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Fellowship · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke'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: It was nine forty am on July twentieth of nineteen
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  Speaker 1: forty five. Betty Lou Oliver, a twenty year old elevator operator,
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  Speaker 1: sat anxiously in her elevator car within the Empire State Building.
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  Speaker 1: The day had only just started, but it couldn't go
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  Speaker 1: fast enough. As far as she was concerned, she wanted
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  Speaker 1: this whole summer to disappear behind her. The war in
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  Speaker 1: Europe was finally over, and her fiance, Oscar, had called
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  Speaker 1: earlier that month to let her know that he was
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  Speaker 1: coming home soon. Betty could leave the stuffy elevator behind
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  Speaker 1: and she and Oscar could move back to their hometown
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  Speaker 1: in Arkansas to enjoy their life together. But everything was
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  Speaker 1: about to change. Betty delivered some passengers to the eightieth
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  Speaker 1: floor and then sat and waited. As the door closed,
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  Speaker 1: She hummed a song to herself, thinking about Oscar, when
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  Speaker 1: she suddenly heard a massive crashing sound above her. The
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  Speaker 1: whole elevator shook. Before Betty had time to think, the
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  Speaker 1: top part of the cab burst open, the metal splitting
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  Speaker 1: like paper. Flames erupted all around her, flash burning her
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  Speaker 1: skin before extinguishing, and then she was falling. She cried
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  Speaker 1: out as the damaged elevator began hurtling toward the ground,
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  Speaker 1: quickly clearing floor after floor. Her mind raised, She didn't
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  Speaker 1: understand what was happening. Why had the elevator broken, Where
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  Speaker 1: did the flames come from? Was it some accident? Had
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  Speaker 1: the Germans or Japanese decided to restart the war. Her
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  Speaker 1: eyes went wide and she screamed in terror as her
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  Speaker 1: body began to float up off the floor. The cab
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  Speaker 1: was moving that fast all she could think to do
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  Speaker 1: was grab the railing on the side of the elevator
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  Speaker 1: and pull herself in close to the wall. She kept falling, falling,
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  Speaker 1: and falling, until the moment of impact finally happened. The
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  Speaker 1: elevator smacked against the bottom of the shaft, cracking the
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  Speaker 1: floor everywhere. The force of the impact sent Betty flying
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  Speaker 1: to the opposite side of the cab. She felt a
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  Speaker 1: terrible cracking sensation all up and down her back and neck.
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  Speaker 1: She slumped to the floor, limp unable to move, pain
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  Speaker 1: enveloped her minutes passed, all seemed silent, and then voices
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  Speaker 1: panic sounds pierced the cab, followed by the intense groaning
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  Speaker 1: of the metal doors as they were pulled apart with
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  Speaker 1: heavy equipment. When the firefighters entered, they were astonished to
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  Speaker 1: see Betty's broken body. They called for medics, who quickly
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  Speaker 1: came to her side. They checked her pulse and discovered
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  Speaker 1: that she was alive. Betty was taken to a nearby hospital,
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  Speaker 1: where doctors discovered that she had broken her neck, back, pelvis,
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  Speaker 1: and both legs. They used multiple innovative, risky surgeries to
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  Speaker 1: repair the damage and bring her back from the brink
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  Speaker 1: of death. But what had caused this incredible accident? That morning,
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  Speaker 1: Decorated Air Force pilot William Franklin Smith Junior had been
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  Speaker 1: flying a B twenty five D bomber on a mission
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  Speaker 1: with two passengers to Newark, New Jersey, but the sky
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  Speaker 1: was full of heavy fog and he got lost taking
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  Speaker 1: a wrong turn. His altitude was half of what it
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  Speaker 1: should have been, which soon brought him smack dab into
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  Speaker 1: the seventy ninth and eightieth floors of the Empire State Building.
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  Speaker 1: The plane exploded on impact, setting both floors ablaze. William,
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  Speaker 1: his two passengers, and the eleven people inside the building
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  Speaker 1: were killed. One of the plane's engines flew off, falling
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  Speaker 1: several feet away and crashing into a penthouse art studio,
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  Speaker 1: but the other engine flew across the seventy eighth floor,
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  Speaker 1: where it entered the elevator shaft, severing the cables of
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  Speaker 1: Betty's elevator and exploating the top of her cab. As
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  Speaker 1: a result, she fell eighty stories or one thousand feet,
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  Speaker 1: giving her the Guinness World Record for longest fall survived
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  Speaker 1: in an elevator. This also remains the highest story fire
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  Speaker 1: that New York City firefighters have ever successfully contained. Experts,
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  Speaker 1: including members of the TV science show MythBusters, agree that
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  Speaker 1: Betty survived the fall because of two factors. The broken
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  Speaker 1: elevator cables coiling at the bottom of the shaft cushioned
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  Speaker 1: her fall, and the narrow nature of the shaft creating
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  Speaker 1: air pressure that would have also slowed the cab. Still,
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  Speaker 1: it was barely enough. Betty's injuries were horrific. Congress responded
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  Speaker 1: by passing a law that actually allowed victims of the
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  Speaker 1: crash to sue the government for damages. Betty spent months
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  Speaker 1: in the hospital, but miraculously made a full recovery. She
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  Speaker 1: was able to return to Arkansas with Oscar, where they
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed a long life with many children and grandchildren. The
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  Speaker 1: accident was ultimately just a curing chapter in her life,
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  Speaker 1: but it's a good reminder that every day could be
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  Speaker 1: your last, and that if danger ever comes your way,
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  Speaker 1: hold on tight, then you might just survive. If there's
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  Speaker 1: any universal truth about school life, it's that students love
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  Speaker 1: sorting themselves into clubs and clicks. As young people navigate
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  Speaker 1: the annoyances and frustrations of schoolwork, finding friends with the
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  Speaker 1: same interests can make things significantly more endurable, whether these
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  Speaker 1: clubs were official or not. In nineteen eleven Birmingham, a
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  Speaker 1: group of nine British schoolboys found a club of their own.
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  Speaker 1: The four core members of this group were named Robert, Jeffrey,
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  Speaker 1: Christopher and John. They were all ambitious young men who
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  Speaker 1: wanted to become poets, writers, and artists, and frequently found themselves,
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  Speaker 1: drinking tea together at Barrows Store near the school, where
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  Speaker 1: they would discuss the plans for their lives. And these
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  Speaker 1: were the usual things that schoolboy dreams are made of,
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  Speaker 1: grand hopes for the future, dreams of artistic success and
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  Speaker 1: changing the world. There was a Maverick streak to this group.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes they would smuggle tea into their school library in
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  Speaker 1: order to drink while studying. In homage to this behavior,
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  Speaker 1: the group would be named the Tea Club and Borrovian Society.
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  Speaker 1: Every member would put the letters TCBs at the end
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  Speaker 1: of their signature, a way of signifying how important this
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  Speaker 1: bond was to them. Even when they split off to
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  Speaker 1: go to college, reunions between Robert, Jeffrey, Christopher, and John
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  Speaker 1: would continue. By the time they met in nineteen fourteen,
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  Speaker 1: John was even beginning work on a piece of fiction
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  Speaker 1: that he had hopes for until the larger world derailed
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  Speaker 1: everyone's ambitions. World War One broke out in Europe, and
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  Speaker 1: soon all four boys were training to fight. Christopher joined
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  Speaker 1: the navy, Jeffrey and Robert enlisted in the army. The
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  Speaker 1: final one to join was John. Although he continued to
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  Speaker 1: send his poems to friends as he went through basic training.
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  Speaker 1: They deployed in nineteen fifteen, and during the war the
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  Speaker 1: TCBs would become a coping mechanism for the boys. Jeffrey wrote,
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  Speaker 1: while fearing the worst for his unit, that the death
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  Speaker 1: of one member would not destroy the TCBs. His friends
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  Speaker 1: were the Immortal four. Of the so called Immortal four,
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  Speaker 1: only two would return home at the end of the war.
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  Speaker 1: Jeffrey and Robert both died during the Battle of the Somme,
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  Speaker 1: while Christopher and John survived. John worked hard to ensure
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  Speaker 1: that Jeffrey's poems would be published posthumously, collecting them and
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  Speaker 1: writing a preface for them himself. Christopher would go on
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  Speaker 1: to become a naval instructor, but John remained dedicated to
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  Speaker 1: the craft of prose and poetry. When he became a
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  Speaker 1: professor at Oxford, he founded another literary club among the professors,
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  Speaker 1: which would come to be known by its own name.
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  Speaker 1: But he never forgot his companions from the TCBs, and
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  Speaker 1: named his children after them. John's prominence in literary circles
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  Speaker 1: grew over the following years. An expert on mythology and
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  Speaker 1: ancient languages, he contributed to new translations of Beowulf and
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  Speaker 1: Sir Gawayne in The Green Knight, exploring the ins and
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  Speaker 1: outs of British literature with a keen eye of an
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  Speaker 1: academic and the passion of an amateur. Not long after,
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  Speaker 1: inspired by his love of fairy stories, he wrote a
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  Speaker 1: book for children which would be published in the nineteen thirties,
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  Speaker 1: and perhaps you've heard of it. It was called The Hobbit,
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  Speaker 1: And after The Hobbit, he worked for almost twenty years
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  Speaker 1: to produce his masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, a
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  Speaker 1: work of epic literature that redefined fantasy for all time,
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  Speaker 1: all because of a dream that he first conceived while
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  Speaker 1: illicitly smuggling tea into the library with his school friends.
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  Speaker 1: These days, it's a lot harder to stay in touch
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  Speaker 1: with our classmates. Life gets busy, work takes us hundreds
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  Speaker 1: or thousands of miles from home, and the careers we
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  Speaker 1: build or the lives we live often feel like we're
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  Speaker 1: moving on more than building up. But that doesn't mean
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  Speaker 1: we stop thinking about those early days and foundational friends.
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  Speaker 1: After all, you'll never forget your first fellowship. 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 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 Mankey 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 Worldoflore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.