Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Panic Station

Transcript

Panic Station · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. In sixteenth century Rome, six individuals step forward
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: to comment on the socio political issues of the day,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: back when speaking out against the rich and powerful could
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: be met with violence or even death. Still, the consequences
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: didn't stop them. They refused to stay quiet, and in
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: doing so, cemented their place in history as champions of
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: free speech. The first was Pasquino, a tailor so talented
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: he managed to work his way into the Vatican. Nobody
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: there paid much attention to a tailor, and so they
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: didn't think twice when discussing sensitive topics around him, Pasquino
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: would eavesdrop and collect valuable bits of gossip, which would
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: then be spread to his friends and family. Then there
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: was Marforio, who spent much of his time in the water,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: lazing and about. He would often carry with him funny
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: poems and satires written by others, showing them to all
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: who passed by, and those pieces were almost always directed
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: toward powerful government figures, which I'm sure made a lot
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: of people very uncomfortable. Then there was abbott Luigi, who
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: actually worked in government, despite his disdain for it. He
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: spent most of his time at the Palazzo Vedoni Cafarelli,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: a massive palace designed by a student of the great
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: artist Raphael He openly admonished his peers and superiors whenever possible.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Madame Lucreza was the only woman among the bunch. She
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: had suffered some terrible accidents during her life which affected
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: her face. Still she didn't let it stop her from
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: spreading her biting critique at those at the top. Next
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: there was Ill Babuino. Although that wasn't his real name,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: he was called that the Italian phrase for the baboon,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: due to his unfortunate looks and deformities. Maybe it was
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: because he felt like half a man that he grew
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: so angry at his country's leaders. And finally, there was
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Ill Faciano. He was a humble water salesman during a
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: time when the Roman aqueducts were in desperate need of repair.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: He like the other five people of his time, was
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: not afraid to voice his opinions, and he suffered greatly
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: for it. People in town sometimes threw stones at him,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: which badly damaged his face. These six figures were rebels
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: at a time when rebellion, especially against the Church, was
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: a dangerous endeavor. They were known as the Congregation of Wits,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: and modern rebels can pay tribute to them today. They
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: were the original kings and queen of Roman gossip, and
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: they still hang around all over the city. That's because
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: their statues, known as the talking Statues of Rome, they
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: hadn't been created with satire in mind. Pasquino was actually
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: a representation of Menelais, the mythical king of Sparta who
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: married Helen of Troy. Marforio loved the water because he
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: was a sculpture of a river god thought to be
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: either Jupiter or Neptune, and Madame Lucretz's face wasn't always deformed.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Back in her heyday, she was thought to have been
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: a statue of the Egyptian goddess Isis. The toga clad
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: abbot Luigi was the statue of a magistrate conveying ill
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: will toward the pope, which didn't sit well with Vatican leaders.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Ill Babuino was a mythical half go taff Man creature,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and il Facino depicted a more modern sixteenth century man.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Like I said, these statues weren't satirical creations in and
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: of themselves. Instead, romans imposed that on them. They would
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: write on these statues or stick little poems and critiques
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of authority to them in the middle of the night.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: If they were ever caught, they could face jail or
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: have their offending hand cut off. Heck, if the graffiti
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: was bad enough, execution was even an option. Despite the punishments, though,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: people continue to put up their writings for generations, and
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: as those in power got tired of seeing them, the
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: statues were either vandalized or moved elsewhere. Mexican painter Diego
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Rivera once said, the role of the artist is that
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of the soldier in the revolution, and while the original
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: artists behind these statues might not have been revolutionaries, those
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: in the lower class who used them certainly were back then,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: though the authorities hadn't yet learned the most important rule
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: on the Internet today, never read the comments in Risk
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: sponds to Virginia O'Hanlon, a New York Sun editor named
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Francis Church stated without a doubt that, yes, Virginia, there
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: is a Santa Claus. Fans of class at Christmas films
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: know those words all too well. However, it was another
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: line in Virginia's original letter that encapsulated the public's belief
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: in the media. If you see it in the Sun,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: it is so you see. Before cable news and am
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: radio turned everyone into skeptics, people had faith in what
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: they read and listened to. If it came from the
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: mouth or pen of a trusted journalist, it must have
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: been true. And then in all hell broke loose. On October,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the day before Halloween, a radio broadcast went out all
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: across America. When it did, it caused a panic from
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: coast to coast and everywhere in between. The first bulletins
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: came in from an observatory in Chicago, where it was
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: reported that explosions had been spotted on the surface of Mars.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Minutes later, an earthquake was felt only miles outside of Princeton,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: New Jersey. Originally thought to be a media rite, a
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: later update revealed another impact not far from Trenton. It
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: was clear that New Jersey was under attack Onlookers and
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: police watched. As the top of the unidentified object came off,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: something emerged from inside, its wide black eyes, reflecting back
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: at the crowd. A hum could be heard, getting louder
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: and louder as the creature extended its long, snake like tentacles. Suddenly,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: a fire engulfed the officers approaching the craft. More explosions
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: followed than reports of the dead started coming in. Forty
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: people had been found burned to the bone in a
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: nearby field. The United States military had been dispatched to
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: several counties in New Jersey as martial law was declared
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: throughout the state. One hour later, the broadcaster came back
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: to announce what you most likely already know that everyone
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: had been listening to, a dramatization of the classic H. G.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Wells sci fi story The War of the World's presented
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: orson Wells. The aftermath of the broadcast is widely known
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: and still debated today. Despite the sensationalist headlines from newspapers
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: like The New York Times, it's unclear just how much
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: of the country truly panicked during the program, but it
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: was enough to force the police to actually visit the
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: station to shut things down. Page boys and CBS employees
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: had to hold them back as well as continued to
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: push the envelope. Meanwhile, CBSS switchboard was overrun with calls
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: from Midwestern towns where riots had broken out mobs had
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: flooded the streets. In the town of Concrete, Washington, the
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: phone lines were so overloaded that they shored it out,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: causing a town wide blackout that probably didn't help to
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: calm their fears. The story of Wells presentation isn't that unknown.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: It's a cautionary tale, meant to symbolize that we need
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: to vet information instead of taking it at face value. However,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: America's response to the War of the Worlds was only
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: the tip of the iceberg, because the broadcast was recreated
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: six years later in Chile. It had been rewritten to
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: fit the new setting, of course, but all the telltale
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: signs were still there, reports of explosions, death, and mass hysteria.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Except unlike in America, where many folks suspected they were
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: listening to a work of fiction, Chileans had no idea.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: The governor really fought aliens had invaded. He was so
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: scared he organized the Chilean military to fight them off.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Then in the show was changed again for an Ecuadorian audience.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: The only difference in this case was that the riots
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: didn't start until after the broadcast was over. Upon learning
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: that the whole thing had been a hoax, locals burned
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: down both the radio station and the newspaper building. Twenty
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: people lost their lives that day, and over three fifty
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars in damage was reported. Among those arrested for
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the crimes were three of the broadcasters themselves, who had
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: caused the panic in the first place. Today, as so
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: much of the news that's reported has shifted towards entertainment,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: it's more and more difficult to the fiction Amongst the fact.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Conspiracy theorists want us to believe that everything is a
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: massive plot or cover up run by the world's elite.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: The rest of us are left searching through it all
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: for the truth, like searching for needles in a haystack.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I know we often lament that our world just isn't
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: what it used to be, but some things haven't changed.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: After all, that old bit of advice is still as
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: relevant as it's ever been. Don't believe everything you hear.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: of Curiosities, subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the World of Lore dot com. And until next time,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: stay curi is m