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Bean There, Done That · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
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  Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
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  Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. There's an ancient proverb that says, the enemy
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  Speaker 1: of my enemy is my friend. When two factions oppose
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  Speaker 1: a mutual threats, they can join forces to defeat them.
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  Speaker 1: Just before the start of World War Two, Finland had
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  Speaker 1: two enemies, Germany and the Soviet Union, and because of
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  Speaker 1: one side's aggressive tactics, it had to make a very
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  Speaker 1: unfortunate friend of the other. You see, Germany and the
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  Speaker 1: Russians had divvied up Finland in Latvia, Estonia and several
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  Speaker 1: other Baltic states as part of the Molotov Ribbon trot.
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  Speaker 1: Packed The Soviets invaded Poland in mid September, then tried
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  Speaker 1: to negotiate a portion of Finnish territory for their own uses.
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  Speaker 1: For one, they wanted to install a military base on
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  Speaker 1: Finnish soil, just as they had done with several other
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  Speaker 1: Baltic States, but Finland wouldn't have it, so a second conflict,
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  Speaker 1: known as the Winter War kicked off between the two parties.
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  Speaker 1: It resulted in many casualties and the eventual signing of
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  Speaker 1: the Moscow Peace Treaty, which gave the Soviet Union one
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  Speaker 1: tenth of Finland for themselves. We look back at the
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  Speaker 1: Soviets as allies who helped us defeat the Nazis, but
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  Speaker 1: after the Moscow Peace Treaty was signed, many countries saw
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  Speaker 1: them as a bully, and Finland had no interest in
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  Speaker 1: aligning themselves with Germany as they were still seen as
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  Speaker 1: being associated with the Soviet Union. After reaching out to
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  Speaker 1: the United Kingdom for help but getting a refusal, they
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  Speaker 1: realized that they had to solve the problem on their own.
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  Speaker 1: The Soviets continued to push into Finland and so did Hitler.
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  Speaker 1: With nowhere else to turn and Hitler's rejection of the
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  Speaker 1: Molotov ribbon trot packed the Finnish were forced to partner
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  Speaker 1: with them against the Russians in Nte. Finland, now backed
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  Speaker 1: by Germany, was able to reclaim the land that had
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  Speaker 1: lost to the Soviets, including the city of Weiberg. It
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  Speaker 1: was a great story. But even though the Soviets no
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  Speaker 1: longer occupied the territory, they weren't completely gone. You see,
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  Speaker 1: on their way out, the Red Army had left behind
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  Speaker 1: one thousand land mines, and those mines started exploding all
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  Speaker 1: over the city. It was believed that they were on
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  Speaker 1: a time delay, but towards the end of August of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen forty one, Finnished forces soon discovered the truth. Under
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  Speaker 1: one of the town's bridges, a mine had been deposited,
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  Speaker 1: packed with six ms of an explosive charge. Attached to
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  Speaker 1: the charge was a small device which was taken to
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  Speaker 1: an engineer at the communications departments, and that engineer took
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  Speaker 1: it apart and found something amazing. A small radio received
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  Speaker 1: her inside the mines had been designed to go off
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  Speaker 1: when their internal radios received a remote signal at the
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  Speaker 1: right frequency. When that signal was received, boom and worse yet,
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  Speaker 1: similar receivers were found on all the minds around Weiberg.
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  Speaker 1: After some more digging, Finish engineers found out that the
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  Speaker 1: signal was close to the A M frequency used by
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  Speaker 1: public radio broadcasts, so they came up with a bizarre
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  Speaker 1: scheme to block that signal. A polka specifically the Sacki
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  Speaker 1: arv Polka, which was looped for twenty four hours a
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  Speaker 1: day by the Finnish public radio. As long as the
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  Speaker 1: song was playing, the Soviets couldn't set off their minds.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, it didn't take long for the Soviets to
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  Speaker 1: figure out their plan, so they changed the signal to
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  Speaker 1: match one of the other two radio frequencies used by
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  Speaker 1: the receivers. Well, the Fins figured that out too, and
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  Speaker 1: jammed every possible frequency with their polka all day and
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  Speaker 1: all night. The fast paced tune played out over the
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  Speaker 1: radio waves. Three months later, only a dozen minds had
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  Speaker 1: gone off out of the thousands the Russians had planted,
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  Speaker 1: a long enough delay for their batteries to have run
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  Speaker 1: out and the threat of remote detonation to no longer
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  Speaker 1: be a concern. The Soviets would eventually return and take
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  Speaker 1: back their territory from the Germans who occupied it, helping
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  Speaker 1: the Allies win the war in the process, but the
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  Speaker 1: Saki r v Polka became a major hit in Finland
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  Speaker 1: and an unofficial anthem at the end of the war.
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  Speaker 1: Today it stands as a fun reminder that for a
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  Speaker 1: short time at least Finland bested one of the biggest
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  Speaker 1: powers in the world with nothing more than a little
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  Speaker 1: ingenuity and a whole lot of polka. Few industries have
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  Speaker 1: seen as much innovation over the years as that of
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  Speaker 1: the auto industry. From steam engines and the electric starter
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  Speaker 1: to to cruise control and intermittent wipers, cars have never
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  Speaker 1: been strangers to leaps and technological advancement. Aside from alternative
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  Speaker 1: fuel sources, one area of immense change has been in
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  Speaker 1: the materials used to make car bodies. The earliest models
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  Speaker 1: were unsurprisingly comprised of wood. After all, wood had been
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  Speaker 1: used to make chariots, carts, wagons, and carriages for centuries,
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  Speaker 1: it only made sense to build the first automobiles out
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  Speaker 1: of wood as well. The Model T added aluminum panels
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  Speaker 1: to the equation, which improved strength and rigidity, While the
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  Speaker 1: nineteen fifties saw the advent of fiber reinforced plastic or
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  Speaker 1: f RP. This new material was made from a polyester
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  Speaker 1: resin by companies like Chevrolet for their Corvette. But back
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  Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties, one automaker tried to revolutionize the
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  Speaker 1: fabrication of his car's body panels, and he didn't turn
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  Speaker 1: to metal or fiberglass. He looked to the farm. That's
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  Speaker 1: where Henry Ford grew up, on a farm in Michigan,
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  Speaker 1: and he hated it. But no matter how far away
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  Speaker 1: he got from that farm, he never forgot about his
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  Speaker 1: experiences there. They stayed with him even as he developed
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  Speaker 1: his first automobile, his factory, and his eventual empire. Perhaps
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  Speaker 1: inspired by his time in the fields, he developed a
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  Speaker 1: fascination with pushing the limits of agriculture, so much so
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  Speaker 1: that he cultivated a friendship with the inventor who came
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  Speaker 1: up with over three uses for the common peanuts, George
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  Speaker 1: Washington Carver. Carver was heading the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama
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  Speaker 1: at the time, but traveled to Michigan to assist Ford
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  Speaker 1: with his next big breakthrough, an automotive technology, soybeans. Ford
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  Speaker 1: saw the soybean as an alternative to other materials being
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  Speaker 1: used to make car parts. To demonstrate his seriousness at
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  Speaker 1: the prospect, he built a factory dedicated to his next
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  Speaker 1: big thing, the soybean car. Of course, the car itself
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't be made from pure soybeans. The beans would be
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  Speaker 1: used as the basis for a new kind of plastic.
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  Speaker 1: Ford believed a plastic car was safer than those made
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  Speaker 1: of steel. If it rolled over in an accident, it
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't get crushed, and using plastic would free up metal
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  Speaker 1: for tanks and planes. During wartime, Henry Ford had planted
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  Speaker 1: the seeds for the next automobile, and he put designer
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  Speaker 1: Eugene Gregory in charge of nurturing the soil so to speak.
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  Speaker 1: The Soybeans car frame was made of tubular steel, upon
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  Speaker 1: which sat fourteen plastic body panels that were easily assembled.
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  Speaker 1: The windows were made of acrylic, and even with a
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  Speaker 1: V eight engine inside, the vehicle was surprisingly light less
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  Speaker 1: than two thousand pounds. Ford allegedly tested the Soybeans plastic
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  Speaker 1: resilience by whacking it with an axe. According to a
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  Speaker 1: video of the demonstration, he couldn't make a dent. The
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  Speaker 1: prototype made its debut with the nineteen forty one Dearborn
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  Speaker 1: Days Festival, followed by an exhibition at the Michigan State
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  Speaker 1: Fair the next year. Unfortunately, Ford's grand plan for the
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  Speaker 1: future of the car was ill timed. World War Two
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  Speaker 1: put a stop to all car manufacturing in the US,
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  Speaker 1: and Ford himself was already in poor health. He handed
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  Speaker 1: control of a company to his grandson. After the war,
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  Speaker 1: no one had any interest in making the plastic car anymore.
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  Speaker 1: Ford had poured millions into the projects and the result
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  Speaker 1: had been mixed. In fact, his engineer, who hadn't been
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  Speaker 1: a fan of the soybean car in the first place,
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  Speaker 1: was responsible for destroying the only prototype. No formula for
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  Speaker 1: the plastic exists today. However, Ford wasn't the only car
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  Speaker 1: maker with the bright idea to make one out of plastic.
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  Speaker 1: General Motors had tried their luck with a plastic automobile
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  Speaker 1: just a few years earlier. At the New York World's
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  Speaker 1: Fair of nineteen thirty nine, GM debut two models of
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  Speaker 1: their own, but rather than use plastic made from soybeans,
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  Speaker 1: they turned to a clear, acrylic plexiglass. What they unveiled
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  Speaker 1: was a four door touring sedan with sea through panels,
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  Speaker 1: allowing pedestrians and other drivers to gaze at the inner
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  Speaker 1: workings of the car as it drove by. The steel frame,
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  Speaker 1: the brackets and rivets, even the spare higher We're all
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  Speaker 1: clearly visible, giving outsiders the sense that they had X
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  Speaker 1: ray vision like Superman, and just like Ford's soybean car,
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  Speaker 1: GMS ghost cars were never put into production. They were
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  Speaker 1: primarily designed as display pieces to show off the benefits
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  Speaker 1: of plexiglass. Plastic cars have popped up every now and
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  Speaker 1: then over the years, but Steele continues to be the
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  Speaker 1: material of choice for today's automobiles. It's a fantastic idea, though,
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  Speaker 1: but one that seems to have never succeeded in taking root.
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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
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: World of Loure dot Come and until next time, stay curious. Yeah,