Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / The Haunting Hour

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The Haunting Hour · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grim & Mild.
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  Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history
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  Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
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  Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: There is a specter that haunts the world in October,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for the final moments of Halloween to pass
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  Speaker 1: in order to spring upon us and catch us unawares.
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  Speaker 1: It's not a demon or a vampire, but it leaves
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  Speaker 1: us feeling just as drained and exhausted on November 1st.
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  Speaker 1: And that specter is Daylight Savings Time. On or around
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  Speaker 1: November 1st, clocks roll back for an hour, finally relinquishing
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  Speaker 1: that last bit of summer sunlight. And the consequence is
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  Speaker 1: that all of us wake up disoriented. Our biological clocks
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  Speaker 1: tell us that it's an hour later, but the actual
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  Speaker 1: clocks in our room say something different. Woe to anyone
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  Speaker 1: nursing a hangover or the crash from a sugar rush post-Halloween.
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  Speaker 1: Daylight savings time has been part of the United States
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  Speaker 1: calendar since the early 20th century, a practice inextricably tied
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  Speaker 1: to agriculture. While it was briefly removed after World War I,
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  Speaker 1: The Second World War brought it back in order to
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  Speaker 1: save fuel during the war years. And it has always
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  Speaker 1: been controversial, with all sorts of political interests fighting to
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  Speaker 1: define when it should happen and for how long. Today,
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  Speaker 1: many argue that it doesn't need to exist at all.
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  Speaker 1: For the last 84 years, the one thing that has
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  Speaker 1: remained consistent about daylight savings is how we remember which
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  Speaker 1: direction to switch our clocks. Spring forward and fall back.
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  Speaker 1: Losing an hour in the spring and gaining an hour
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  Speaker 1: in the fall. Now, at first, the period known as
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  Speaker 1: Daylight Time ran from the final Sunday of April to
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  Speaker 1: the final Sunday of October. Six months in total, contrasted
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  Speaker 1: with the six months of Standard Time from October to April.
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  Speaker 1: But in the mid-1980s, a rumbling of dissent started to
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  Speaker 1: reach the hall's power. Lobbyists wanted to change Daylight Savings Time.
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  Speaker 1: They came from all sorts of businesses, too. People who
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  Speaker 1: wanted to squeeze an extra hour of cash out of
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  Speaker 1: their customers. One of the big drivers, no pun intended,
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  Speaker 1: was the golf industry, who saw a lot of money
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  Speaker 1: in folks who wanted to go for a round of
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  Speaker 1: golf after work in the evening. And there was another
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  Speaker 1: advocate for shifting daylight savings as well, and they made
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  Speaker 1: their presence known in a slightly more whimsical way. In 1985,
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  Speaker 1: during a hearing on the issue of daylight savings, senators
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  Speaker 1: entered a chamber to find little candy pumpkins on their seats,
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  Speaker 1: a message of support from the candy industry. You see,
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  Speaker 1: from the perspective of the candy makers, that final Sunday
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  Speaker 1: of October rule meaningfully cut into Halloween candy sales. One
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  Speaker 1: less hour of daylight meant one less hour that kids
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  Speaker 1: would spend trick-or-treating, and thus less candy sold on the
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  Speaker 1: most profitable nights of the year. And so they poured time, effort,
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  Speaker 1: and money into Washington, D.C., hoping that they could move
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  Speaker 1: daylight savings a little bit later and preserve the Halloween time.
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  Speaker 1: The lobbying wave of the 1980s was partially successful, too.
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  Speaker 1: The beginning of daylight savings shifted from the last Sunday
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  Speaker 1: of April to the first, but the fall date remained
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  Speaker 1: largely the same for another 20 years. In 2005, Congress
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  Speaker 1: passed a bill that would change the fall daylight savings
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  Speaker 1: date from the final Sunday of October to the first
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  Speaker 1: Sunday of November, finally removing the conflict with Halloween altogether.
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  Speaker 1: They also moved the spring forward date to the first
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  Speaker 1: Sunday of March, where it remains to this day. It
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  Speaker 1: seems that finally, both the golf and the candy industries
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  Speaker 1: had gotten what they wanted. This newest change has had
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  Speaker 1: an interesting ripple effect, though. It means that the part
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  Speaker 1: of the year referred to as Standard Time is now
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  Speaker 1: only four months long, about a third of the calendar year.
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  Speaker 1: It turns out when you change the standard too many times,
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  Speaker 1: standard doesn't mean much anymore, giving the Halloween season a
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  Speaker 1: sweet bit of irony. Some of the first written records
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  Speaker 1: of zombies come from early 20th century Haiti. During the
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  Speaker 1: United States' occupation of that country, stories began to emerge
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  Speaker 1: of reanimated corpses working on sugar plantations. Older legal records
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  Speaker 1: from Haiti reference poisons that leave someone in a lethargic
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  Speaker 1: coma just shy of death, a chilly nod to the
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  Speaker 1: possibility that the zombie, like a vampire or a werewolf,
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  Speaker 1: goes back further than written history. It's hard to imagine now,
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  Speaker 1: but zombie stories were a relatively obscure curiosity to Americans.
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  Speaker 1: Outside of the occasional B-movie and pulp comic, they remained
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  Speaker 1: that way until the year 1968, when George A. Romero's
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  Speaker 1: Night of the Living Dead took the zombie legend and
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  Speaker 1: updated it. And ever since, zombies have been a universal
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  Speaker 1: symbol that evokes societal collapse. The comforting spaces of our world— backyards,
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  Speaker 1: shopping malls, city centers— turned wild and deadly. But what would
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  Speaker 1: happen if a zombie outbreak actually struck the continental United States?
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  Speaker 1: What would we do? What would the government do? Many
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  Speaker 1: films depict military units going down with the ship of
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  Speaker 1: society or going rogue, forming their own mercenary groups and
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  Speaker 1: giving in to the post-apocalyptic feelings like everyone else. But
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  Speaker 1: the Pentagon might disagree. Believe it or not, the Pentagon
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  Speaker 1: actually has a plan for a zombie outbreak. Written between
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  Speaker 1: 2009 and 2010, Between the releases of Zombieland and The
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  Speaker 1: Walking Dead, Conn Plan 8888 dictates how the United States
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  Speaker 1: Armed Forces would react to hordes of undead spreading across
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  Speaker 1: the country. And the plan is remarkably comprehensive, too. It
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  Speaker 1: proceeds in six stages. Shape, deter, seize initiative, dominate, stabilize,
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  Speaker 1: and restore civil authority. First, the Pentagon has to grasp
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  Speaker 1: the scope of the outbreak. stall its progression and then,
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  Speaker 1: in conjunction with international allies, act to push back the
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  Speaker 1: active threat and reinstall a stable government. It seems relatively straightforward,
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  Speaker 1: and compared to many other military worst-case scenarios, it kind
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  Speaker 1: of is. One of the main benefits of such an outbreak,
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  Speaker 1: according to this plan, is that combatants don't have to
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  Speaker 1: worry about inadvertently violating Geneva Conventions while at war with zombies.
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  Speaker 1: The article states, U.S. and international law regulate military operation
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  Speaker 1: only insofar as human and animal life are concerned. There
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  Speaker 1: are almost no restrictions on hostile actions that may be taken,
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  Speaker 1: either defensively or offensively, against pathogenic lifeforms, organic robotic entities,
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  Speaker 1: or traditional zombies. Additionally, according to this plan, no method
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  Speaker 1: of curing a zombie is known to exist. The plan
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  Speaker 1: covers a wide variety of zombies, including so-called pathogenic zombies,
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  Speaker 1: radiation zombies, weaponized zombies, space zombies, chicken zombies, and zombies
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  Speaker 1: created by a cult or other means, which are called EMZ,
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  Speaker 1: or evil magic zombies. Now, by this point, you're probably
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  Speaker 1: wondering how serious can any plan be that involves evil
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  Speaker 1: magic zombies. Well, the plan itself does begin with the statement, disclaimer,
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  Speaker 1: this plan was not actually designed as a joke. However,
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  Speaker 1: just because it's not a joke doesn't mean that it's
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  Speaker 1: a real strategy. ConPlan 8888 isn't Pentagon policy. What it
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  Speaker 1: is is a teaching tool. The Pentagon needed to train
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  Speaker 1: their officers on how the interlocking mechanisms of the U.S.
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  Speaker 1: military worked, but it's too politically charged to make up
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  Speaker 1: a domestic invasion from another country and then invoke any
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  Speaker 1: modern wars that could date the plan immediately. And their solution? Zombies.
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  Speaker 1: There's nothing politically offensive in making a plan to fight
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  Speaker 1: a horde of zombies, and it's amusing enough that you
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  Speaker 1: can hold students' attention. And the text of the plan,
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  Speaker 1: which cites movies, video games, and blog posts as source materials,
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  Speaker 1: is serious. And this straight-faced seriousness while talking about things
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  Speaker 1: as silly as evil magic zombies makes it a memorable
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  Speaker 1: lesson plan. Since it was first conceived, the full text
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  Speaker 1: was posted to the Internet Archive for this same reason—
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  Speaker 1: If you want to learn how a superpower's military handles
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  Speaker 1: a crisis, there are worse ways to do it. And
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  Speaker 1: if you actually find yourself in the middle of a
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  Speaker 1: zombie apocalypse, maybe you can take a few pointers from
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  Speaker 1: this hypothetical exercise. Because it never hurts to be prepared.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. This show was created by me, Aaron Manke,
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the
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  Speaker 1: Grim & Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show and the people who make it
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  Speaker 1: over at grimandmild.com slash curiosities. You'll also find a link
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: to the official Cabinet of Curiosities hardcover book, available in
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobooks. And
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: if you're looking for an ad-free option, consider joining our Patreon.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: It's all the same stories, but without the interruption for
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  Speaker 1: a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over
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  Speaker 1: at patreon.com slash grim and mild. And until next time,
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  Speaker 1: stay curious.