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Heavy Lifting · 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: We've all seen the aftermath on the news. Houses turned
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  Speaker 1: to splintered rubble, livestock pluck from fields like lint off
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  Speaker 1: a sweater, and fallen trees blocking roadways. The effect of
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  Speaker 1: a tornado on a community is nothing short of devastating,
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  Speaker 1: and it could take months or even years before the
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  Speaker 1: affected residents can feel whole again. But in seventeen sixty four,
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  Speaker 1: in the German town of Volta, a tornado touchdown unlike
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  Speaker 1: anything anyone had ever seen before or would ever see again.
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  Speaker 1: On June twenty ninth, around one in the afternoon, a
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  Speaker 1: twister appeared southwest to Feldberg. By the modern standards of
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  Speaker 1: the Fujita scale, it touched down, measuring at an estimated
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  Speaker 1: F two in intensity as it moved northeast. The Fujita
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  Speaker 1: scale is a joint effort between meteorologist Ted Fujita and
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  Speaker 1: Alan Pearson, the director of the National Severe Storms Forecast Center.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy one, Fujita unveiled his eponymous scale, which
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  Speaker 1: measured and categorized tornadoes by their size and wind speed. Weaker,
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  Speaker 1: smaller twisters fell lower on the scale in the F
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  Speaker 1: zero to F one range, while the most powerful ones
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  Speaker 1: would earn up to an F five rating with me
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  Speaker 1: so far good. For example, an F two tornado maintains
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  Speaker 1: an average wind speed of between one hundred and thirteen
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  Speaker 1: and one hundred and fifty seven miles per hour, but
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  Speaker 1: as this particular vortex track, it picked up speed, reaching
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  Speaker 1: F three status in minutes. By this point, its wind
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  Speaker 1: speed was over two hundred miles an hour, and it
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  Speaker 1: was only getting worse. Two children who had gotten caught
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  Speaker 1: in its path were tossed into a nearby lake and survived.
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  Speaker 1: The hail it kicked up obliterated a small flock of
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  Speaker 1: geese in the area as well, and the stumps of
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  Speaker 1: previously filled trees were ripped out of the ground like
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  Speaker 1: rotted teeth. This tornado was over three hundred feet wide
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  Speaker 1: by now and showed no signs of slowing down. A
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  Speaker 1: local witness described it as a wedge tornado as it
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  Speaker 1: crossed over a lake and caused the water level to rise.
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  Speaker 1: Once it reached the other side, it took out a
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  Speaker 1: house by ripping the roof clean off and leveling the walls.
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  Speaker 1: Nothing remained, including the poor soul who had been inside
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  Speaker 1: when it struck. One common myth about tornadoes is that
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  Speaker 1: they weakened when crossing over a body of water, but
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  Speaker 1: that's false. Tornadoes have no problem going over lakes and rivers,
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  Speaker 1: as was the case with this particular twister. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: it's believe that at another tornado known as a water spout,
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  Speaker 1: formed over the lake and merged with the tornado, fueling
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  Speaker 1: its growth and intensity. Once back on dry land, it
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  Speaker 1: turned northward and wiped out a beach timber forest in
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  Speaker 1: its path. The tornado was possibly an F four by
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  Speaker 1: now with a width of seven hundred and thirty eight
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  Speaker 1: feet across and wind speeds of up to two hundred
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  Speaker 1: and sixty miles per hour. Massive oak trees were pulled
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  Speaker 1: out of the ground and hurled over one hundred feet
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  Speaker 1: into the air, while crops and grasses were ripped from
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  Speaker 1: the earth. The tornado shifted once again, this time toward
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  Speaker 1: the northeast, where it wiped out Liechtenberg Forest. The further
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  Speaker 1: it traveled, the worse it got with a tornado, eventually
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  Speaker 1: reaching its maximum intensity. Based on what we know now,
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  Speaker 1: its wind speeds would have measured roughly three hundred miles
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  Speaker 1: per hour, officially making it an F five tornado. One
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  Speaker 1: of the strongest ever to be recorded, and in its
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  Speaker 1: crosshairs was a dairy farm with a mansion on its property.
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  Speaker 1: The tornado ran through the stately home as though it
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  Speaker 1: were made of twigs, leaving only the first floor behind.
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  Speaker 1: People on the ground reported seeing birds get sucked into
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  Speaker 1: it as well, but that wasn't the worst of it.
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  Speaker 1: It now measured almost three thousand feet across and was
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  Speaker 1: so strong it ripped the skeleton out of its grave.
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  Speaker 1: The woll Deck tornado traveled for about an hour over
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  Speaker 1: a distance of eighteen and a half miles before it
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  Speaker 1: finally disappeared. The damage it left behind was unfathomable, and yet,
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  Speaker 1: despite the carnage left in its wake, only one person died,
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  Speaker 1: and although their death was a tragedy, it's a miracle
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  Speaker 1: that more people weren't grievously hurt or killed. While this
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  Speaker 1: freaked tornado, wreaked havoc on this poor corner of Germany.
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  Speaker 1: Oh and last I checked, no wicked witches or little
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  Speaker 1: dogs were harmed in the process. Strength can manifest in
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  Speaker 1: a number of ways. It might be the strength to
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  Speaker 1: leave a cheating partner, or the strength to speak in
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  Speaker 1: front of a crowd of people. But a Canadian man
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  Speaker 1: named Louis sear knew a very different, more literal kind
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  Speaker 1: of strength. Louis was born in eighteen sixty three in
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  Speaker 1: a small town in Quebec, Canada. When he turned twelve,
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  Speaker 1: he began helping on his family's farm, tending to the livestock,
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  Speaker 1: among other tasks. In the winter, he would work in
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  Speaker 1: a logging camp among lumberjacks. The people around Louis noticed
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  Speaker 1: that there was well something different about him. He was
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  Speaker 1: a little bigger than the other kids and a lot stronger.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't a surprise, after all, his mother, Philamina Berger Sir,
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  Speaker 1: Was allegedly a strong woman as well. Louis was often
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  Speaker 1: seen moving large equipment by himself, or lifting massive bales
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  Speaker 1: of hay and cords of wood with no one to
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  Speaker 1: help him. His feats of strength caught the attention of
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  Speaker 1: other loggers who would encourage him to perform for them.
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  Speaker 1: One day, on his way home from camp, Louis saw
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  Speaker 1: that a farmer's wagon had gotten caught in the mud.
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  Speaker 1: The farmer had been unable to free it by himself,
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  Speaker 1: even with the help from his horse, so the burly
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  Speaker 1: teenager stepped in to take the reins, well, not literally,
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  Speaker 1: He lifted the wagon out of the mud with his
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  Speaker 1: bare hands, leaving the farmer in awe of his raw strength.
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  Speaker 1: But once Louis reached seventeen years old, he began taking
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  Speaker 1: his talents more seriously. At the time, someone named David
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  Speaker 1: Michaud was considered the strongest man in all of Canada. Well,
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  Speaker 1: Louis wasn't about to let him claim all the glory,
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  Speaker 1: was he, and so he challenged David to a weightlifting competition.
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  Speaker 1: But despite the man's best efforts, Michau was unable to
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  Speaker 1: hold onto his title of strongest man in Canada. That
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  Speaker 1: mantle now belonged to Louis Sear, who was able to
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  Speaker 1: lift a four hundred and eighty pound bowlder with ease.
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  Speaker 1: In the late eighteen seventies, Louis's family moved from Canada
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  Speaker 1: to Boston, Massachusetts, and after a few years he started
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  Speaker 1: competing in strongman competitions professionally. His first ever show in
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  Speaker 1: America saw him take home first prize. But what exactly
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  Speaker 1: did he have to do to win it? Did he
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  Speaker 1: pull a heavy wagon across a field or rip a
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  Speaker 1: thick book in half? No. To win this competition, as
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  Speaker 1: well as many other strength contests, Louis had to lift
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  Speaker 1: an adult male horse over his head, which he did
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  Speaker 1: without breaking a sweat. The horse, by the way, weighed
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  Speaker 1: almost a full ton. Unfortunately, there wasn't much money in
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  Speaker 1: being a professional strongman, so he found work as a
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  Speaker 1: police officer back in Canada. For two years from eighteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty three to eighteen eighty five, he became Montreal's strongest cop,
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  Speaker 1: weighing in in over three hundred pounds compared to the
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  Speaker 1: average officer's weigh of one forty to one sixty five.
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  Speaker 1: He was large and imposing, and his stature no doubt
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  Speaker 1: put criminals on edge. He'd earned the job after he'd
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  Speaker 1: stopped a knife fight between two strangers. Being as big
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  Speaker 1: and strong as he was, Louis easily confiscated their knives
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  Speaker 1: and then curled one man under each arm. Before hauling
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  Speaker 1: them to the nearest police station. Throughout his career, the
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  Speaker 1: strong man with a neck and biceps measuring twenty inches around,
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  Speaker 1: accomplished a number of mind boggling feats. He once lifted
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  Speaker 1: eighteen men on a platform strapped to his back for
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  Speaker 1: a total of four thousand, three hundred and thirty six pounds.
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  Speaker 1: He also used one finger to lift five hundred and
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  Speaker 1: thirty four pounds of weight, and one time he managed
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  Speaker 1: to restrain four draft horses going in opposite directions, a
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  Speaker 1: test of strength that would have ripped a weaker man
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  Speaker 1: in half. But one of his most impressive demonstrations occurred
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  Speaker 1: when Louis lifted a two hundred and seventy three pound
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  Speaker 1: dumbbell with one arm. No one else could manage it.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, most other strong men couldn't lift his dumbbells
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  Speaker 1: with two hands. That's how strong Louis was. And finally,
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  Speaker 1: later in life, Louis became a boxer and a wrestler.
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  Speaker 1: He once took on a kin eighty and sideshow performer
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  Speaker 1: named Eduard Bouprey, who stood a whopping eight feet two
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  Speaker 1: and a half inches tall. Louis, by the way, it
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  Speaker 1: was only five eight and a half, but Boo Prey
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  Speaker 1: was no match for his rival's sheer strength and force
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  Speaker 1: of will. Louis took him down and won. Sadly, everyone's
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  Speaker 1: favorite Canadian Juggernauts eventually slowed down his immense size only
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  Speaker 1: ballooned as he ate more and exercised less. He died
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  Speaker 1: of nephritis or inflamed kidneys in nineteen twelve, but his
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  Speaker 1: legacy lives on in the numerous weightlifting records he held
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  Speaker 1: throughout his life. Louis Seer was a man who knew
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  Speaker 1: how to have a good time. He could lift you
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  Speaker 1: up with a kind word or you know, just as pinky.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me 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 Theworldoflore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.