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Willigan's Island · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm 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: When times get tough, you can't just drop everything and
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  Speaker 1: abandon your responsibilities. Right. No one is so free that
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  Speaker 1: they can leave their lives behind and start over in
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  Speaker 1: a new place with nothing to hold them back, Not
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  Speaker 1: unless their name is William Goodall, at least William Arthur Bates.
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  Speaker 1: Goodall was born in Manchester, England, in eighteen eighty. After
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  Speaker 1: a brief school career in Bedford, he enlisted with the
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  Speaker 1: Manchester Regiment of the British Army at the age of sixteen.
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  Speaker 1: He earned two medals for fighting in the Second Boer
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  Speaker 1: War in South Africa until he was shipped out to
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  Speaker 1: Singapore in nineteen oh three, But the twenty three year
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  Speaker 1: old soldier had already grown pretty tired of fighting, so
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  Speaker 1: he withdrew from the army and became a civilian instead.
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  Speaker 1: He took on a few odd jobs here and there,
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  Speaker 1: like planting tea and mining for tin in Sumatra, but
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  Speaker 1: eventually found his way to the Singapore Municipal Commissioner's Water Department.
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  Speaker 1: He worked on some large projects too, including the construction
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  Speaker 1: of some major reservoirs. Sometime in the early nineteen twenties,
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  Speaker 1: Goodall and a few friends took a small boat out
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  Speaker 1: to explore the waters around Singapore, and in their excursion
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  Speaker 1: they stumbled upon a small island in the Straits of
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  Speaker 1: Jehor called Pulau Surimbun. The whole island measured about three
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  Speaker 1: and a half acres, with a large sixty foot tall
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  Speaker 1: hill in its center. Goodall found it and I quote
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  Speaker 1: exceedingly attractive and believed it to be the ideal place
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  Speaker 1: for bathing and picnic parties. He and his friends would visit,
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  Speaker 1: often climbing the hill to the ty to admire the
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  Speaker 1: scenic views of the water. To the south in the
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  Speaker 1: distance was Singapore and to the north was Jehor Baru,
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  Speaker 1: a city perched on the opposite shore. Pretty soon Goodall
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  Speaker 1: found himself rowing out to Polou Surrimbun all the time.
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  Speaker 1: He even built a shack toward the top of the
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  Speaker 1: hill where he would hold parties for himself and his buddies. Then,
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty two, the contracts on the Singapore Reservoirs
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  Speaker 1: ended and Goodall made a life changing decision. He volunteered
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  Speaker 1: to live on that small island permanently. He considered himself
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  Speaker 1: a Robinson Crusoe, named after Daniel Dafoe's famous literary castaway.
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  Speaker 1: That was the life that William wanted for himself, one
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  Speaker 1: that he referred to as a delightfully peaceful existence, and
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  Speaker 1: it was for a while. His day consisted mainly of
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  Speaker 1: maintaining the land and the various equipment on the island.
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  Speaker 1: This included two dinghys, a mooring buoy, and his home,
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  Speaker 1: which he was constantly repairing. Goodall also tended to the
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  Speaker 1: fruit trees that grew on the island and disposed of
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  Speaker 1: his trash each day by either dumping it into the
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  Speaker 1: sea or by burning it. But it didn't take long
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  Speaker 1: for that delightfully peaceful existence to take its toll on him.
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  Speaker 1: Between the endless stream of work to be done and
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  Speaker 1: the crippling loneliness, Goodall soon found himself in need of
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  Speaker 1: help and companionship. He hired two Chinese workers to handle
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  Speaker 1: the maintenance work on Pulau Sarimbun, one worker to take
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  Speaker 1: care of the clerical work, and a Javanese boatman. The
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  Speaker 1: four of them lived in peace until a British journalist
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  Speaker 1: named H. Harvey Day arrived on the island in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty seven. He wanted to learn about Goodall's life there.
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  Speaker 1: Thus far Harvey Day referred to it as a private kingdom,
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  Speaker 1: and pretty soon William was fielding letters from all over
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  Speaker 1: the world, including Germany, New Zealand, and the United States,
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  Speaker 1: asking him about his self imposed solitude. Now it must
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  Speaker 1: be said that the article took some artistic license in
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  Speaker 1: how it portrayed his existence on the island, painting him
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  Speaker 1: as living inside some kind of fortification and holding back
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  Speaker 1: throngs of native people who were meant to harm him.
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  Speaker 1: All didn't pay too much attention to the rumors, and
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  Speaker 1: despite his solitary existence on the island, he still made
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  Speaker 1: frequent trips to the mainland to do radio interviews and
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  Speaker 1: speak about his life as an amateur Robinson Crusoe. William
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  Speaker 1: Goodall passed away in nineteen forty one at the age
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  Speaker 1: of sixty one, but he will always be remembered for
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  Speaker 1: his role as the world's first voluntary castaway and the
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  Speaker 1: so called King of Pulau Surrembon. Progress takes time. Innovation
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  Speaker 1: does not happen overnights. It requires a whole lot of
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  Speaker 1: trial and error to go from an idea to a
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  Speaker 1: fully formed concept. For example, did you know that canned
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  Speaker 1: foods were invented in the late seventeen hundreds, but the
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  Speaker 1: can opener itself didn't come around until the eighteen fifties,
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  Speaker 1: And Alexander Bain's fax machine predates Alexander Bell's telephone by
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  Speaker 1: thirty three years. But perhaps no one knew the slog
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  Speaker 1: of innovation better than Thomas Edison. Among his best known
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  Speaker 1: inventions are the movie camera, the phonograph, and of course,
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  Speaker 1: the incandescent light bulb. It took a long time for
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  Speaker 1: Edison to complete what is widely considered his greatest accomplishment.
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  Speaker 1: As he once famously put it, I didn't fail a
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  Speaker 1: thousand times. The light bulb was an invention with a
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  Speaker 1: thousand steps. But the problem was that with each failed
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  Speaker 1: step he was that much further away from a viable solution.
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  Speaker 1: And while he failed, other inventors were gaining steam. Patents
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  Speaker 1: were being filed all across Europe and the US by
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  Speaker 1: people with dreaming of carnising electricity to light their homes
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  Speaker 1: and businesses. For example, English chemist Joseph Swan demonstrated his
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  Speaker 1: own incandescent light bulb around eighteen seventy eight. There were
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  Speaker 1: also a pair of Canadian inventors named Matthew Evans and
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  Speaker 1: Henry Woodward, who had patented a version of an incandescent
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  Speaker 1: bulb using a carbon rod filament four years earlier. Edison
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  Speaker 1: knew that it would be only a matter of time
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  Speaker 1: before his competitors cracked the formula and changed the future
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  Speaker 1: of electric powered light forever. So he and his engineers
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  Speaker 1: got to work at the New Jersey Lab, ceaselessly plugging
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  Speaker 1: away at different types of filaments until they found one
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  Speaker 1: that didn't burn out after a few minutes. To make
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  Speaker 1: matters worse, Edison was on a deadline. After he had
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  Speaker 1: unveiled his phonograph in eighteen seventy seven, he had promised
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  Speaker 1: the press that he would have a new, better invention
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  Speaker 1: one year later. The announcement resulted in scores of readers
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  Speaker 1: who bought issue after issue hoping to get the inside
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  Speaker 1: scoop on Edison's latest and greatest, and so one year later,
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  Speaker 1: as promised, the Wizard of Menlo Park delivered. He reached
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  Speaker 1: out to reporters and invited them for a first hand
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  Speaker 1: look at his brand new invention, the incandescent light bulb.
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  Speaker 1: They were in awe, commenting on the beauty of its
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  Speaker 1: bright white light. One paper remarked you could trace the
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  Speaker 1: veins in your hand and the spots and lines upon
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  Speaker 1: your fingernails by its brightness. Edison even told one journey
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  Speaker 1: that it would burn forever. Well almost. By all accounts,
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  Speaker 1: the bulb was a hit and it was going to
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  Speaker 1: change the world eventually. There was just one little problem.
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  Speaker 1: It was fake. You see. Edison had to show the
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  Speaker 1: press something, not just to keep up his reputation, but
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  Speaker 1: also to get ahead of the competition. It had to
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  Speaker 1: be his name in the papers and no one else's.
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  Speaker 1: So what he came up with was a bulb that
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  Speaker 1: burned just long enough to appease the reporters before he
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  Speaker 1: hurried them off to file their stories. Once the demonstration
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  Speaker 1: was over, he continued searching for a proper filament that
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  Speaker 1: would burn indefinitely, but by showing the reporters his faux
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  Speaker 1: bulb he had bought himself more time. Edison held another
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  Speaker 1: demonstration on New Year's Eve in eighteen seventy nine, just
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  Speaker 1: over a year since he had fooled the press, But
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  Speaker 1: this time he had a light that did stay lit
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  Speaker 1: much longer. They used a carbon filament, which he had
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  Speaker 1: discovered in October of that year. The initial test at
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  Speaker 1: the time lasted just over thirteen hours. The light bulbs
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  Speaker 1: we used today are the product of extensive trial and
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  Speaker 1: error conducted over a century by multiple innovators. Edison was
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  Speaker 1: not the sole inventor of the incandescent light bulb. He
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  Speaker 1: got the glory for the same reason he was able
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  Speaker 1: to fool everyone else the power of the press. Edison
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  Speaker 1: was a master marketer and ran many of his competitors
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  Speaker 1: out of business due to his unscrupulous business practices. The
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  Speaker 1: more he got his name in the papers, the more
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  Speaker 1: successful he became. His stunt with the light bulb was
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  Speaker 1: no different. History books remember Thomas Edison as the genius
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  Speaker 1: behind many of the products we still use today, and
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  Speaker 1: he certainly was smart, but he actually perfected more than
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  Speaker 1: he invented, fine tuning what was already out there and
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  Speaker 1: then commercializing it for the masses. The truth was that
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  Speaker 1: he was just a really good salesman. I hope you've
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
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  Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcast, or learn more about the
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  Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
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  Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
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  Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
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  Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
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  Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.