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Wall Crawler · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  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 are
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  Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. History is full of
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  Speaker 1: mysteries waiting to be solved. From Jack the Ripper's true
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  Speaker 1: identity to the Shroud of Turin. There are artifacts, events,
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  Speaker 1: and even people throughout time that defy explanation. For example,
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  Speaker 1: it was once believed that the Freemasons were tied to
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  Speaker 1: the Knights Templar, hiding clues to the location of an
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  Speaker 1: immense treasure in the symbols they built into their buildings.
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  Speaker 1: Many Ivy League schools are home to secret societies that
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  Speaker 1: help shape wealthy elites into titans of industry and world leaders.
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  Speaker 1: And then there are places spots in the world that
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  Speaker 1: continued to inspire curiosity, sites like Stonehenge and the Great
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  Speaker 1: Pyramid of Giza. And in the modern world we might
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  Speaker 1: find such mystery in a place like Shugborough Hall, located
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  Speaker 1: in Staffordshire, England. Shugborough Hall is a massive four hundred
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  Speaker 1: year old estate that was passed down from the British
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  Speaker 1: Diocese to a man named William Anson. In sixty four,
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  Speaker 1: Williams grandson had the original house demolished and erected a
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  Speaker 1: three story mansion in its place. But it was his
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  Speaker 1: son Thomas that had the most profound effect on the home.
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  Speaker 1: Yet Thomas had grand plans for Shugborough Hall. He added
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  Speaker 1: two new structures to either side of the main house,
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  Speaker 1: as well as a monument on the grounds well. He
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  Speaker 1: commissioned the monument, but like everything else, it was paid
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  Speaker 1: for by his younger brother, Admiral George Anson. The monument
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  Speaker 1: was designed and carved by Flemish sculptor Peter Shemaker and
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  Speaker 1: depicts a relief copy of a painting known as The
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  Speaker 1: Arcadian Shepherds by Nicholas Poussan. Beneath the relief, there is
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  Speaker 1: an inscription of several letters on the monument, Oh you, oh,
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  Speaker 1: S V A v V, which sits elevated between the
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  Speaker 1: letters D and M, and no one as any idea
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  Speaker 1: what they mean. However, that doesn't mean that people haven't
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  Speaker 1: tried figuring it out. Most assumptions tie the letters back
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  Speaker 1: to Latin, where each character represents a word in a phrase,
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  Speaker 1: like an acronym or initialism. For example, one theory suggests
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  Speaker 1: that it's a dedication to George Asen's late wife, each
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  Speaker 1: letter representing the Latin words that translate loosely into best
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  Speaker 1: of wives, best of sisters, most devoted widower, dedicates this
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  Speaker 1: to your virtues. Others, though disagree. A former n s
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  Speaker 1: a linguist, thought the letters might mean I pray that
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  Speaker 1: all may know the way of true life, a reference
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  Speaker 1: to a biblical verse in the Book of John. One
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  Speaker 1: author in two thousand fourteen went a different route. Rather
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  Speaker 1: than a Latin phrase hiding within an inscription, Dave Ramsden
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  Speaker 1: interpreted the entire monument as a funerary dedication letters and
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  Speaker 1: all that meant the inscription wasn't an initialism, but a
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  Speaker 1: secret code intended for one person, someone known as the Shepherdess.
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  Speaker 1: Using a complicated decryption cipher, Ramsden was able to decode
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  Speaker 1: the letters into the name Magdalen. And that's not the
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  Speaker 1: only religious association with the piece either. A painter of
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  Speaker 1: the original work, Nicholas Poussan, was alleged to have been
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  Speaker 1: a member of the Priory of Scion, a secret society
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  Speaker 1: dedicated to preserving the truth about the Holy Grail. That
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't a cup at all, but rather Mary Magdalen's
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  Speaker 1: womb and the bloodline that descended from it. It was
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  Speaker 1: believed that Poussan had hidden numerous symbols and secret messages
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  Speaker 1: within his painting, which were then copied into the monument
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  Speaker 1: at Schagboro Hall, But the additional letter is under the relief,
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  Speaker 1: only added to the mystery. Despite the countless theories, translations,
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  Speaker 1: and interpretations, we may never know the meaning of those letters.
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  Speaker 1: For one very important reason. While Peter she Maakers may
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  Speaker 1: have carved the monuments himself, it turns out that the
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  Speaker 1: letters were actually added later by someone else entirely, and
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  Speaker 1: nobody knows who. In the musical Gypsy, a trio of
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  Speaker 1: performers tell young Gypsy rose Lee that if she wants
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  Speaker 1: to be successful on stage, she needs a gimmick, something
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  Speaker 1: to make her unique and memorable in the eyes of
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  Speaker 1: the audience. A gimmick, they told her, would mean recognition,
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  Speaker 1: and that meant longevity and legacy. Harry Gardner had a
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  Speaker 1: gimmick as well. It didn't require special equipment or a
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  Speaker 1: fancy costume, though he did it all over town, with
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  Speaker 1: onlookers often stopping to watch him perform, holding their hands
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  Speaker 1: over their mouths and terror. Harry, you see like to climb?
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  Speaker 1: He started doing it in nineteen o five and never stopped.
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  Speaker 1: Any building he saw became a potential place to show off,
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  Speaker 1: thanks in part to lacks public performance laws at the time.
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  Speaker 1: The turn of the century saw the birth of the skyscraper.
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  Speaker 1: Tall majestic buildings that turned flat skylines into living e
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  Speaker 1: k g readouts, and big buildings meant big business. In
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  Speaker 1: order to drum up that business, companies needed ways to
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  Speaker 1: capture public attention. That's how Harry made a name for
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  Speaker 1: himself and earned much of his living as a climber
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  Speaker 1: for hire. He started off with flagpoles and smaller structures
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  Speaker 1: before moving on to larger office buildings. In nineteen sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: his small town exploits took him all the way to Omaha, Nebraska,
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  Speaker 1: were more than thirty thousand people watched from the street
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  Speaker 1: below as he climbed to the top of the Omaha
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  Speaker 1: World Herald building. He saw his talent as nothing more
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  Speaker 1: than a series of steps, a mechanical set of instructions
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  Speaker 1: he had to follow to ensure success. On the day
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  Speaker 1: of his climb in Omaha, he was quoted as saying,
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  Speaker 1: it seems all a part of a day's work. To me,
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  Speaker 1: there's the wall with little projections, ledges and places to
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  Speaker 1: which I must hold, and there's the top of the
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  Speaker 1: building where I'm going to stop. However, while Harry didn't
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  Speaker 1: talk up his skills that much, word got around about
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  Speaker 1: what he could do, and other cities wanted in on
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  Speaker 1: the act. Months after his feet at the Omaha World Herald,
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  Speaker 1: the Detroit News hired him to scale their building as
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  Speaker 1: a marketing stunt for their ad department. The following year,
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  Speaker 1: he climbed up sixteen stories to the top of the
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  Speaker 1: Empire Building in Birmingham, Alabama. Is work took him all
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  Speaker 1: over North America and Europe, working his way up and
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  Speaker 1: down skyscrapers wearing only his street clothes. In West Virginia,
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  Speaker 1: he scaled the north wall of the Logan County Courthouse,
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  Speaker 1: where he hoisted the U. S. Flag. In British Columbia,
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  Speaker 1: he climbed to the top of the seventeen story World Building,
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  Speaker 1: where the Vancouver World newspaper was being published. Over a
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  Speaker 1: span of almost two decades, Harry Gardner managed to climb
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  Speaker 1: over seven hundred buildings. However, it wasn't until nineteen eighteen
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  Speaker 1: that he had an idea. World War one had just ended,
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  Speaker 1: and Harry wanted to celebrate the only way he knew how.
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  Speaker 1: There were only two problems. First, he had to choose
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  Speaker 1: which building he should climb, and second, he'd been operating
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  Speaker 1: without any kind of insurance policy in place. No company
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  Speaker 1: would back him given his line of work, and he
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  Speaker 1: was too much of a risk. But if anything happened
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  Speaker 1: to him, his loved ones would be without the help
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  Speaker 1: they needed. So Harry formed a l On November eleventh
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  Speaker 1: of nineteen, he went into the Bank of Hamilton's in Ontario, Canada,
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  Speaker 1: and purchased a one thou dollar bond. While he was there,
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  Speaker 1: he also managed to secure for himself an insurance policy,
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  Speaker 1: and once he'd finished signing the papers, he left and
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  Speaker 1: continued on his way, all to great applause from the crowd.
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  Speaker 1: And no, he didn't take an audience with him inside
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  Speaker 1: the bank. They were still on the ground outside, and
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  Speaker 1: Harry well he decided to take a less direct route
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  Speaker 1: to the bank's insurance offices. He climbed up the side
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  Speaker 1: of the building and poked in through one of the
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  Speaker 1: open windows, where an employee handed him a pen. It's
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  Speaker 1: no wonder that former President Grover Cleveland once referred to
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  Speaker 1: Harry by such an unusual nickname, the Human Fly. I
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  Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosity these podcast dot com. The
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  Speaker 1: show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with
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  Speaker 1: how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
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  Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.