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Going Under · 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 right
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  Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. The Industrial Revolution brought significant
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  Speaker 1: advancements to Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including
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  Speaker 1: chemical manufacturing, the steam engine, and machine tools what we
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  Speaker 1: would call power tools today. As new industries rose, existing
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  Speaker 1: industries were also upgraded. One of the most significant and
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  Speaker 1: the oldest, was beer. The actual method of brewing and
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  Speaker 1: storing beer hadn't changed much over the past few hundred years,
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  Speaker 1: but as with any period of change, competition bred growth. Literally,
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  Speaker 1: London brewery started building their own cisterns and bats larger
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  Speaker 1: and larger. Capacities quickly grew from two hundred barrels worth
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  Speaker 1: of beer all the way up to nearly ten times
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  Speaker 1: that amount, large enough for one craft brewery to actually
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  Speaker 1: host a dinner party for one hundred guests inside a
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  Speaker 1: single empty vat. Of course, revolutions don't just happen. They're
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  Speaker 1: built up over long periods of trial and error, and
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  Speaker 1: when you're racing competitors to build the largest beer vats
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  Speaker 1: in the city, errors are bound to crop up. It
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  Speaker 1: was a Monday evening in October in eighteen fourteen when
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  Speaker 1: it happened a leak had sprung at the Henry mow
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  Speaker 1: and Company Brewery in central London. Well leak might be
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  Speaker 1: an understatement. A vat holding thirty five hundred barrels or
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty five thousand liters of beer, burst
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  Speaker 1: wide open. The del uge was so powerful that it
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  Speaker 1: also knocked over a number of casks of porter, resulting
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  Speaker 1: in an ocean of ale to totaling over one point
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  Speaker 1: four seven million liters. The flood ripped through one of
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  Speaker 1: the brewery's twenty five foot brick walls like it was paper,
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  Speaker 1: and collapsed part of the roof. Streets became rivers, and
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  Speaker 1: nearby houses were obliterated. On the first floor of one
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  Speaker 1: such house, a mother and her young daughter were at
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  Speaker 1: tea when a wave of beer swept them away, killing
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  Speaker 1: them instantly. Others in the vicinity were carried off in
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  Speaker 1: the flood or crushed to death by debris. One major
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  Speaker 1: problem contributing to the higher death toll and complicated rescue
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  Speaker 1: efforts was the town's flatness, which prevented the beer from
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  Speaker 1: draining away. Instead, it simply poured into basements and washed
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  Speaker 1: out roadways. The current of the flood was so strong
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  Speaker 1: that it dragged debris from the homes it had destroyed,
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  Speaker 1: which created obstacles for rescuers trying to reach their victims.
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  Speaker 1: By the time rescuers were able to reach the areas
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  Speaker 1: hit the hardest, it was already too late. Bodies began
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  Speaker 1: floating up from the ruins around midnight, including that of
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  Speaker 1: a woman who had been in her backyard at the
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  Speaker 1: time and had been buried under the wreck of her home.
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  Speaker 1: All told, eight people perished in the flood. As you
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  Speaker 1: should know by now, the story doesn't end there. A
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  Speaker 1: week after the disaster, the brewery was taken to court
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  Speaker 1: to determine the cause of the accidents. A brewery employee
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  Speaker 1: by the name of George Crick came forward with his
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  Speaker 1: account of what had caused the flood. George had noticed
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  Speaker 1: one of the iron hoops holding the vat together had
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  Speaker 1: fallen off. Now I know what you're thinking, Why didn't
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  Speaker 1: George just picked the hoop back up and grab some
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  Speaker 1: tools and put it right back where it belonged. Right? Well,
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  Speaker 1: these weren't the usual metal hoops you might find around
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  Speaker 1: pickle barrels. Each of these weighed roughly one metric ton.
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  Speaker 1: George and the owners had determined that the rivets holding
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  Speaker 1: the hoop to the barrel had simply worn out over time, and,
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  Speaker 1: like the button on a pair of pants two sizes
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  Speaker 1: too small, they popped out. The weight of the liquid
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  Speaker 1: inside of too much for the vat to handle, and
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  Speaker 1: the rest, as they say, is history history, but also
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  Speaker 1: a tragedy. Lives were lost, homes were destroyed, businesses were closed, and,
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  Speaker 1: most tragic of all, even though the accident was a
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  Speaker 1: product of human error, the brewery got off without a hitch.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, a year later they managed to get the
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  Speaker 1: Crown to give them back the tax money they paid
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  Speaker 1: on the lost beer. The court might have called it
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  Speaker 1: an act of God, but looking back, I think a larger,
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  Speaker 1: more universal truth needs pointed out. However obvious it might be,
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  Speaker 1: some people just can't hold their liquor. They say, necessity
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  Speaker 1: is the mother of invention. When spears weren't enough to
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  Speaker 1: stop and end me, bows and arrows were created. When
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  Speaker 1: those outlived their usefulness, along came guns and rifles to
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  Speaker 1: get the job done. War transformed as weapons advanced, but
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  Speaker 1: one thing never changed the ingenuity of desperate men faced
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  Speaker 1: with impossible odds. That ingenuity was on full display during
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  Speaker 1: the American Civil War, when battles weren't just fought in
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  Speaker 1: fields and towns, but along coastlines and rivers. These waterways
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  Speaker 1: were used to transport supplies, ammunition, and even soldiers from
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  Speaker 1: one location to another. An army controlling the water could
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  Speaker 1: cripple the opposing forces access to necessary items such as
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  Speaker 1: food and medical equipment. The water was also used as
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  Speaker 1: a venue for surprise attacks. Soldiers marching near an enemy
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  Speaker 1: controlled waterway would often find themselves ambushed by waiting gunboats.
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  Speaker 1: Rivers and coastlines quickly became a crucial part of an
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  Speaker 1: army strategy, and if an enemy wanted a chance at survival,
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  Speaker 1: that had to either avoid the water entirely or use
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  Speaker 1: it to its advantage. It was at the height of
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  Speaker 1: the Civil War when such an advantage presented itself. A
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  Speaker 1: Union blockade had been stationed in the waters off Charleston,
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  Speaker 1: South Carolina, led by a steam powered sloop of war
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  Speaker 1: known as the Hughes Satonic. Armed with a dozen cannons,
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  Speaker 1: the Hughes Satonic was known for capturing Confederate ships like
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  Speaker 1: the four hundred ton iron hulled steamer the s S. Georgiana.
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  Speaker 1: The Confederacy needed to break up the blockade to open
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  Speaker 1: up Charleston shores, but to do so, the Hughes Satonic
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  Speaker 1: had to go. There was only one problem. The ship
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  Speaker 1: was five miles off the coast. Any opposing vessel launched
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  Speaker 1: from the shore, it would be seen immediately and destroyed.
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  Speaker 1: So the Confederate army had an outrageous idea. What if
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  Speaker 1: they attacked it from below. It took them two years
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  Speaker 1: of trial and error, but a submersible was finally developed
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  Speaker 1: that could carry eight men. They would travel beneath the
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  Speaker 1: water to the Hugh Satonic, where the men would detonate
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  Speaker 1: a tord pedo along the enemy's hull. Something to keep
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  Speaker 1: in mind, though, unlike our modern torpedoes that propelled themselves
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  Speaker 1: through the water, the Hunley carried what was known as
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  Speaker 1: a spar torpedo. It was basically a canister of explosive
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  Speaker 1: powder attached to the end of a long pole, which
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  Speaker 1: would be rammed into the opposing ship. On the night
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  Speaker 1: of February eighteen sixty four, the Hunley and its crew
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  Speaker 1: slipped into the waters off the coast of Charleston. Powered
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  Speaker 1: by hand crank, it glided towards the Housatonic, that explosive
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  Speaker 1: payload leading the charge about twenty ft ahead. Later, one
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  Speaker 1: of the Housatonic crew members would report that he had
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  Speaker 1: seen something strange in the water, something large and mysterious,
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  Speaker 1: but before he could alert his crewmates it was too late.
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  Speaker 1: The Hunley jab the Housatonic starboard side add about eight
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  Speaker 1: forty PM and made history. Those eight men had completed
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  Speaker 1: the first successful submarine attack on a warship. Five crew
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  Speaker 1: members aboard the Housatonic died as the ship sank, and
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  Speaker 1: if the story ended there, that alone would be enough
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  Speaker 1: to cement the Hunley spot in Civil War legend. But
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  Speaker 1: there was something else. According to initial reports, everything had
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  Speaker 1: gone swimmingly Nope, pun intended. I swear, the Housatonic had
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  Speaker 1: been destroyed and the Hunley had begun its return to base,
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  Speaker 1: except it never made it. The sub and all eight
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  Speaker 1: lives inside had been lost. Although for almost a century
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  Speaker 1: and a half no one was sure why. The mystery
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  Speaker 1: would remain unsolved until the mid nineteen nineties when the
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  Speaker 1: vessel was found at the bottom of Charleston's Outer Harbor
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  Speaker 1: in the summer of two thousand, marine archaeologists raised the
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  Speaker 1: Hunley from the depths and got to work restoring the vessel.
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  Speaker 1: Experts spent months cleaning up the hull before opening it
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  Speaker 1: to see what was inside. And that's when the end
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  Speaker 1: of one mystery led to the start of another. You see,
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  Speaker 1: the eight crew members hadn't gotten out after the torpedo detonated,
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  Speaker 1: A sad end to a daring operation, for sure, but
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  Speaker 1: that's not the crazy part. Upon opening up the hall
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  Speaker 1: a conservation experts noticed the crew had never even made
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  Speaker 1: any attempt to escape. There were no external injuries or
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  Speaker 1: signs of drowning the explosion. They believe it's simply been
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  Speaker 1: so strong that the lung and brain tissue of the
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  Speaker 1: men inside had been instantly obliterated. Sometimes you win and
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  Speaker 1: sometimes you lose, and sometimes apparently you do both. 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 Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: 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.
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  Speaker 1: H