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Happy Accident · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:03
  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. World War two took its
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  Speaker 1: toll on the lives of soldiers and civilians in many ways,
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  Speaker 1: though not all of them. Violent women became combat nurses,
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  Speaker 1: air force pilots, and expert welders to support the war effort.
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  Speaker 1: Men who couldn't fight with volunteer in other ways, helping
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  Speaker 1: to sell war bonds and collect scrap metal. As the
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  Speaker 1: war progressed, the use of certain materials increased exponentially, including tin, paper,
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  Speaker 1: and rubber. The military needed tin cans for rations, paper
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  Speaker 1: for packing materials, and rub for things like tires, pontoon, bridges,
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  Speaker 1: and boots. While fighting was going on overseas, folks back
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  Speaker 1: home held scrap drives. They encourage people to donate old
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  Speaker 1: pots and pans, tin toys, rubber, boots, and anything else
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  Speaker 1: they had lying around that could be melted down and
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  Speaker 1: turned into supplies for the troops. Every little bit helped.
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  Speaker 1: Rubber became especially hard to find as Japan took over
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  Speaker 1: much of the Pacific rim, including the majority of rubber
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  Speaker 1: producing countries. Its forces cut off supply access to the
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  Speaker 1: United States, so things like rafts and gas masks couldn't
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  Speaker 1: be made or repaired. The US government couldn't stand to
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  Speaker 1: wait around for supply routes to open back up again.
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  Speaker 1: Rations were running low and something had to be done,
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  Speaker 1: so they turned to science to pick up the slack.
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  Speaker 1: Scientists had already begun looking for alternatives to natural rubber. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: nothing had been invented that came even close to being
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  Speaker 1: as versatile and resilient as the real thing. James Wright, however,
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  Speaker 1: had already been on the case. He'd been working as
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  Speaker 1: a researcher at General Electric in Connecticut when he was
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  Speaker 1: tasked with finding a cheap substitute for rubber, both natural
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  Speaker 1: and synthetic. It had to be tough, it had to
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  Speaker 1: be pliable, and it had to do everything real rubber
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  Speaker 1: was capable of doing. After some experimentation with certain chemicals,
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  Speaker 1: he dropped boric acid into silicon oil. The reaction left
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  Speaker 1: him with something new and different, something he thought might
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  Speaker 1: be exactly what the government was looking for. It looked
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  Speaker 1: like rubber, it smelled like rubber, but it bounced higher
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  Speaker 1: and stretched farther than rubber actually could, but it got better.
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  Speaker 1: It would never mold and melted only at extremely high temperatures,
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  Speaker 1: much higher than natural rubber. So he brought his creation
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  Speaker 1: to his supervisors, who didn't see much of a use
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  Speaker 1: for it. To them, it was no different than the
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  Speaker 1: synthetic rubbers they had already been using. Dr Wright went
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  Speaker 1: back to the drawing board, but sadly never came up
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  Speaker 1: with the alternative everyone had been looking for. After his failure,
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  Speaker 1: he put his fake rubber concoction on the shelf, where
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  Speaker 1: it sat dormant for years. Then sometime after the war,
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  Speaker 1: it bounced into the hands of small business owner Ruth
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  Speaker 1: falgat her She immediately saw plenty of uses for it,
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  Speaker 1: and so did the marketing executive that she consulted, Peter Hodgson.
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  Speaker 1: The two of them began selling rights Magical Rubber in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two very little acclaim after it appeared in
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  Speaker 1: an article in The New Yorker. Though sales boomed. It
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  Speaker 1: quickly became a worldwide success, and as more people bought it,
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  Speaker 1: they found even more ways to incorporate it into their
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  Speaker 1: daily lives. The substance has been known to be a
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  Speaker 1: terrific lint remover as well as a physical therapy tool
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  Speaker 1: for people recovering from hand injuries. NASA astronauts used did
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  Speaker 1: it so their tools wouldn't float away in zero gravity.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed like the sky was the limit literally for
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  Speaker 1: the failure. The Army never wanted but people all over
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  Speaker 1: the world certainly wanted it, especially children, and they've been
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  Speaker 1: playing with it for over sixty years, whether squishing it
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  Speaker 1: into a ball and bouncing it off the ceiling or
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  Speaker 1: pressing it over the Sunday Comics and pulling up their
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  Speaker 1: own printed copies. Kids everywhere have had a lot of
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  Speaker 1: fun with Dr Wright's failed rubber substitute. They probably helped that.
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  Speaker 1: Peter Hodgson packaged and marketed it as the perfect Easter
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  Speaker 1: basket item. He simply placed a dollop of the stuff
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  Speaker 1: into a little plastic egg and then gave it the
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  Speaker 1: perfect name, if maybe a little silly silly putty. That is.
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  Speaker 1: At the start of the nineteenth century, Napoleon Bonaparte's reign
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  Speaker 1: was just hitting its stride. Within the span of four years,
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  Speaker 1: he would sell Louisiana to the United States avoid an
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  Speaker 1: assassination attempt go to war with Great Britain and declare
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  Speaker 1: himself Emperor of France right in front of the Pope.
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  Speaker 1: Some might say he was a man of action, always
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  Speaker 1: looking for the competitive edge that would help him gain
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  Speaker 1: victory over his opponents. Others would just chock it up
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  Speaker 1: to ego. But despite his ego, Napoleon prided himself on
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  Speaker 1: being a forward thinker. As his armies moved across Europe
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  Speaker 1: and engaged with hostile forces, he noticed where his strategy
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  Speaker 1: was lacking. He just didn't quite know how to fix it.
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  Speaker 1: The problems presented themselves at night, when the candles and
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  Speaker 1: lamps that his soldiers used to illuminate their maps made
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  Speaker 1: them sitting ducks for enemy snipers. Napoleon knew the best
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  Speaker 1: time to atten hack was during the night, But if
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  Speaker 1: the men couldn't see where they were going or read
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  Speaker 1: their orders, then those plans wouldn't matter. They'd all be
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  Speaker 1: dead before sunrise. So Napoleon posed his predicament to an
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  Speaker 1: officer in his ranks who also happened to be a
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  Speaker 1: former classmate of his growing up. His name was Charles Barbier,
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  Speaker 1: and he was given a simple mission find a way
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  Speaker 1: for the troops to read in the dark without the
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  Speaker 1: need for any kind of light. Barbier was a bit
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  Speaker 1: of a history buff and knew of a system of
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  Speaker 1: message transmission invented by the ancient Greeks. The Polybia square
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  Speaker 1: was a grid of five rows and five columns, with
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  Speaker 1: a different letter of the Greek alphabet in each square,
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  Speaker 1: the last one left blank. If two people had the
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  Speaker 1: same grid, that could send each other messages using the
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  Speaker 1: row and column location to signify the chosen letter. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: this system relied on the use of torches held high
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  Speaker 1: in the night. The number of torches raised in a
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  Speaker 1: particular order indicated which row and column the letter was
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  Speaker 1: located in. Napoleon had told his man no light, but
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  Speaker 1: it did give Barbier an idea a way to modify
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  Speaker 1: this system so that light wasn't required. He created his
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  Speaker 1: own grid of letters that soldiers would memorize. Messages would
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  Speaker 1: be encoded using special symbols that could be read in
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  Speaker 1: the dark bite simply touching them. Barbie A developed his
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  Speaker 1: system using six rows and six columns to accommodate the
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  Speaker 1: numerous letter combinations the French commonly used. It sounded great
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  Speaker 1: to Napoleon, who quickly put it to use in the field.
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  Speaker 1: The soldiers, however, thought differently. The grid was too hard
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  Speaker 1: to memorize and recall in the heat of battle. Decoding
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  Speaker 1: secret messages proved impossible when no one could figure out
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  Speaker 1: what letter they were touching, nor did they have the
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  Speaker 1: time to really think about it. Barbier's system was abandoned
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  Speaker 1: almost as quickly as it was adopted, but it's inventor
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  Speaker 1: wasn't discouraged. Years later, while speaking on behalf of the
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  Speaker 1: French Royal Academy of Sciences, he introduced his grid to
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  Speaker 1: a classroom of children who also happened to struggle with reading.
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  Speaker 1: The old system the children had been using was far inferior,
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  Speaker 1: as it relied on embossed Latin letters, which were harder
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  Speaker 1: to trace quickly with their fingertips. Among these students was
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  Speaker 1: a young man who took a great interest in Barbier's work.
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  Speaker 1: He gave Barbie a feedback on how to make it better.
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  Speaker 1: One suggested change was to shrink the number of rows
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  Speaker 1: and symbols to make them easier to distinguish by touch.
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  Speaker 1: Barbie a scoffed, there was no way some child was
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  Speaker 1: going to tell a wealthy educated veteran of Napoleon Bonaparte's
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  Speaker 1: army how to do his job. So the boy made
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  Speaker 1: the changes himself and introduced the new system to his classmates.
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  Speaker 1: It worked, and as a result, his contribution changed the
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  Speaker 1: way the blind read forever and this child's aim Louis Braille.
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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
• 9:13
  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 Manky 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 Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.