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It's Alive · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
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  Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Any hairbrain scheme or wild
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  Speaker 1: new idea is typically met with the same reaction when
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  Speaker 1: pigs fly too many. The idea of airborne livestock is
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  Speaker 1: unheard of. After all, it's not like pigs have wings,
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  Speaker 1: do they. However, organizers of the nineteen thirty St. Louis
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  Speaker 1: International Air Exposition needed something new to enthrall audiences. Now,
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  Speaker 1: you wouldn't think that an air show in nineteen thirties
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  Speaker 1: Missouri would need a gimmick to keep spectators entertained. Pilots
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  Speaker 1: performing aerial tricks overhead should have been enough, but the
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  Speaker 1: people demanded more. They wanted to see something they had
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  Speaker 1: never seen before. So the show organizers looked for a
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  Speaker 1: new act, something bold, something daring, something bizarre, And that's
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  Speaker 1: when they turned to Ali. She went up on February
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  Speaker 1: eighteenth of nine thirty in a Ford Trimotor. The three
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  Speaker 1: engine prop plane traveled a total of seventy two miles
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  Speaker 1: from Bismarck, Missouri, to St. Louis. People on the ground
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  Speaker 1: watched in awe as a team of scientists and a
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  Speaker 1: farmer named Ellsworth W. Buntz went up along with her bunts,
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  Speaker 1: crouched beside her with a bucket and his hands ready
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  Speaker 1: to pull on her utters. If you haven't guessed it
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  Speaker 1: by now, the Ali I'm referring to was no pig.
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  Speaker 1: She was a cow, a Guernsey cow, to be exact,
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  Speaker 1: and a very productive one at that. It was said
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  Speaker 1: that she had to be milked three times a day,
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  Speaker 1: far more than her bovine colleagues on the farm. Because
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  Speaker 1: of her overabundance of milk, Ali was chosen for the
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  Speaker 1: unique honor of being the first cow to fly in
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  Speaker 1: an airplane. As the plane flew, Bunce was able to
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  Speaker 1: procure twenty four quarts of milk from her, which he
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  Speaker 1: packaged up in brown cartons and parachuted down to the audience.
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  Speaker 1: Famous aviator Charles Lindbergh was said to have caught one
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  Speaker 1: for himself. But I know what you're thinking, why put
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  Speaker 1: a cow on an airplane? Well. Scientists had wanted to
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  Speaker 1: test the effects of high altitude on livestock, and the St.
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  Speaker 1: Louis International Air Expo was in need of a new
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  Speaker 1: kind of attraction. What better way to solve both problems
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  Speaker 1: at once than by putting a one ton dairy cow
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  Speaker 1: in a small metal tube and firing her thousands of
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  Speaker 1: feet into the air. The experiment worked, and elm Farm Ali,
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  Speaker 1: as she came to be known, was awarded several firsts.
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  Speaker 1: She was the first cow to fly in an airplane,
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  Speaker 1: and because of her Ellsworth Bunts became the first man
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  Speaker 1: to milk a cow on an airplane in flight. Ali's
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  Speaker 1: achievement is still remembered today, just not in a anyone
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  Speaker 1: might have expected. She became so popular that an operatta
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  Speaker 1: was written about her, called Madam Butterfat, Written of course,
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  Speaker 1: by the composer Muccini. It tells the story of how
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  Speaker 1: Ali threatened to unleash a gigantic cow pie in the
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  Speaker 1: plain's cabin unless her milk was dropped to the poor
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  Speaker 1: children below. A production is still performed each year at
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  Speaker 1: the National Mustard Museum in Middletown, Wisconsin, featuring such songs
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  Speaker 1: as Bovine Cantata in B flat major and Yes, there
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  Speaker 1: is indeed a National Mustard Museum. In fact, the museum
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  Speaker 1: also celebrates Ali each year in a festival known as
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  Speaker 1: Elm Farm Ali Day. Why Wisconsin when Ali hailed from Missouri. Well,
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  Speaker 1: Wisconsin is the dairy capital of the US. It produces
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  Speaker 1: more milk than any other state in the country. But
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  Speaker 1: the mustard museum connection seems a bit more strange until
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  Speaker 1: you hear the curator explain it. Apparently, there's an old
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  Speaker 1: Wisconsin saying that goes something like this, A cow who
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  Speaker 1: cuts the mustard is a cow who can be trusted,
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  Speaker 1: and no cow is more trusted in Wisconsin than Elm Farm. Aye.
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  Speaker 1: Giovanni Aldini was a scientist, like his uncle Luigi Galvanni.
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  Speaker 1: Now if that name sounds familiar, that's because it's where
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  Speaker 1: we get the term galvanism. Galvinism is the contraction of
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  Speaker 1: a muscle when exposed to an electrical current. If you've
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  Speaker 1: ever seen someone get taste, you've probably seen galvinism in action.
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  Speaker 1: Toward the end of the eighteenth century, Aldini traveled extensively
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  Speaker 1: performing grotesque experiments before captivated and disgusted audiences. He would
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  Speaker 1: lob the head off an animal, then hook it up
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  Speaker 1: to a battery and demonstrate how its jaw would open
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  Speaker 1: and close, or how its eyes would move about in
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  Speaker 1: their suck gets too many the animal looked like it
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  Speaker 1: was somehow alive again. Aldini took his research further and
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  Speaker 1: began experimenting on humans. He was one of the first
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  Speaker 1: doctors to practice electroshock therapy on the brain, claiming it
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  Speaker 1: could be used to cure a number of mental illnesses. However,
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  Speaker 1: his greatest experiment was yet to come, and it would
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  Speaker 1: change the world in unexpected ways. A London man named
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  Speaker 1: George Forster had been convicted of murdering his wife and child.
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  Speaker 1: The trial was scheduled quickly and witnesses called in to testify.
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  Speaker 1: During the trial Forrester's mother in law explain how her
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  Speaker 1: daughter and grandchild had gone to see him one Saturday
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  Speaker 1: afternoon in December of eighteen o two. Apparently, he and
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  Speaker 1: his wife didn't live together, despite her insistence that they
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  Speaker 1: share a home as a family. She and the child
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  Speaker 1: left on Sunday morning. On Monday, their bodies were found
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  Speaker 1: in the Paddington Canal. It took almost no time for
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  Speaker 1: the jury to find Forrester guilty. The courts sentenced him
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  Speaker 1: to hang, followed by a dissection of the body shortly
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  Speaker 1: after and Forrester was despondent. Not only had he lost
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  Speaker 1: his family, but hanging was not a wholly effective method
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  Speaker 1: of execution. Death row inmates had been known to lose consciousness,
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  Speaker 1: giving them the appearance of having died before being dissected
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  Speaker 1: alive on the exam table afterward, and that was Forrester's
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  Speaker 1: greatest fear. So he fashioned a knife out of what
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  Speaker 1: he could find in his cell and attempted to end
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  Speaker 1: his own life before the hanging. It didn't work. With
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  Speaker 1: all other options dried up, Forrester decided to come clean.
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  Speaker 1: He confessed to his family's murder, how he hated his
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  Speaker 1: wife and had brought her to the canal twice before,
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  Speaker 1: but couldn't find the nerve to and her life until
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  Speaker 1: that third and final visit. The hanging proceeded as planned,
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  Speaker 1: and Forrester's body was quickly sent off to be examined.
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  Speaker 1: The pace of the trial, hanging, and dissection of the
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  Speaker 1: victim's body were considered hasty, even by the standards of
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  Speaker 1: the time, and it was thought that Forrester's confession had
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  Speaker 1: been coerced out of him, and that an officer named
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  Speaker 1: mister Pass had rushed the trial simply to acquire a
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  Speaker 1: fresh corpse for a wealthy benefactor. And that benefactor's name
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  Speaker 1: none other than Giovanni Aldini. Is he He had big
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  Speaker 1: plans for the late mister Forrester, which he demonstrated at
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  Speaker 1: London's Royal College of Surgeons in eighteen o three. The
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  Speaker 1: audience was packed with doctors and civilians, all craning their
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  Speaker 1: necks to get a better look at the spectacle on
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  Speaker 1: the operating room table. With the victim laid out on
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  Speaker 1: the table, Doctor Aldini proceeded to take two conducting rods
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  Speaker 1: connected to a mattery and pressed them against various parts
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  Speaker 1: of Forrester's body. He would apply them to his face
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  Speaker 1: and watch as the jaw moved and the muscles underneath contracted.
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  Speaker 1: The left eye even opened when touched to his backside.
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  Speaker 1: Forrester's entire body tensed up and his legs moved, as
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  Speaker 1: though he were coming back to life. And that's what
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  Speaker 1: some in the audience believe to be happening right before
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  Speaker 1: their eyes, that a man was being electrocuted back to life.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, Mr pass, the official who had allegedly obtained
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  Speaker 1: the corpse for the scientist, was so disturbed by what
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  Speaker 1: he saw that he died of shock soon after leaving
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  Speaker 1: the theater. The fascination around Galvinism and al Dini's experiments
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  Speaker 1: never really subsided, even as medical science continued to progress.
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  Speaker 1: Through the nineteenth century, English poet Samuel Taylor Coolridge often
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  Speaker 1: discussed with friends how electricity could be used to regenerate life.
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  Speaker 1: Among those friends were a family of writers known as
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  Speaker 1: the Godwins. Their daughter Mary, fascinated by these perverted tales
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  Speaker 1: of mad science, eventually channeled her obsession into a story
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  Speaker 1: of her own. In fact, Mary Godwin and that story
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  Speaker 1: have come to define an entire genre of literature. But
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  Speaker 1: you might know her better today as Mary Shelley. 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 Manky 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.