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Spinning Their Wheels · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full 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
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. There's nothing wrong with the little competition. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: experts claim it drives both sides toward better innovation and improvement.
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  Speaker 1: Think about it, how would a professional athlete know how
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  Speaker 1: fast they could run if they didn't have a competitor
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  Speaker 1: to try and beat. Some of the great inventions of
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  Speaker 1: our day are a result of competition. The mobile computers
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  Speaker 1: we all have in our pockets would most likely not
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  Speaker 1: have arrived so soon if it weren't for the competition
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  Speaker 1: between in a number of companies, and the war of
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  Speaker 1: the currents in the eighteen eighties between alternating current and
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  Speaker 1: direct current gave us the home electrical systems we have today.
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  Speaker 1: So we can't fault Daniel Burnham for thinking about his
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  Speaker 1: own competition and wanting to do better. He was an
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  Speaker 1: architect with an unusual and rare project. Take a massive
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  Speaker 1: section of Chicago and turn it into an attraction that
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  Speaker 1: would captivate the world. Just a year before, in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty nine, the city of Paris played host to the
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  Speaker 1: World Exhibition, and standing tall in the center of their
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  Speaker 1: wonders and entertainment was a structure that we all take
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  Speaker 1: for granted today, the Eiffel Tower. So with Chicago on
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  Speaker 1: the cusp of hosting their own World's Columbian Exhibition, Daniel
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  Speaker 1: was in desperate need of something even bigger, more impressive
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  Speaker 1: than that. Thankfully, there were a lot of options submitted,
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  Speaker 1: but none seemed to sparkle with the wonder that he
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  Speaker 1: was aiming for. Honestly, for a while, he sort of
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  Speaker 1: just felt like he was spinning his wheels, moving from
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  Speaker 1: one proposed to the next, getting interested, before ultimately realizing
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  Speaker 1: the idea was impossible, or too expensive, or both. But
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  Speaker 1: that's when he met George. George was a young civil
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  Speaker 1: engineer with a lot of innovation in his blood. As
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  Speaker 1: a child, his family moved around a bit from his
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  Speaker 1: birth state of Illinois to the much drier climate of Nevada.
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  Speaker 1: His father had been a horticulturalist, and in the eighteen
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  Speaker 1: seventies took on the responsibility of beautifying Carson City by
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  Speaker 1: importing hundreds of trees from out east. George, though, wanted
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  Speaker 1: to build things. He spent a brief amount of time
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  Speaker 1: at the California Military Academy before pursuing his engineering degree,
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  Speaker 1: and by eighty one he was in that weird position
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  Speaker 1: so many college graduates find themselves in even today, fully trained,
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  Speaker 1: hungry for opportunity, and looking for work. But instead of
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  Speaker 1: getting a job somewhere else, he hired himself by starting
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  Speaker 1: a company that tested the intricate steel structures of bridges.
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  Speaker 1: But when George heard that the planners of the World's
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  Speaker 1: Columbian Exhibition we're looking for and engineering feats, he saw
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  Speaker 1: his chance to really turn some heads. He drafted up
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  Speaker 1: his proposal and sent it over, and Daniel Burnham loved it.
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  Speaker 1: His fellow planners, though, weren't so sure. Was it spectacular, absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: but how would it work? After all, it seemed to
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  Speaker 1: be far too complex to be viable. So when his
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  Speaker 1: idea was rejected, George insisted that it would work by
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  Speaker 1: providing studies that he paid for out of his pocket
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  Speaker 1: to prove the safety and functionality of the design. He
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  Speaker 1: even found his own investors to cover the cost of
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  Speaker 1: building it, to make it even easier on the planning committee,
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  Speaker 1: and finally they agreed, and George immediately got to work.
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  Speaker 1: And what he ended up building in was both breathtaking
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  Speaker 1: to the people who first saw it and familiar to
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  Speaker 1: many of us today. It was a massive wheel that
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  Speaker 1: stood over two hundred sixty feet high, mounted on a
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  Speaker 1: central axle. Hanging off the outer edge of that wheel
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  Speaker 1: at regular intervals were forty passenger cars, each capable of
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  Speaker 1: seating about sixty people. It was like a giant metal
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  Speaker 1: spider web that just turned and turned, taking occupants on
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  Speaker 1: a steam powered circular twenty minute ride above Chicago. And
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  Speaker 1: the world fell in love with George's new invention, as
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  Speaker 1: any trip to a local fair might tell you. Today,
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  Speaker 1: even the great city of London has their own permanent version,
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  Speaker 1: the London I. But it wasn't a happy ending for George.
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  Speaker 1: The exhibition in Chicago withheld three quarters of a million
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  Speaker 1: dollars in profit, worth tens of millions of dollars today,
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  Speaker 1: and the loss ultimately drove him into bankruptcy. George died
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  Speaker 1: from typhoid fever three years after his great Wheel took
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  Speaker 1: its first spin. At the young age of just thirty seven,
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  Speaker 1: and while most people have forgotten his personal story, you'd
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  Speaker 1: be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't know his name,
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  Speaker 1: George Washington Ferris, the father of the Ferris Wheel. Death
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  Speaker 1: affects everyone differently. Not only do mourning rituals vary from
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  Speaker 1: culture it's a culture, but death itself can hit each
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  Speaker 1: individual in its own way. The loss of an estranged
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  Speaker 1: relative might not gardner many tears, but losing a close
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  Speaker 1: friend who saw us through a bad time in our
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  Speaker 1: lives might cause intense heartache. Every death is unique, as
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  Speaker 1: are its effects on our mental health. One particular activity, though,
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  Speaker 1: has captivated mourners for hundreds of years. What started out
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  Speaker 1: as a way to literally raise the dead has now
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  Speaker 1: become a rite of passage for teenage girls everywhere. It's
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  Speaker 1: true origins are unknown, but historians can at least trace
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  Speaker 1: the practice back to a book called The Diary of
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  Speaker 1: Samuel Peeps. Samuel was a member of parliament during the
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  Speaker 1: seventeenth century and began writing in his diary on New
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  Speaker 1: Year's Day of sixteen sixty. Over the course of the
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  Speaker 1: next ten years, he kept a daily account of his days,
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  Speaker 1: including observations on things such as English politics and the
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  Speaker 1: arts of the time. However, on July one six, Samuel
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  Speaker 1: recorded a particular story that had been told to him
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  Speaker 1: by a friend of his name, Mr. Brisbane, who had
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  Speaker 1: witnessed something akin to witchcraft while in France. He'd watched
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  Speaker 1: as four young girls each knelt on one knee around
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  Speaker 1: a boy lying on the ground. He was on his back,
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  Speaker 1: giving the appearance that he had died, and each girl
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  Speaker 1: placed one finger underneath him. Then they recited a short poem,
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  Speaker 1: each girl whispering a line of it into the ear
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  Speaker 1: of the one next to her. Here lies a dead body,
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  Speaker 1: stiff as a stick, cold as marble, light as a spirit,
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  Speaker 1: rise in the name of Jesus Christ. The lines were
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  Speaker 1: uttered in round robin style as the girls proceeded to
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  Speaker 1: lift the boy off the ground with only their outstretched fingers.
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  Speaker 1: Brisbane couldn't believe his eyes. Surely it had been an illusion,
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  Speaker 1: so when it was over, he told the boy to
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  Speaker 1: get up and move out of the way, and then
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  Speaker 1: brought in a much larger man to take his place.
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  Speaker 1: Sure Enough, the girls chanted the same incantation again, each
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  Speaker 1: one reciting a single line, and lifted the hefty newcomer
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  Speaker 1: over their heads, each one using only a single finger.
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  Speaker 1: Where had the girls learned such a game. It's possible
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  Speaker 1: it had been passed down from people who had never
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  Speaker 1: actually seen it as a game, people who really wanted
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  Speaker 1: to raise those they've lost. Decades earlier, from sixty to
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  Speaker 1: sixteen thirty two, France had seen a monumental loss of
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  Speaker 1: a million people to a plague epidemic. The constant reminder
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  Speaker 1: of death, watching family and friends succumb to it every
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  Speaker 1: day had most likely affected the surviving children, and one
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  Speaker 1: way to make something like death less scary was to
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  Speaker 1: turn it into a game, a game where someone could
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  Speaker 1: literally be raised from the dead. Throughout history, other attempts
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  Speaker 1: to lift people with the lightest of touches has also
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  Speaker 1: been recorded, as in an eighteen five The Seven volume
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  Speaker 1: by one Robert Conger Pell. In the book, Pell described
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  Speaker 1: how a man lying on a bench with his legs
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  Speaker 1: fully extended could be lifted by two people standing on
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  Speaker 1: each side of him. In order for the lift to
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  Speaker 1: be successful, though the two men both needed to inhale
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  Speaker 1: at the same time just before the lift. At eighty three,
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  Speaker 1: inventor and scientist David Brewster wrote about a similar experiment
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  Speaker 1: as Pells. In Brewster's version, however, the subject being raised
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  Speaker 1: had to adhere to a set of rules. For one,
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  Speaker 1: they needed to be heavier than anyone else in the group,
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  Speaker 1: and second, the person was asked to lay across two chairs,
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  Speaker 1: with one to support his back and one to hold
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  Speaker 1: up his legs. Four people then stood around him to
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  Speaker 1: buy his legs and two near his shoulders. Their first
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  Speaker 1: lift often went poorly, with no one able to get
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  Speaker 1: him in the air. It wasn't until everyone took a
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  Speaker 1: deep breath, including the person being lifted, that he was
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  Speaker 1: finally able to be hoisted with ease. It was as
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  Speaker 1: if the air in his lungs had turned him into
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  Speaker 1: a loon. The exercise is still performed today, though it's
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  Speaker 1: not done by science minded adults anymore. It's played as
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  Speaker 1: a game at places like slumber parties, and it goes
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  Speaker 1: by the catchy name of light as a feather stiff
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  Speaker 1: as a board. Physics does the um heavy lifting, with
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  Speaker 1: each person taking on an equal amount of the subject's
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  Speaker 1: body weight at the same time. Their coordinated efforts allow
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  Speaker 1: them to lift a person off the ground as though
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  Speaker 1: they weigh almost nothing at all, and thankfully there's no
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  Speaker 1: witchcraft required. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
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  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
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  Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
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  Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
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  Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
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  Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
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  Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot Come and until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious. Yeah,