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Dig This · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke'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 right there on display, just waiting
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  Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: If there's one thing sitcoms can teach us, it's that
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  Speaker 1: get rich quick schemes never work. Whether it was Ralph Cramden,
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  Speaker 1: Homer Simpson, or Al Bundy, the idea of spending a
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  Speaker 1: little money to make a lot of money never really
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  Speaker 1: panned out. Luckily, those characters just had to wait for
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  Speaker 1: next week's episode and all would be forgotten and forgiven.
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  Speaker 1: There were no real stakes or consequences, not like in
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  Speaker 1: real life, where people like Burnie in Charles Ponzi, for
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  Speaker 1: whom the Ponzi Scheme was named, found themselves in jail
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  Speaker 1: or worse. But during the mid nineteenth century, two men
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  Speaker 1: decided to try their hands at their own get rich
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  Speaker 1: quick scheme, and it worked out a lot better than
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  Speaker 1: anyone had expected. Their names were William Smith and Charles Eton,
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  Speaker 1: better known as Billy and Charlie. We don't know much
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  Speaker 1: about their early lives, but we do know what they
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  Speaker 1: did for a living, and I'm using big air quotes there.
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  Speaker 1: They were mudlarks, meaning that they would scour the mudflats
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  Speaker 1: along the Thames for discarded objects that might be worth something,
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  Speaker 1: and then they sold those objects to a man named
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  Speaker 1: William Edwards. He was a dealer of sorts who would
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  Speaker 1: sell what Billy and Charlie had brought to him to
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  Speaker 1: another dealer, one George Eastwood. Eastwood happened to specialize in antiques.
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  Speaker 1: So what did Billy and Charlie uncover in the mudflats?
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  Speaker 1: A lot? Actually, Pilgrim's badges were common, as were coins
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  Speaker 1: and small statues. They made a good living for themselves
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  Speaker 1: selling found antiques for about a year, raking in roughly
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  Speaker 1: two hundred pounds. Edwards was thrilled with their discoveries, although
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  Speaker 1: there were some questions about how the two men were
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  Speaker 1: finding all of those relics. According to them, it was
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  Speaker 1: their own good fortune brought on by the construction of
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  Speaker 1: the Shadwell Dock in London. The constant churning and digging
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  Speaker 1: of the land meant previously lost artifacts were finally coming
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  Speaker 1: to the surface. Eastwood in particular, was so taken with
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  Speaker 1: the boy's work that he eventually started buying from them,
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  Speaker 1: directly selling the objects off to wealthy collectors as well
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  Speaker 1: as the British Museum, but not to everyone was as
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  Speaker 1: taken with Billy and Charlie as Edwards and Eastwood. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: their near endless stream of artifacts piqued the curiosity of
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  Speaker 1: several parties, including those who had purchased from them in
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  Speaker 1: the past. There was a suspicion that Williams and Eaton
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  Speaker 1: were not being entirely truthful about where they'd found these
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  Speaker 1: badges and coins. In fact, some people believed the two
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  Speaker 1: men hadn't found the items at all. They were suspected
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  Speaker 1: of being forgers. Eastwood, of course refuted the claims, arguing
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  Speaker 1: that everything he sold was the real deal, and others
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  Speaker 1: also stepped forward claiming that the items discovered by Billy
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  Speaker 1: and Charlie were authentic. Archaeologist Charles roach Smith, for example,
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  Speaker 1: claimed that many pieces dated back to the sixteenth century,
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  Speaker 1: simply because there were no originals or molds to prove
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  Speaker 1: that they'd been copied. Eventually, the allegations became too severe
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  Speaker 1: to ignore. It was George Eastwood who levied a libel
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  Speaker 1: suit against the British magazine Athenaeum after it published an
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  Speaker 1: article claiming the artifacts were fake, although to be fair,
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  Speaker 1: the article did not mention Eastwood outright. A trial was
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  Speaker 1: held in August of eighteen fifty eight, where William Smith
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  Speaker 1: took the stand. He stood by his defense that everything
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  Speaker 1: he and Charlie had sold up to that point, about
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  Speaker 1: two thousand items had been found at the Shadwell Dock site.
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  Speaker 1: Roach also testified as to their provenance. Over the course
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  Speaker 1: of the trial, a number of experts and collectors came
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  Speaker 1: forward with similar testimonies that the objects they purchased or
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  Speaker 1: examined were authentic to the fifteenth or sixteenth century. By
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  Speaker 1: the end of the trial, Well, the lawyer for the defense,
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  Speaker 1: had argued that there was no proof George Eastwood had
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  Speaker 1: been libeled, and so the jury was forced to find
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  Speaker 1: the magazine not guilty. But the trial did have one
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  Speaker 1: beneficial effect. It was the perfect pr for Eastwood's new shop,
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  Speaker 1: which he opened the following year in eighteen fifty nine. Sadly,
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  Speaker 1: his success did not last long, because two years later
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  Speaker 1: someone found out the truth about Charlie and Billy. The
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  Speaker 1: guy's name was Charles Reed, and Reid had come from
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  Speaker 1: an organization known as the Society of Antiquaries. He started
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  Speaker 1: asking around the Shadwell Dot construction site for more information
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  Speaker 1: about the objects the men had found, and as it
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  Speaker 1: turned out, nobody had ever seen anything in the mudflats
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  Speaker 1: while digging. It was as though the items had appeared
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  Speaker 1: out of thin air, and this brought Reed to an
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  Speaker 1: individual known as a tasher, someone who scavenged the sewers
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  Speaker 1: for treasure, and as luck would have it, this tasher
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  Speaker 1: had worked with Smith and Eaton before and knew how
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  Speaker 1: they'd really come into all those antiques. They had a
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  Speaker 1: workshop where they made them. Everything Billy and char had
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  Speaker 1: sold had been created from materials like lead alloy and
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  Speaker 1: plaster of Paris. It was a complicated process, but the
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  Speaker 1: results spoke for themselves. After their big reveal, the two
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  Speaker 1: men kept making forgeries, which carried on until they were
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  Speaker 1: arrested in eighteen sixty seven. They were quickly released, and
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  Speaker 1: one year later, Charlie passed away from tuberculosis. He was
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  Speaker 1: just thirty five years old. Billy continued on for a
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  Speaker 1: while after that, but he didn't last long. Nothing else
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  Speaker 1: is known from him after roughly eighteen sixty nine. But
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  Speaker 1: funny enough, if you find one of their pieces for
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  Speaker 1: sale today, you might notice a hefty price tag. That's
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  Speaker 1: because they've increased in value over the years. Are they antiques, well,
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  Speaker 1: technically now, yes, but each one is also a brilliant
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  Speaker 1: forgery that some might call a work of art. When
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  Speaker 1: a knock came at the door of the besieged Russian
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  Speaker 1: Parliament building in nineteen ninety one, panic spread throughout the building.
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  Speaker 1: Was this a hardline communist delivering a message for Russian
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  Speaker 1: President Boris Yeltsen was at the military coming to end
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  Speaker 1: the coup it had just started a few days earlier.
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  Speaker 1: The answer was even more surprising. Standing on the other
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  Speaker 1: side of the door was a man in uniform, not military,
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  Speaker 1: but manager. He knocked on the door again and called
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  Speaker 1: out the last two words the lawmakers inside had ever
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  Speaker 1: expected to hear. Pizza delivery. What does cheesy, crispy tomatoy
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  Speaker 1: pizza have to do with the last days of the
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  Speaker 1: Soviet Union? It turns out a lot more than you'd expect.
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  Speaker 1: In the late nineteen eighties, the USSR was facing an
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  Speaker 1: economic crisis. Moscow had dire food shortages. The ruble was
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  Speaker 1: practically worthless, and Soviet family struggled to feed their children.
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  Speaker 1: So Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the USSR, decided they
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  Speaker 1: needed to try something different. This new policy would be
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  Speaker 1: called Perestroika, meaning reconstruction. Peristroika included a lot of changes,
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  Speaker 1: but one of the most dramatic would be to allow
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  Speaker 1: some capitalist policies to take roots in the USSR. For example,
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  Speaker 1: the state could now create partnerships with foreign businesses seeing
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  Speaker 1: a hot new market. American chain restaurants were the first
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  Speaker 1: in line in Moscow. At the time, family dining was
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  Speaker 1: a radical concept. Most sit down restaurants were expensive, so
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  Speaker 1: eating out was a rich person's pastime. One American business
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  Speaker 1: wanted to change that, so under the policy of Perestroika,
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  Speaker 1: the Soviet Union's first pizza hut opened in September of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, right near Red Square, and it was an
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  Speaker 1: immediate hit. The first day Pizza Hut opened, a line
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  Speaker 1: wrapped around the building. The staff had to lock the
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  Speaker 1: doors in between seatings, as otherwise the customers would just
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  Speaker 1: flood the dining room. Even after the initial buzz calmed down,
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  Speaker 1: the mass the Scout pizza hut would continue to serve
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  Speaker 1: fifty thousand customers a week. Even as Soviet citizens were
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  Speaker 1: chowing down on pepperoni and cheese, there was trouble brewing
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  Speaker 1: in the halls of government. The Berlin Wall had just
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  Speaker 1: fallen two years before in nineteen eighty nine, Inflation was
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  Speaker 1: running rampant, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania had already voted for
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  Speaker 1: their independence, and under Gorbachev's new policies, capitalism was becoming
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  Speaker 1: part of the Soviet system. Two Communist Party hardliners, the USSR,
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  Speaker 1: was falling apart. They believed they needed to act, and
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  Speaker 1: act fast, and they got their chance on August nineteenth
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  Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety one. That day, Mikhail Gorbachev headed to
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  Speaker 1: his summer home in Ukraine, the KGB swooped in and
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  Speaker 1: held him hostage, telling the world that he was ill.
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  Speaker 1: With him out of the way, plotters from the KGB,
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  Speaker 1: the military, and the Communist Old Guard sprung into action.
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  Speaker 1: Tanks rolled down the streets of Moscow, passing right by
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  Speaker 1: the pizza huts, shattered doors. Boris Yeltsen, the President of
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  Speaker 1: Russia and Gorbachev's ally, had been in Kazakhstan when the
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  Speaker 1: coup broke out, but immediately flew back to Moscow. He
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  Speaker 1: gathered together a group of lawmakers who supported Gorbachev's reforms
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  Speaker 1: and barricaded himself in the Russian Parliament building. Over the
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  Speaker 1: next few days, hardliners rallied outside of Parliament while citizens
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  Speaker 1: protested in the streets inside. Yeltsin and the lawmakers issued
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  Speaker 1: statements to the press and the people of the Soviet
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  Speaker 1: Union condemning the coup and calling for Gorbachev's release. Western
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  Speaker 1: businesses in Moscow wanted to help, and did so the
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  Speaker 1: only way they knew how. After spending a day shuddered,
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  Speaker 1: Pizza Hunt fired up its ovens and prepared dozens of pizzas.
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  Speaker 1: The manager, in a pizza hut uniform marched a team
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  Speaker 1: carrying two hundred and sixty pizzas, twenty cases of pepsi,
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  Speaker 1: and gallons and gallons of fresh coffee, passed the tanks
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  Speaker 1: and barriers and right up to the door of Parliament.
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  Speaker 1: If Yeltsin and his allies were going to end this coup,
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  Speaker 1: they needed cheesy sustenance, and plenty of it. The coup
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  Speaker 1: attempt eventually fell apart, and after two tense days, Gorbachev
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  Speaker 1: was freed and the usurpers admitted defeat. However, this was
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  Speaker 1: one of the final straws in the downfall of the
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  Speaker 1: Soviet Union. Over the next few months, country after country
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  Speaker 1: would secede from the USSR until it was formally dissolved
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  Speaker 1: in December of nineteen ninety one. Although Pizza Hunt had
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  Speaker 1: a short tenure in Moscow, it had a large impact.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps this is why in nineteen ninety seven, Gorbachev agreed
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  Speaker 1: to appear in an ad for the restaurant chain. In
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  Speaker 1: the commercial, as several Russians argue over whether Gorbachev helped
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  Speaker 1: or hurt the country, they all agree that he did
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  Speaker 1: one thing right, bringing them Pizza Hunt most curious of all,
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  Speaker 1: though this ad was never broadcast in Russia. I hope
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  Speaker 1: 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 more
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  Speaker 1: about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. This
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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 worldoflore
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  Speaker 1: dot com, and until next time, stay curious.