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  Speaker 1: that he didn't have to make up stories to make
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  Speaker 1: the Nazis look like fools. One real life German U
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  Speaker 1: boat captain managed to do that all on his own.
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  Speaker 1: His name was Carl Adolph Schlitt, and he was in
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  Speaker 1: charge of German submarine U twelve O six. The U
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  Speaker 1: twelve oh six was a two D and twenty foot
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  Speaker 1: sub weighing as much as eight hundred and seventy one
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  Speaker 1: tons when submerged. It was built later in the war
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  Speaker 1: and as a result had a few upgrades that separated
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  Speaker 1: it from its earliest counterparts. One such upgrade was its
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  Speaker 1: use of deep water, high pressured toilets, unlike British subs,
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  Speaker 1: which kept septic tanks. On board that could be emptied
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  Speaker 1: at a later time. The U twelve oh six fired
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  Speaker 1: human waste into the ocean with every flush. This new
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  Speaker 1: plumbing system allowed use of the restroom while the sub
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  Speaker 1: was at depth, no need to worry about a heavy
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  Speaker 1: tank to add weight to the vessel. There was only
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  Speaker 1: one catch. Flushing the toilet was a lot more complicated.
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  Speaker 1: It even required training on how to do it properly
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  Speaker 1: without jeopardizing the integrity of the vessel and the lives
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  Speaker 1: of the people on board. A person had to turn
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  Speaker 1: a series of valves in just the right order to
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  Speaker 1: evacuate the toilet's contents without seawater coming back in. In
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  Speaker 1: April of the U twelve oh six was traveling two
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  Speaker 1: feet below the waters off the coast of Scotland when
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  Speaker 1: Captain Schlitt got the urge. He might have had a
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  Speaker 1: large meal or one too many cups of coffee that day,
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  Speaker 1: but whatever it was, he had to go now. Being
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  Speaker 1: a submarine captain, a man in control of a massive
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  Speaker 1: vessel and his own destiny, there was no reason for
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  Speaker 1: him to think he couldn't handle something as simple as
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  Speaker 1: using a toilet. And yet he soon learned that flushing
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  Speaker 1: the U twelve O six is commode required more than
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  Speaker 1: a jiggle of the handle. After he had done his business,
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  Speaker 1: Schlitz stood up and realized that, unlike the sub, he
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  Speaker 1: was out of his depth. He called in an engineer
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  Speaker 1: to a system. Now there were two Nazis in a
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  Speaker 1: small submarine bathroom with no idea how to flush the toilet.
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  Speaker 1: The engineer turned one valve and that's all it took
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  Speaker 1: for all hell to break loose. The room started to
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  Speaker 1: take on seawater, with Schlitz remnants swirling around with them.
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  Speaker 1: And to make matters worse, the bathroom was positioned over
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  Speaker 1: the sub's battery. As the water breached the compartment, another
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  Speaker 1: kind of toxic gas, flooring gas, to be precise, filled
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  Speaker 1: the vessel. Schlitz and his crew had no choice but
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  Speaker 1: to surface, and at the worst possible time. The U
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  Speaker 1: twelve O six was almost immediately spotted by the British
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  Speaker 1: Royal Air Force and fired upon. With no other options,
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  Speaker 1: the fifty or so German crew abandoned the sub, which
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  Speaker 1: was then deliberately sunk to keep its secrets from the Allies.
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  Speaker 1: Four Nazis died that day, while the others were captured
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  Speaker 1: in Schlitt's official report, he stated that he had been
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  Speaker 1: in the engine room when one of his engineers had
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  Speaker 1: tried to repair a vent at the front of the vessel.
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  Speaker 1: The ensuing on rush of sea water made the sub
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  Speaker 1: buoyant and they were forced to surface. He made no
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  Speaker 1: mention of his time in the bathroom nor the failed
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  Speaker 1: flush that had sealed the fates of him and his crew.
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  Speaker 1: Captain Schlitt was only twenty seven when he was handed
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  Speaker 1: control of the U twelve O six. It was his
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  Speaker 1: first patrol. After spending several years in a p O
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  Speaker 1: W camp. He was released and lived to the ripe
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  Speaker 1: old age of ninety. But he had to live every
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  Speaker 1: day of that knowing that he got his men killed
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  Speaker 1: or captured because he didn't know how to flush a toilet.
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  Speaker 1: And that's a real Schlitz show, if you ask me.
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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.