Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Mixed Signals

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Mixed Signals · 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. As children were taught
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  Speaker 1: to respect our elders, they've earned the wisdom that comes
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  Speaker 1: from a long life filled with experience. And yet when
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  Speaker 1: we reach a certain age, we sometimes forget where we
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  Speaker 1: came from and who helped shape us into the people
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  Speaker 1: we are today. As we grow up, we grow apart
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  Speaker 1: from our parents. New careers, new relationships, and new generations
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  Speaker 1: only widened that gap, but not for Kailash Geary Brahmachari
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  Speaker 1: of India. He and his mother are close. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: Kailash takes her everywhere and anywhere she wants to go.
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  Speaker 1: When he was eight years old, Kailash fell from a
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  Speaker 1: tree he was climbing and broke one of his bones.
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  Speaker 1: His family didn't have money for treatment, so his mother
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  Speaker 1: did the only thing she could do. She prayed. If
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  Speaker 1: he recovered, his mother would travel to the most religious
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  Speaker 1: locations in India and pray and give thanks. Her prayer
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  Speaker 1: seemed to work, as Kailash fracture healed without medical intervention
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  Speaker 1: of any kind. His mother had hoped to honor her
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  Speaker 1: promise immediately, but wasn't able to make the journey on
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  Speaker 1: her own. Kai Lash's father had died when he was
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  Speaker 1: only ten years old. It wasn't until her son turned
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  Speaker 1: twenty four when she could repay her debt and begin
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  Speaker 1: her pilgrimage. One day, Kailash packed up all their belongings
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  Speaker 1: and set out into the world with the goal of
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  Speaker 1: visiting the most sacred sites in India before his mother died.
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  Speaker 1: They've been traveling for over twenty years and have covered
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  Speaker 1: almost twenty four thousand miles together. His mother is in
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  Speaker 1: her mid nineties now. They have no money and no
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  Speaker 1: means of transportation, So how do they get around? On foot?
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  Speaker 1: Of course, well, Kailash travels on foot. His mother, however,
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  Speaker 1: has more comfortable accommodations. She sits in a basket which
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  Speaker 1: hangs from a wooden planks slung over her son's shoulder.
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  Speaker 1: It's counterbalanced on the opposite side. Using their clothes and
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  Speaker 1: the few belongings that they own, Kailash has carried his
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  Speaker 1: mother this way for half his life. He begins the
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  Speaker 1: trek each day at six thirty a m. And travels
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  Speaker 1: until the early afternoon. At that time, they eat and
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  Speaker 1: rest before resuming their journey. When the sun isn't so overbearing,
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  Speaker 1: they walk until dark, covering about three to four miles
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  Speaker 1: per day, sleeping in local temples. People who meet them
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  Speaker 1: along the way offer them food and other donations to
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  Speaker 1: aid in their travels. They referred to Kailash as a
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  Speaker 1: real life Schravin Kumar. According to the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana,
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  Speaker 1: Schravin was a mythological character who was very devoted to
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  Speaker 1: his parents. His mother and father were blind and almost
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  Speaker 1: never left their home. As they got older, however, they
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  Speaker 1: decided they wanted to take a pilgrimage to the forty
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  Speaker 1: Whole sites they believed would purify their souls before they died.
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  Speaker 1: Much like Kailash, Travin's family didn't have a lot of money,
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  Speaker 1: so he placed his mother in one basket and his
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  Speaker 1: father in another, and suspended each from the end of
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  Speaker 1: a long bamboo pole, which he supported across his shoulders.
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  Speaker 1: The story is well known, and Kailash his own journey
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  Speaker 1: with his mother has made people wonder if Chavan has
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  Speaker 1: somehow come to life before their eyes. But Kailash isn't
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  Speaker 1: doing this for the fame or the glory. He's doing
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  Speaker 1: it to help the woman who prayed for his health
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  Speaker 1: and took care of him when he got hurt. Together,
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  Speaker 1: they visited a long list of religious sites in India,
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  Speaker 1: but they have several more to go. With twenty four
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  Speaker 1: thousand miles behind them and many more ahead, it's not
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  Speaker 1: clear when their pilgrimage will ever come to an end.
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  Speaker 1: All that matters, though, is that they've got each other
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  Speaker 1: for support every step of the way. People are never
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  Speaker 1: just one thing. They can have numerous passions and interests
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  Speaker 1: across different areas of their lives. In other words, people
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  Speaker 1: are complex. Try to put them in a little box,
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  Speaker 1: and they'll do their best to break out of it,
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  Speaker 1: showing you that there's more to them than meets the eye.
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  Speaker 1: Eva didn't fit into any kind of box, no matter
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  Speaker 1: how hard the people around her tried to squash her
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  Speaker 1: into one. Born in Vienna in nineteen fourteen, she worked
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  Speaker 1: various jobs in the nineteen twenties and early thirties, trying
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  Speaker 1: to make a name for herself. In the early thirties,
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  Speaker 1: she fell in love with a man named Friedrich, who
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  Speaker 1: despite being half Jewish, was involved with fascist Italian leader
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  Speaker 1: Benito Mussolini and eventually Adolf Hitler. Friedrich married Eva in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three, and immediately trying to curb her ambitions.
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  Speaker 1: He kept her locked up in their castle on the
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  Speaker 1: check border, only letting her out to accompany him on
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  Speaker 1: business deals. Friedrich, you see, was an arms dealer, and
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  Speaker 1: he supplied fascist governments with weapons. He also assisted their
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  Speaker 1: scientists with developing new military technologies. Those consultations were where
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  Speaker 1: his wife found out about a new passion applied science.
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  Speaker 1: The trouble was Eva wouldn't have been able to pursue
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  Speaker 1: any kind of future in the field with her husband
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  Speaker 1: keeping tabs on her night and day, so she planned
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  Speaker 1: an elaborate escape. One night, she and her husband had
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  Speaker 1: been invited to a dinner party, one of the few
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  Speaker 1: events where she would be allowed out of their home.
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  Speaker 1: She convinced Fredrich to let her wear all the jewelry
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  Speaker 1: she owned to the party. Afterwards, still wearing every necklace,
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  Speaker 1: bracelet and ring in her possession, she dressed up as
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  Speaker 1: the maid and left in the dead of night. She
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  Speaker 1: chose Paris to start her new life. The fascist governments
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  Speaker 1: in Italy and Germany kept growing, and even knew that
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  Speaker 1: if she didn't get her mother out of Vienna soon,
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  Speaker 1: she would also be taken away. So in ninety eight,
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  Speaker 1: she helped her mother escaped to the United States right
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  Speaker 1: after the Nazis annexed Austria, and Eva was resourceful too.
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  Speaker 1: Now living full time in the United States, she learned
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  Speaker 1: how to speak perfect English and got a job to
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  Speaker 1: sustain both herself and her mother, But she wanted to
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  Speaker 1: do more, specifically for the war effort. She talked to
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  Speaker 1: a member of the newly formed National Inventors Council about
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  Speaker 1: joining their organization. It seemed that her fascination with science
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  Speaker 1: and technology had not waned in the years since she
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  Speaker 1: had married Friedrich. However, he turned her away, encouraging her
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  Speaker 1: to do other things to help the boys oversea, like
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  Speaker 1: selling war bonds. Undeterred, she turned to another inventor, a
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  Speaker 1: man named Howard Hughes, and Hughes put her to work
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  Speaker 1: in modifying his aircraft designs, which he felt were too
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  Speaker 1: boxy and slow. He gave her whatever resources she required,
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  Speaker 1: including his own team of engineers and scientists. Eva purchased
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  Speaker 1: books on the fastest birds and fish in the world.
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  Speaker 1: She borrowed Nature's eye for aerodynamics, using it to streamline
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  Speaker 1: a new wing shape for us as airplanes. She also
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  Speaker 1: used her time with Hughes to develop a tablet that
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  Speaker 1: could be dropped into a glass of water to carbonate it.
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  Speaker 1: The taste was something akin to alka seltzer, which couldn't
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  Speaker 1: be avoided even with Hughes's own chemists working on the project.
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  Speaker 1: As the war raged on, though, she got word of
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  Speaker 1: an evacuee ship that had been carrying ninety children from
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  Speaker 1: Britain to Canada. A German sub in the area had
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  Speaker 1: fired two torpedoes at it, sending it to the bottom
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  Speaker 1: of the ocean. Within thirty minutes. Seventy seven of the
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  Speaker 1: ninety children on board were lost. Eva saw that selling
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  Speaker 1: war bonds wouldn't be enough to end the war and
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  Speaker 1: remembered what she learned on those business meetings she attended
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  Speaker 1: with her husband. She knew the radio signals that controlled
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  Speaker 1: torpedoes could be jammed by an enemy, sending the missiles
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  Speaker 1: off course. In order for those signals to avoid detection,
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  Speaker 1: they would need to jump from frequency to frequency over
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  Speaker 1: a wide spectrum. Eva even illustrated this concept by partnering
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  Speaker 1: with a pianist who used sixteen player pianos controlled by
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  Speaker 1: one transmitter. There developed MINT came to be known as
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  Speaker 1: frequency hopping spread spectrum or f h s S, and
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  Speaker 1: would have given the United States a huge advantage at
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  Speaker 1: sea by making their torpedoes almost impossible to jam. She
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  Speaker 1: and the musician filed the patent for the technology, which
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  Speaker 1: was granted in ninete. The military, however, had no interest
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  Speaker 1: in adopting it. She was simply ahead of her time,
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  Speaker 1: way ahead. It seems as her design has gone on
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  Speaker 1: to influence such widespread technologies as Bluetooth, GPS, and WiFi.
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  Speaker 1: During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Navy ships were installed with
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  Speaker 1: f h s S systems based on Eva's research as well.
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  Speaker 1: Even after the war, she never stopped inventing. She went
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  Speaker 1: on to develop all sorts of new things, like updates
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  Speaker 1: to the traffic light and a glow in the dark
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  Speaker 1: dog color. She also helped streamline the design of the
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  Speaker 1: Concord supersonic jetliner, and yet she's not typically known for
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  Speaker 1: her scientific work. In fact, she wasn't recognized for it
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  Speaker 1: until the end of the twentieth century. People knew her
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  Speaker 1: better for her beauty than her brains. After all, while
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  Speaker 1: Disney used her face as the model for snow White,
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  Speaker 1: but she was more than that. In fact, she was
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  Speaker 1: a star of the silver screen and often called the
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  Speaker 1: most beautiful actress in the world, which explains why Hedwig
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  Speaker 1: Eva Maria Kisler, one of the greatest scientific minds of
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  Speaker 1: the century, spent decades known only by her stage name
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  Speaker 1: hetty Lamar. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
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  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
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  Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
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  Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
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  Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
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  Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
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  Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.