Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Boxed In

Transcript

Boxed In · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Radio technology has always
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: been complicated, but we still use it every day. Wi
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Fi operates on radio frequencies, which means that you're probably
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: listening to this podcast right now. Because of radio, you
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: probably can't explain how it works.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: But don't worry. I'm not going to ask you to,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: but I am going to tell you to feel grateful
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: because while today we may have our own high functioning
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: radio transmitters in the form of why Fi routers, one
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: hundred years ago, a radio transmitter was a rare, expensive
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and dangerous piece of equipment that few people had in
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: their homes, and it took a boxing match of all
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: things to change that. In nineteen twenty one, Jay Andrew
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: White was a thirty one year old Radio Corporation of
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: America employee who had served in the Army Signal Corps
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: in World War One. This meant that he was a
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: radio expert, which was still a new technology at the time,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: and because of this, he was approached by promoters from
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden who had the crazy idea to transmit
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: the upcoming fight between world boxing champions Jack Dempsey and
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: George Carpontier. They wanted to transmit to different radios all
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: over New England and as far away as Ohio, and
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: charge people a fee to listen at various local theaters,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: and White jumped at the chance to make this happen.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: You see, at the time, radio was the domain of
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: hobbyists and the government, and he knew that this would
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: prove that the technology deserved a wider place in society.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Working with the team, he set about crew aiding the
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: infrastructure to make the broadcast possible. The fight would take
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: place in July at a makeshift arena in New Jersey,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: and as such, there was no antenna or transmitter available
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: at the actual site of the fight. To find suitable equipment,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: White and his team had to search far and wide.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: The only suitable transmitter they could find belonged to the
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: United States Navy, and so they had a meeting with
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: none other than the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: delan Or Roosevelt, the young future president, believed in helping
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: civilian projects whenever he could, and so he readily agreed
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: to lend the transmitter as long as the Navy received
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: a small cut of the profits. The transmitter was transported
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: to New Jersey, but it still needed an antenna. White
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: had to run a telephone line all the way from
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the arena to a nearby train station, where he rigged
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: a massive antenna from a local clock tower. The transmitter
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: was housed at the station, and White had one of
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the assistants guarded day and night. And after this, White
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: secured a broadcasting license from the government to broadcast his
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: own unique radio station called WJY. Amateurs were hired across
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the country to man their own radio and speaker setups
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: at local theaters. The promoters did everything they could to
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: drum up interest in the big day, and then AT
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: and T came along and tried to ruin the whole thing.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: The company, just a few decades old at the time,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: came out of nowhere right before the fight and claimed
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: that they wouldn't allow one of their telephone lines to
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: be used in a radio broadcast. Essentially, they saw the
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Radio Corporation of America RCA as a competitor and didn't
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: want to help them. White had to think up a
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: new plan on very short notice. His final workaround proved
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: to be his cleverest idea so far. He would report
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: on the fight from ringside, talking on the phone to
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: one of his assistants at the train station. They would
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: then type up the play by play commentary for yet
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: another assistant to read out over the radio. They even
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: had a gong in the booth to simulate the gong
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: from the ring. Listeners all over they would actually be
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: listening to a slightly delayed report of the fight, but
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: they were none the wiser. But the exciting commentary and
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: the sound of the gong, they were completely drawn in.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Some listeners even later reported that they could hear the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: sound of the crowd, although this was entirely in their imagination.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Jack Dempsey knocked out George Carpontier in the fourth round,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and as excited as the people were to watch the
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: fight in New Jersey, hundreds of thousands of people around
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the country were just as thrilled to be listening in
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: their own hometowns of course, they had no way of
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: knowing how much hard work had been done to make
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: it all possible. In fact, the assistant who read out
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the fight over the radio, Jo Smith, ended the match
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: in worse shape than Carpontier. It seems that he was
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: temporarily blinded by the bright burning tubes of the radio
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: transmitter and even burned his hands when one of those
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: tubes exploded and had to be switched out mid fight.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: But it did the trick. Over the next few years,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: radio sales skyrocketed, and the rest is history. Men like
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Jay Andrew White and Josia Smith let their curiosity guide them,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: and it changed entertainment forever. Without them, you might not
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: be listening to me right now, So be thankful for that,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: and for the later developments that made it possible for
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: your phone to do amazing things like not explode in
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: your hand or blind you. For most people, fear works
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: as evolution intended, keeping them out of dangerous situations. But
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: for others, fear is more of a challenge, a call
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: to face whatever obstacles might be standing in their way.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Cave divers definitely fall into that second category. They squeeze
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: into narrow spaces that most of us would only visit
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: in our nightmares, trying to prove to themselves that it
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: won't kill them. Most of the time they're right, but
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: sometimes the cave wins. A word of warning, the story
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: is not for those with claustrophobia. About an hour south
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: of Salt Lake City, Utah, is a place called Nutty
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Putty Cave. It's not the kind of high ceilinged, stalactite
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: filled cave that you might be used to. It's a
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: series of very tight passages, most of them no bigger
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: than the opening of a washing machine. It was discovered
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty by diver Dale Green, who named it
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: after the clay that forms in its humid tunnels. Thousands
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: of divers flocked to the cave every year to test
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: themselves against its narrow, twisty passages, but the cave was
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: closed in two thousand and six after multiple rescue missions.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: No one died, but one young man was hospitalized for days.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: It was becoming too common for divers to go at
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: nights without proper equipment and then become stuck. Typically, rescue
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: teams had to then enter the cave, tie a rope
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: around the stuck person's foot, pulling them free. The cave
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: eventually reopened in two thousand and nine after the state
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: instituted an application process for visitors. Now they had to
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: prove that they had all the necessary training and equipment,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: and that very same year, two brothers signed up, Josh
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and John Jones. As kids, they'd been on many cave
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: exploration trips with their father, although they hadn't been on
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: any trips for a few years. They thought that it
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: would be a fun way to relive old memories, and
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: so they descended into the cave headlamps guiding their way.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: They crawled through the biggest chamber, first known as the
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Big Slide, which is big enough for a diver to
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: turn around in. But after this they wanted more of
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: a challenge. Josh and John decided to look for the
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: birth canal, a narrow passage that only the most experienced
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: divers could pass through. They proceeded through the most narrow
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: sections of the cave. These are such tight spaces that
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: you could stretch out your hand to where it's touching
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: both the top and the bottom of the cave. At once.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: John was in the lead and he thought he was
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: approaching the birth canal. He thought the cave would open
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: up there where he could turn back around, but in reality,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: he and Josh had made a wrong turn. They were
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: in an even more narrow, uncharted part of the cave.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Suddenly John fell forward, his body going from fully horizontal
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: to fully vertical. One arm was trapped underneath him and
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the other arm trapped to his side. He was stuck
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: upside down. At first, Josh, still behind him, thought that
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: he could pull him free, but it was no use.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Josh crawled back out of the cave and called nine
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: to one one before returning to his brother. But the
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: climb from the spot where John was stuck can take
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: as much as one hour each way. By the time
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: rescue teams arrived, John was still conscious, but he was frightened.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: They tried the traditional pulley system, hammering studs into the
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: cave walls that could then be rigged with ropes and
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: pulleys to try to create leverage to pull John out.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: They also considered using vegetable oil to slide him out,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: but none of these would work. As rescue diver Brandon
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Kowala soon realized John was at such an angle that
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: he couldn't be pulled out without breaking his legs. There
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: wasn't enough space at the top of the tunnel for
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: his legs to clear. It would be like trying to
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: move a couch around a tight corner in an apartment
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: with no way to pivot. The rescue team even brought
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: power tools to try and chisel John out, but the
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: space was too narrow to angle them properly. Eventually, rescue
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: diver Brandon saw John's legs spasimen blood and fluid had
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: started to pool in his brain and lungs after being
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: upside down for hours. His blood couldn't circulate and had
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: become toxic. He couldn't breathe. John Jones passed away just
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: before midnight. It was a tragic end to what was
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: supposed to be a fun family outing. Even more tragically,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: the divers couldn't recover John's body. The caves were finally
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: sealed with cement, having proven that they were more than
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: humans could handle. A plaque was left in John's honor.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: It's a curious tomb, with several winding passageways going in
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: all directions, but only one of those passageways contains a body,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: one that will forever be trapped upside down. I hope
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: subscrib i pre free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: show was created by me Aaron Manke in partnership with
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the Worldolore
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.