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New Me · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grim 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 are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: We don't often think about the impacts our jobs have
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  Speaker 1: on the wider world around us. A truck driver delivering
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  Speaker 1: meat to a grocery store isn't aware that she might
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  Speaker 1: be contributing to the inhumane factory farming industry. The oil
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  Speaker 1: rig worker doesn't understand his role in climate change either.
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  Speaker 1: It's not their fault. They aren't to blame for these things.
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  Speaker 1: It's just the nature of the world in which we live.
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  Speaker 1: Every choice we make comes with sequences, no matter how
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  Speaker 1: big or small. The Cauldron Girls of Oak Ridge, Tennessee,
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  Speaker 1: couldn't begin to fathom what their work would eventually lead to.
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  Speaker 1: All they wanted to do was help the war effort.
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  Speaker 1: When America entered World War Two, many men of fighting
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  Speaker 1: age were sent overseas. They left their homes and families
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  Speaker 1: behind to take on an immensely evil power, and that
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  Speaker 1: meant their partners were left to take care of themselves
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  Speaker 1: and make ends meet. And so in nineteen forty four,
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  Speaker 1: thousands of young women in need of work flocked to
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  Speaker 1: the city of oak Ridge, Tennessee. A new facility had
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  Speaker 1: recently opened up, called the Y twelve Electromagnetic Isotopes Separation Plant,
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  Speaker 1: run by the Tennessee Eastman Company. The women were trained
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  Speaker 1: to do very specific tasks while working there. They would
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  Speaker 1: turn dials, monitor gauges, and keep tabs on mass spectrometers
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  Speaker 1: called cauldrons, which had been specifically developed for the separation
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  Speaker 1: of uranium two thirty five from uranium two thirty eight,
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  Speaker 1: which had been mined out of the ground. Cauldrons combined
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  Speaker 1: uranium and chlorine, creating a new compound called uranium tetrac chloride.
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  Speaker 1: That compound was then ionized and placed inside a special
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  Speaker 1: vacuum chamber where it was surrounded by a magnetic field.
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  Speaker 1: In other words, the women employed at Y twelve were
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  Speaker 1: responsible for enriching uranium. None of them had any extensive
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  Speaker 1: education in physics or chemistry, and not a single one
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  Speaker 1: ever laid eyes on a mass spectrometer before they were there.
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  Speaker 1: For one reason and one reason, only because they were
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  Speaker 1: not scientists. You see, these young women were better suited
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  Speaker 1: to the task of enriching uranium because of their lack
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  Speaker 1: of expertise. They had been trained only to watch the
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  Speaker 1: meters and adjust the dials accordingly. At the time, most
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  Speaker 1: of the men were off fighting, so scientists were scarce.
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  Speaker 1: But also it was believed that if the male scientists
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  Speaker 1: had been put in charge of the cauldrons, they would
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  Speaker 1: have spent their time trouble shooting errors and messing with
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  Speaker 1: the dials, rather than focusing on the enrichment of the
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  Speaker 1: uranium itself. Of course, there was also quite a bit
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  Speaker 1: of misogyny behind this thinking. The women who were hired
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  Speaker 1: were often farm girls, chosen because they were believed to
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  Speaker 1: follow directions without question, and that was the most difficult
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  Speaker 1: part of the whole operation. Separating uranium isotopes was easy.
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  Speaker 1: Keeping an inquisitive mind at bay that was hard. Many
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  Speaker 1: women wanted to know why they were adjusting the dials
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  Speaker 1: and watching the gauges, and those who asked too many
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  Speaker 1: questions were removed without hesitation. One woman who had tried
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  Speaker 1: to find out more about her role at oak Ridge
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  Speaker 1: was disappeared without hesitation. The Tennessee Eastman Company told the
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  Speaker 1: other girls in her dorm that she had and I
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  Speaker 1: quote died from drinking some poisoned moonshine. And so the
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  Speaker 1: less they knew about their jobs, the better off they'd be.
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  Speaker 1: That was probably a good thing, too, because if the
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  Speaker 1: women had known why they were enriching uranium, they might
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  Speaker 1: have quit anyway. The uranium harvested from Y twelve was
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  Speaker 1: eventually inserted into a special kind of device, the kind
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  Speaker 1: that reigned death and destruction on whatever it touched. This
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  Speaker 1: device was then loaded onto a Boeing B twenty nine
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  Speaker 1: super fortress named Enola Gay, which was flown over the
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  Speaker 1: Japanese city of Hiroshima on August sixth, nineteen forty five.
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  Speaker 1: The Cauldron Girls had no idea their work was instrumental
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  Speaker 1: in creating the Little Boy atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima
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  Speaker 1: and killed over seventy thousand people. All they wanted to
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  Speaker 1: do was support the war efforts overseas. They just didn't
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  Speaker 1: count on what that support would cost. It's something a
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  Speaker 1: few of us have probably thought about, the idea that
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  Speaker 1: we can start over, change who we are, and begin
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  Speaker 1: a new chapter in our lives. Or more accurately, begin
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  Speaker 1: our lives over again. It's happened before. In the sixt century,
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  Speaker 1: there lived a French peasant by the name of Martin Gere.
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  Speaker 1: He'd been married with a son when he suddenly vanished
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  Speaker 1: in fifteen forty eight. Eight years later, gare reappeared ready
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  Speaker 1: to be welcomed back by the family that he had
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  Speaker 1: left behind. Except this wasn't actually gare It was an impostor,
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  Speaker 1: and he was eventually hanged for his deceit. The story
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  Speaker 1: of Martin Gere has inspired films, books, and even a musical,
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  Speaker 1: but his story was surprisingly not unique. Something similar happened
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  Speaker 1: again several hundred years later in Victorian England. It started
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  Speaker 1: with a family, a very wealthy and well known family
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  Speaker 1: known as the Titchbourn's. They had been a part of Hampshire,
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  Speaker 1: England since at least the eleventh century, and for the
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  Speaker 1: most part had stayed loyal to the British Crown, although
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  Speaker 1: one family member did go rogue in the sixteenth century
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  Speaker 1: and plotted to assassinate the Queen. Despite that one hiccup, though,
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  Speaker 1: Benjamin Titchbourne was made a baronet in sixteen twenty one
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  Speaker 1: and the family enjoyed the perks of nobility from then on.
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  Speaker 1: In eighteen twenty nine, Benjamin's descendant, Roger Tichbourne, was born.
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  Speaker 1: He was raised in Paris and enjoyed a childhood in
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  Speaker 1: the lap of luxury, studying at the finest schools across
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  Speaker 1: Europe and growing up with a French accent despite speaking
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  Speaker 1: fluent English. When he was twenty four years old, Roger
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  Speaker 1: embarked on a voyage to South America by himself. He
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  Speaker 1: landed in Valparaiso on the Chilean coast in eighteen fifty three.
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  Speaker 1: Several months after the start of his trip, he received
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  Speaker 1: a communication that his uncle had passed away, allowing his
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  Speaker 1: father to succeed to the baronetcy. Following this news, Roger
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  Speaker 1: spent the next ten months traveling throughout South America, eventually
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  Speaker 1: crossing the Andes Mountains in eighteen fifty four. But his
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  Speaker 1: travels would soon be cut short because in April of
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  Speaker 1: that year, Roger was met with an unfortunate twist of fate.
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  Speaker 1: He had a book passage to Jamaica on a ship
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  Speaker 1: called the Bella. It set sail on the twentieth of April,
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  Speaker 1: but its capsized remains were discovered only four days later.
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  Speaker 1: There was no one on board. It was presumed that
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  Speaker 1: Roger Tichbourne had died in the wreck. There was a
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  Speaker 1: possibility that survivors had been scooped out of the water
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  Speaker 1: by another ship, but that was nothing more than a rumor,
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  Speaker 1: a taste of hope in a hopeless situation. The family
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  Speaker 1: was told that Roger had perished. Several years later, his father,
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  Speaker 1: Sir James, also passed away. Roger was meant to take
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  Speaker 1: over the baronetcy, but the title went to his younger
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  Speaker 1: brother Alfred instead. Alfred hemorrhaged the family's fortune, nearly bankrupting
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  Speaker 1: them in a handful of years. While their mother consulted
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  Speaker 1: with clairvoyance for a sign that Roger might still be alive.
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  Speaker 1: She took out newspaper ads all over the world, hoping
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  Speaker 1: that someone somewhere might know something. While in October of
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  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five she got her answer, three years after
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  Speaker 1: Roger had been declared dead, an Australian man named Arthur
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  Speaker 1: Cubitt informed her that her son was actually alive. He
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  Speaker 1: was a rotund butcher working down under going by the
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  Speaker 1: name of Thomas Castro. It didn't matter that his hair
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  Speaker 1: was different, that he couldn't speak French, and that his
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  Speaker 1: accent was gone. This man could be her son, so
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  Speaker 1: she arranged to have him sent to London in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty six. Castro got to know the Titchborns and their
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  Speaker 1: associates quite well, many of whom vouched for his identity.
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  Speaker 1: After spending some time with them. His mother, Lady Titchborne,
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  Speaker 1: was no different. She and the rest of the family
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  Speaker 1: welcomed him in with Oakland arms, and Castro made good
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  Speaker 1: use of his time with them. He asked them all
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  Speaker 1: kinds of questions about the family, Roger's upbringing, and other
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  Speaker 1: details that he could use to jog his memory, well,
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  Speaker 1: not really jog his memory, but rather pad his portfolio
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  Speaker 1: of lies to feed the Titchborns. You see. Some of
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  Speaker 1: those in the family's inner circle weren't convinced by Castro's performance,
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  Speaker 1: so they did some digging, and they found out that
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  Speaker 1: Thomas Castro was actually London born Arthur Orton. Orton had
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  Speaker 1: been in Chile just like Roger, and knew enough to
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  Speaker 1: tell Lady Titchborne all about his adventures as though he
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  Speaker 1: were her son. After the matriarch's death in eighteen sixty eight,
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  Speaker 1: Orton went to court to prove his identity and claimed
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  Speaker 1: the Titchborne Fortune, and despite all the evidence to convince
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  Speaker 1: them that he was not, in fact, Roger Tichborne, Orton
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  Speaker 1: managed to get nearly one hundred people to testify on
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  Speaker 1: his behalf. His story, though, fell apart when he was
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  Speaker 1: asked to speak French. The real Roger could speak it fluently,
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  Speaker 1: this impostor could not. After a year long trial, Orton's
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  Speaker 1: case was tossed out and he was subsequently arrested for perjury,
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  Speaker 1: of which he was found guilty. The trial was so
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  Speaker 1: newsworthy Mark Twain himself came to court a few times
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  Speaker 1: to watch as well. Orton served ten years in prison
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  Speaker 1: for his crimes and died penniless. But that wasn't the
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  Speaker 1: end of his story, because even though his tale of
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  Speaker 1: identity theft inspired films like The Titchborne Claimant, it also
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  Speaker 1: influenced one of the most notable episodes of television ever crafted.
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  Speaker 1: It aired in nineteen ninety seven and told the story
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  Speaker 1: of a stranger arriving at Springfield Elementary with a bold
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  Speaker 1: claim that he was the real principal, Seymour Skinner. Over
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  Speaker 1: the course of the episode, it was revealed that the
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  Speaker 1: principal Skinner that audiences and his mother had come to
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  Speaker 1: love over the eight previous seasons was in fact a
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  Speaker 1: man named Arman Tamsarian, proving yet again that art often
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  Speaker 1: imitates life, even when that art is The Simpsons. I
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  Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mank in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: 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 the World
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  Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.