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Big Bang · 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: Everyone loves a little celebrity gossip, and the seventeenth century
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  Speaker 1: French court was no different. At the time, the talk
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  Speaker 1: of Paris was an opera singer named Julie Dobini. What
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  Speaker 1: was so scandalous about Julie, you might ask, Well, in
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  Speaker 1: all honesty, you'd have an easier time answering what wasn't scandalous,
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  Speaker 1: And far from being over in fifteen minutes, Julie's fame
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  Speaker 1: is something that people are still talking about today. She
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  Speaker 1: was born around sixteen seventy in Paris and was the
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  Speaker 1: daughter of a master swordsman. Her father taught her about
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  Speaker 1: all his favorite passions, drinking, gambling, and of course, fencing.
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  Speaker 1: Rounding out her schooling was a formal education he insisted
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  Speaker 1: that she received, despite that type of learning being reserved
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  Speaker 1: for boys at the time. As Julie grew into a teenager,
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  Speaker 1: it became clear that she wasn't content to act like
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  Speaker 1: a lady of the court. She began dressing in men's clothes,
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  Speaker 1: challenging men to duels, and quickly grew comfortable being on
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  Speaker 1: the wrong side of the law. By sixteen eighty seven,
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  Speaker 1: Julie had already been married to a tax collector named
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  Speaker 1: Jean de Maupin. However, Julie, like many French aristocrats at
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  Speaker 1: the time, wasn't one to let a little thing like
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  Speaker 1: matrimony get in her way. She struck up one of
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  Speaker 1: her many relationships with a fencing master, and when he
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  Speaker 1: killed a man in a duel, she fled to the
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  Speaker 1: countryside with him. Julie toured rule France with her lover,
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  Speaker 1: providing fencing demonstrations and even singing to the crowds. Although
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  Speaker 1: she had no formal training, her strong voice soon attracted
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  Speaker 1: the fans, and she began performing at the Marseillese Opera
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  Speaker 1: at the age of seventeen. Julie was already a swordswoman
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  Speaker 1: on the run and a singer in the opera, but
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  Speaker 1: when she met a beautiful young noble girl, she moved
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  Speaker 1: on to her next role, escape artist While Julie and
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  Speaker 1: her lover were smitten with each other, the girl's parents
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  Speaker 1: were less pleased. They sent their daughter to a convent
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  Speaker 1: in avign Young to keep her away from Julie, but
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  Speaker 1: as you'd imagine, the convent walls weren't strong enough for
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  Speaker 1: someone with her willpower. Julie joined the convent herself, pretending
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  Speaker 1: to be a young novice to get closer to her girlfriend.
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  Speaker 1: When one of the sisters passed away, the two stole
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  Speaker 1: the nun's body, put it in the young girl's bed,
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  Speaker 1: and set it and the entire room on fire. They
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  Speaker 1: fled the convent, hoping that the nuns would believe that
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  Speaker 1: the burned body was Julie's lover. However, a convent full
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  Speaker 1: of nuns usually have a bit more wisdom than two
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  Speaker 1: impulsive teenagers, and the scheme was quickly discovered. The local
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  Speaker 1: government sentenced Julie to death in absentia, and the two
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  Speaker 1: fugitives were officially running for their lives. Julie and her
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  Speaker 1: companion spent several months wandering around the countryside before Julie's
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  Speaker 1: lover decided to return to her plush life at home.
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  Speaker 1: Heartbroken and on the run from the law, Julie decided
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  Speaker 1: to make the very logical next step of taking singing lessons.
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  Speaker 1: Her time at the Marseille Opera made her realize that
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  Speaker 1: people loved her voice, and perhaps, if they loved it enough,
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  Speaker 1: it could pave her way back to society. When Julie
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  Speaker 1: was around twenty, her hard work paid off King Louis
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  Speaker 1: the fourteenth pardon Julie so she could sing at the
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  Speaker 1: Paris Opera. Opera was new to France at the time,
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  Speaker 1: and the Paris Opera was just twenty one years old,
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  Speaker 1: so here, like in her personal life, Julie broke new
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  Speaker 1: ground with a low range and a powerful character to
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  Speaker 1: her voice. She often made goddesses and warrior women the
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  Speaker 1: stars of the show rather than gentle, romantic soprano roles. Today,
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  Speaker 1: she would probably be considered a contralto, which is the
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  Speaker 1: lowest range for us a female singer. Of course, Julie's
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  Speaker 1: behavior offstage attracted just as much attention. In sixteen ninety seven,
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  Speaker 1: when Julie was about twenty seven years old, she attended
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  Speaker 1: a society ball in men's clothing. While this was already
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  Speaker 1: enough to cause scandal, she upped the ante by kissing
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  Speaker 1: a woman on the dance floor. What Julie didn't know
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  Speaker 1: was that three noblemen had been vined for that woman's attention.
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  Speaker 1: All three of them challenged Julie to a duel, and she,
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  Speaker 1: of course defeated them all. What she didn't know, though,
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  Speaker 1: was that the king had outlawed dueling, so once more
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  Speaker 1: she fled the city under pain of death. However, she
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  Speaker 1: was quickly pardoned the next year to continue her career
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  Speaker 1: at the opera. Around seventeen oh three, Julie began a
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  Speaker 1: relationship with Madame la Marquis de Florensac, one of the
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  Speaker 1: greatest beauties of the French court. It seemed like finding
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  Speaker 1: love with the Madam made Julie finally settle down. The
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  Speaker 1: two lived together for two whole years until Madame Florenzach
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  Speaker 1: fell ill in seventeen oh five and passed away. Devis
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  Speaker 1: stated by the loss, Julie retired from the stage, and
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  Speaker 1: for the first time in her career, she fell quiet.
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  Speaker 1: She followed not long after, dying in seventeen oh seven.
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  Speaker 1: Like any good song, Julie's short life certainly had highs
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  Speaker 1: and lows, but at just thirty seven years old, it
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  Speaker 1: ended on a single Somber note, humanity has always been
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  Speaker 1: fascinated by lights in the sky. Since the dawn of time.
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  Speaker 1: We worshiped the stars, the moon, and the Sun. People
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  Speaker 1: fought and died over the idea that the Earth orbited
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  Speaker 1: the Sun and not the other way around. Then, by
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  Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, some began to believe that visitors from
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  Speaker 1: other worlds could be seen flying by in their spaceships
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  Speaker 1: if one only looked closely enough. It all goes to
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  Speaker 1: show how meaningful celestie steel phenomena can be. And yet
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  Speaker 1: when the largest celestial event in recorded history appeared in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen oh eight, hardly anyone noticed. The Shanyager people had
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  Speaker 1: lived in the Siberia region for generations, building huts along
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  Speaker 1: the rivers and herding the plentiful reindeer. But one sunny afternoon,
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  Speaker 1: the land that had long nurtured them suddenly felt changed.
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  Speaker 1: The air became warm instead of its icy cold, and
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  Speaker 1: invisible force knocked them over. Then lightning shot out of
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  Speaker 1: the sky, scorching the trees in the forests and lighting
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  Speaker 1: them on fire. As astounding as all of this was,
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  Speaker 1: it was nothing compared to what came next. A second
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  Speaker 1: sun appeared in the sky, nearly blinding the shanyagear. Then
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  Speaker 1: there was a massive bang, louder than any thunder they
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  Speaker 1: had ever heard. This second sun seemed to explode, vaporizing
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  Speaker 1: the herd of reindeer beneath it. The entire forest was
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  Speaker 1: knocked over, the leaves burned, the shanya gear's huts reduced
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  Speaker 1: to sticks. There were more flashes, more thunder under, until
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  Speaker 1: finally the air cooled, the flashes stopped, and all that
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  Speaker 1: remained was an even more desolate landscape. Many miles away,
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  Speaker 1: in Saint Petersburg, Russia, scientists detected unusual seismic readings from
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  Speaker 1: the direction of Siberia, but they didn't think much of it.
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  Speaker 1: Only one of them, Leonid Koulik, wanted to investigate. He
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  Speaker 1: had heard rumors about the event and believed that there
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  Speaker 1: might be an asteroid impact involved. If so, the leftover
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  Speaker 1: minerals could be worth a lot of money. But he
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  Speaker 1: was soon distracted, as was the world, by the Great War,
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  Speaker 1: followed by the equally violent Russian Civil War. By nineteen
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  Speaker 1: twenty one, things had quieted down some and Leonid was
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  Speaker 1: finally able to secure funding for an expedition into Siberia.
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  Speaker 1: He questioned many villagers about the event, but his first
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  Speaker 1: trip to the area didn't yield any significant findings. Siberia
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  Speaker 1: is a third larger than the United States as a whole,
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  Speaker 1: and far less populated. It constitutes the entire northern half
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  Speaker 1: of Asia. Leonid's search area was about five hundred squareles
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  Speaker 1: needle in a haystack doesn't even begin to cover it.
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  Speaker 1: But he was persistent, and he always found little breadcrumbs
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  Speaker 1: when speaking with villagers who remembered the event. He returned
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  Speaker 1: to Siberia in nineteen twenty seven, this time traveling farther north.
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  Speaker 1: He followed a trail of villagers and indigenous people who
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  Speaker 1: all remembered the day the sky lit up and their
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  Speaker 1: homes were blown over. He traveled so far that eventually
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  Speaker 1: his expedition had to abandon their horse drawn carriages due
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  Speaker 1: to the deep snow. They packed their belongings onto the
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  Speaker 1: backs of reindeer and continued on. And finally, after a
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  Speaker 1: long journey, Leonid and his team crested a hill and
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  Speaker 1: were met with a most extraordinary sight they could have
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  Speaker 1: ever imagined. For miles and miles below them, the forest
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  Speaker 1: had been destroyed. All that remained were naked, dead tree trunks,
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  Speaker 1: some of them toppled over and some of them standing still.
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  Speaker 1: There were literally millions of dead trees, and they all
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  Speaker 1: seemed to be leaning away from a central point. Leonid
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  Speaker 1: and his men rushed to the center, hoping to confirm
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  Speaker 1: his asteroid theory. They excavated carefully four years, but there
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  Speaker 1: was no evidence of extraterrestrial matter. Finally, though it dawned
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  Speaker 1: on Leonid there had been an asteroid, and a large
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  Speaker 1: one at that, but it was vaporized in the atmosphere.
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  Speaker 1: The explosion was still massive, causing what we now know
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  Speaker 1: today as the Tunguska Event. The impact was enough to
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  Speaker 1: knock down the forest and many small settlements, and likely
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  Speaker 1: killed thousands of animals and at least a few people. However,
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  Speaker 1: there was no crater, no minerals, as the asteroid never
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  Speaker 1: actually touched the Earth. Later on, people in Ireland and
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  Speaker 1: England realized that they had witnessed the event as well,
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  Speaker 1: although obviously from a greater distance and at night. To them,
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  Speaker 1: the night sky was just unnaturally bright, especially considering that
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  Speaker 1: the moon wasn't even out at that time. Today, the
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  Speaker 1: Tunguska Event remains the largest celestial impact in recorded history.
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  Speaker 1: NASA has even studied it and formed an organization called
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  Speaker 1: the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which might be the coolest
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  Speaker 1: name in recorded history, and their mission to stay curious,
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  Speaker 1: of course, about the night skies, watching for any signs
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  Speaker 1: of the next Tunguska event. If an object of that
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  Speaker 1: size ever touched down in a populated area, it could
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  Speaker 1: be disastrous, and so the PDCO remains vigilant, ready to
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  Speaker 1: divert any asteroid that heads our way. If you live
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  Speaker 1: in a remote area, make sure you call them first
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  Speaker 1: if your house mysteriously falls over. I hope you've enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
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  Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
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  Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
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  Speaker 1: 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 Theworldoflore dot com. And
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  Speaker 1: until next time, stay curious.