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Grainy · 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 Grim & Mild.
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  Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history
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  Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
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  Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Geoffrey Chaucer is a
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  Speaker 2: name that many have heard, but few actually know about.
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  Speaker 2: Chaucer is incredibly well-respected by English scholars who consider him
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  Speaker 2: the father of English literature, because he quite literally wrote
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  Speaker 2: some of the first English literature at the time when
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  Speaker 2: poets and storytellers were more likely to use French or Latin.
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  Speaker 2: But he lived hundreds of years before Shakespeare, so his
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  Speaker 2: curious history has mostly fallen into legend. It's truly ancient history,
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  Speaker 2: with some details that are almost impossible to believe. Chaucer
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  Speaker 2: was likely born around 1330, and by his late teens
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  Speaker 2: or early 20s, his life was already dark and exciting.
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  Speaker 2: As he traveled with his lord, Duke Lionel of Antwerp,
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  Speaker 2: to fight in the Hundred Years' War in France, King
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  Speaker 2: Edward III aimed to claim the French throne, and Chaucer
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  Speaker 2: was duty-bound to help. You can see how from an
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  Speaker 2: early age, the very idea of England was central to
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  Speaker 2: Chaucer's life. In this case, the conflict was to decide
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  Speaker 2: whether France was also England. One cloudy morning in 1360,
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  Speaker 2: Chaucer's battalion was ambushed. Before he could raise his sword,
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  Speaker 2: he was surrounded and taken prisoner. The French didn't kill him, though,
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  Speaker 2: but rather they ransomed him and the other men back
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  Speaker 2: to the English. Edward needed every man that he could
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  Speaker 2: to siege Paris, and so he gladly paid the ransom
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  Speaker 2: and Chaucer was free. And lucky for him, this phase
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  Speaker 2: of the Hundred Years' War finally came to an end
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  Speaker 2: a few months later when Edward failed to take Paris.
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  Speaker 2: It turned out that France is, in fact, France and
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  Speaker 2: not England. After that, Chaucer went from serving the duke
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  Speaker 2: to serving the king directly. He also married his wife
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  Speaker 2: Philippa around this time, likely the year 1366. And they
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  Speaker 2: were essentially castle servants to the royal family. But Chaucer
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  Speaker 2: was entrusted with more than just making beds. Between the
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  Speaker 2: years 1373 and 78, he was sent to Italy on
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  Speaker 2: an important mission for the king during a time when
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  Speaker 2: the violence of the Hundred Years' War had resumed. The
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  Speaker 2: nature of Chaucer's mission to Italy is still not fully known,
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  Speaker 2: but it's theorized that he was meeting with French diplomats
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  Speaker 2: to arrange a marriage between the royal families that might
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  Speaker 2: put an end to the war. What is known is
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  Speaker 2: that during this time, Chaucer met Petrarch, an Italian poet
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  Speaker 2: who He was another influence on Chaucer, sharing local folklore
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  Speaker 2: with him and helping him to expand his.
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  Speaker 1: Repertoire of stories. In particular, Chaucer learned the story of Griselda,
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  Speaker 1: a famous tale about a woman who is tested by
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  Speaker 1: her cruel husband when he divorces her and takes away
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  Speaker 1: their two children. And it seems that Chaucer was successful
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  Speaker 1: in his mission to Italy because he received a curious
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  Speaker 1: gift from the king once he returned, a pitcher of
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  Speaker 1: wine every day for the rest of his life. And
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  Speaker 1: if this doesn't sound practical, well, it wasn't. He had
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  Speaker 1: to go to the port of London every day to
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  Speaker 1: retrieve it. A few years later, when Richard II, the
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  Speaker 1: heir that Chaucer had potentially arranged a marriage for, became king,
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  Speaker 1: he commuted this gift to a more convenient annual sum
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  Speaker 1: of money. Richard continued to reward Chaucer with land and
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  Speaker 1: titles over the years. It seems that he continued to
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  Speaker 1: travel on important secretive missions for the king, the nature
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  Speaker 1: of which have still been lost to time. but we
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  Speaker 1: can only imagine that he picked up more and more
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  Speaker 1: stories along the way. By the 1390s, life was catching
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  Speaker 1: up to Chaucer, who was in his 60s at this point.
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  Speaker 1: His wife had passed away, and the king he'd spent
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  Speaker 1: most of his life serving was embroiled in conflicts with enemies.
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  Speaker 1: Chaucer thus ran out of money, but poverty can breed creativity.
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  Speaker 1: Scholars believe that Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales during this
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  Speaker 1: time of his life, collecting all of the folklore he
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  Speaker 1: learned from his travels in Europe, and synthesizing it into
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  Speaker 1: a uniquely English collection. This remains his most famous work
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  Speaker 1: to this day. When Henry IV came to power in 1399,
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  Speaker 1: the king was happy to help the elderly Chaucer and
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  Speaker 1: provide him with an annual stipend in gratitude for his
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  Speaker 1: long service to England. Chaucer died the next year. This
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  Speaker 1: was an auspicious time for him to pass away, too.
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  Speaker 1: The 1400s would see the end of the Hundred Years'
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  Speaker 1: War and the rise of the Tudor dynasty. England was
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  Speaker 1: coming into its own, and Chaucer, through his endless curiosity,
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  Speaker 1: had helped to lay the foundations. In July of 2008,
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  Speaker 1: the world witnessed one of the strangest crimes ever reported.
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  Speaker 1: It was in Coral Beach, Jamaica, at the site of
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  Speaker 1: a future resort. The gorgeous white sand beach was one
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  Speaker 1: of the main draws to this location and what made
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  Speaker 1: it perfect for a vacation getaway. Then, before anyone realized
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  Speaker 1: what was happening, the beach just vanished. It wasn't washed
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  Speaker 1: away by the natural ebb and flow of the tides.
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  Speaker 1: Every grain of sand, which would have amounted to about
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  Speaker 1: 500 truckloads, was stolen and It was assumed at the
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  Speaker 1: time that it was sold to a rival hotel chain
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  Speaker 1: for millions of dollars. The previous year, another beach heist
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  Speaker 1: had occurred all the way over in Hungary. The perpetrators
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  Speaker 1: were not the same people, though, but they did point
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  Speaker 1: to a growing market, the market for sand. Because, and
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  Speaker 1: I know that this is going to sound crazy, but
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  Speaker 1: sand is one of the most sought-after natural resources on
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  Speaker 1: our planet. Up to 85% of all global mining operations
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  Speaker 1: go toward dredging up sand. It's used in building materials,
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  Speaker 1: mixing concrete, making glass, electronics, and to extract oil. When
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  Speaker 1: an island country wants to expand its landmass or guard
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  Speaker 1: against rising sea levels, they will dump tons of sand
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  Speaker 1: into the sea to make it happen. Singapore, for instance,
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  Speaker 1: has been consistently doing this since the 1960s. The sand market, therefore,
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  Speaker 1: is enormous, and the dirty secret is that there's not
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  Speaker 1: enough of it to go around. We use 50 metric
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  Speaker 1: tons each year, enough to build a nine-story wall around
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  Speaker 1: the whole planet. According to certain studies, we'll run out
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  Speaker 1: of construction-grade sand by 2050. And yes, I said construction-grade
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  Speaker 1: sand because there's actually a lot of different kinds of sand.
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  Speaker 1: Beach sand is just too soft to get the job done.
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  Speaker 1: Replacements exist, but they require much more effort to create
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  Speaker 1: and source. And beach sand usually doesn't work for concrete
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  Speaker 1: mixing because it creates less structurally sound buildings thanks to
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  Speaker 1: the shape of the grains. Now there's desert sand, but
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  Speaker 1: it's often too smooth. No, the ideal is river sand,
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  Speaker 1: which has larger, sharper grains, and it sticks together more tightly.
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  Speaker 1: And this is why to build the Burj Khalifa, the
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  Speaker 1: tallest building in the world, they needed to import Australian
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  Speaker 1: sand to the desert of Dubai, a desert that has
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  Speaker 1: plenty of sand on its own. There may be sand
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  Speaker 1: everywhere there is a coast, but it's still a sacred resource.
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  Speaker 1: Which leads us back around to the story that we
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  Speaker 1: started with, sand thieves. The illegal sand trade is far-reaching
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  Speaker 1: and extremely lucrative. It was also easy to get away with,
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  Speaker 1: since there's no international governing body to regulate the global
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  Speaker 1: sand trade. The illicit sand trade is worth hundreds of
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  Speaker 1: billions of dollars, more than gold mining or fishing, and
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  Speaker 1: far less traceable, too. Past a certain point, nobody can
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  Speaker 1: tell whether a specific load of sand was legally or
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  Speaker 1: illegally mined. And this leads to the circumstances like that
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  Speaker 1: in Morocco, where it's estimated that half the sand sold
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  Speaker 1: for construction in that country is mined illegally. In India,
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  Speaker 1: whole organized crime units, known as sand mafias, have sprung
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  Speaker 1: up to meet increased construction demands. They keep a tight
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  Speaker 1: hold on the market and make legal sand trading difficult.
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  Speaker 1: And when they need to, they've bribed politicians to get
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  Speaker 1: their equipment where it needs to be to get the
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  Speaker 1: sand they need. There have been token efforts to address
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  Speaker 1: the corruption and the environmental damage caused by sand theft,
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  Speaker 1: but it's still a relatively obscure problem. And the reason? Well,
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  Speaker 1: if I had to guess, it's because sand is one
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  Speaker 1: of those resources that feels endless. If you want to
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  Speaker 1: paint a picture of a vast number of something, you
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  Speaker 1: say that there are as many as there are grains
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  Speaker 1: of sand on the beach. In other words, to us,
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  Speaker 1: sand is a seemingly endless resource, when in fact, it
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  Speaker 1: is not. So maybe it's time to begin to think
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  Speaker 1: differently about the world we live in. Because if we don't,
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  Speaker 1: we run the risk of allowing our natural beauty and
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  Speaker 1: resources to vanish and reappear in some billionaire's bank account.
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  Speaker 1: But of course, that would require going against the grain.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. This show was created by me, Aaron Manke,
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the
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  Speaker 1: Grim & Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show and the people who make it
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  Speaker 1: over at grimandmild.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 our Patreon.
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  Speaker 1: It's all the same stories, but without the internet. And
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  Speaker 1: until next time, stay curious.