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Grain of Salt · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. All around our homes are simple inventions, bound
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  Speaker 1: by one common thread. The notebook on our desk, the
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  Speaker 1: GPS on our phone, and the toothbrush on our bathroom
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  Speaker 1: sink each got their starts in China. China was the
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  Speaker 1: birthplace of many inventions we still use today, including the
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  Speaker 1: wooden coffin, paper currency, and the common match. Most importantly, though,
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  Speaker 1: China was responsible for what has been cleared the Four
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  Speaker 1: Great Inventions by British scientists and sinologist Joseph Needham. These
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  Speaker 1: were inventions that were not only indicative of China's advancements
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  Speaker 1: in the field of science and technology, but also profoundly
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  Speaker 1: changed the world. The four Great inventions that need enlisted
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  Speaker 1: were paper, the compass, movable type printing, and a unique
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  Speaker 1: explosive substance known as gunpowder. Gunpowder revolutionized how wars were fought,
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  Speaker 1: when it was first applied to arrows, which were ignited
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  Speaker 1: and then launched toward enemies. The chemical formula for gunpowder
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  Speaker 1: first appeared around the eleventh century during the Song dynasty.
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  Speaker 1: In one iteration, it was said to have been made
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  Speaker 1: by combining six parts sulfur to six parts saltpeter. The
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  Speaker 1: more it was used, however, the more the formula was
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  Speaker 1: tweaked to burn longer and provide a greater bang for
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  Speaker 1: the buck. Gunpowder brought forth a new age of weaponry.
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  Speaker 1: Bombs and early gun type weapons called fire lances made
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  Speaker 1: their debut over the coming years. It's been speculated that
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  Speaker 1: the Mongols first introduced year up to gunpowder in twelve
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  Speaker 1: forty one during the Battle of Mohi in Hungary. Obviously,
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  Speaker 1: good inventions tend to spread. By the mid thirteenth century,
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  Speaker 1: gunpowder had been adopted by the Middle East and Europe.
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  Speaker 1: Kings and generals couldn't get enough of it. The black
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  Speaker 1: powder was more valuable than gold in many ways, as
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  Speaker 1: it gave those who possessed it a major advantage on
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  Speaker 1: the battlefield. But outside of China, gunpowder was difficult to
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  Speaker 1: make thanks to one key ingredient, saltpeter. Saltpeter was the
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  Speaker 1: name given to a variety of nitrate salts, such as
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  Speaker 1: calcium nitrates and potassium nitrates. Saltpeter got its name from
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  Speaker 1: its white color and powdery texture, but even though it
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  Speaker 1: looked like common table salt, it was not as commonly found.
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  Speaker 1: During the Middle Ages, no one knew how to manufacture saltpeter,
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  Speaker 1: but they did notice that it grew in some less
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  Speaker 1: than pleasant places. You see, cleanliness was not a main
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  Speaker 1: focus for most Europeans for a long time. The lack
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  Speaker 1: of clean water meant bathing only happened occasionally, if ever
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  Speaker 1: at all. Human waste was often funneled down into cesspools,
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  Speaker 1: while castles had it dropped into their moats to make
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  Speaker 1: the water unsafe for enemies to swim through. One accidental
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  Speaker 1: byproduct of all this refuse saltpeter. It was scraped from floors, barns,
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  Speaker 1: and cesspits all over Europe and collected to make gunpowder.
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  Speaker 1: This spawned an entire industry of cleaners called peterman who
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  Speaker 1: would enter people's homes and harvest the calcium nitrate. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: that created a whole new problem. When surfaces were clean,
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  Speaker 1: saltpeter wouldn't grow. After a while, a shortage forced people
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  Speaker 1: to think outside the box and inside the barn. You see,
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  Speaker 1: saltpeter wasn't a fungus or a type of mold. It
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  Speaker 1: didn't grow in the natural sense. It was left behind
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  Speaker 1: by the bacteria that fed on waste. Horses and other
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  Speaker 1: livestock would relieve themselves on the floors of their stables,
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  Speaker 1: and that urine would soak in and wicke its way
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  Speaker 1: up the plaster like walls, becoming a breeding ground for saltpeter,
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  Speaker 1: as did feces, and so saltpeter farming was born. Farmers
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  Speaker 1: looking to make extra gold or silver cultivated the deposits
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  Speaker 1: left by their own livestock. They stored it for months,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes a year at a time, and let nature do
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  Speaker 1: its work. When it was finally viable, the enterprising farmers
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  Speaker 1: would then purify it and sell it. Horses, sheep, cattle,
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  Speaker 1: and even dogs were put to work eating and pooping
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  Speaker 1: for the good of their countries. Through trial and error,
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  Speaker 1: the farmers managed to discern which kinds of waste rendered
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  Speaker 1: the most potent saltpeter. This ingenuity, combined with an abundance
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  Speaker 1: of domesticated animals, helped Europe surpass all other nations in
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  Speaker 1: saltpeter production and strength. They also learned that horses and
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  Speaker 1: cows did not produce the best saltpeter, that came from
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  Speaker 1: a very different beast. Entirely, the best saltpeter came from
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  Speaker 1: the urine of animals that were all too common back then.
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  Speaker 1: They roamed the land and went to the bathroom wherever
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  Speaker 1: they stood, and honestly, they couldn't help themselves. The strongest
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  Speaker 1: saltpeter you see was produced by drunks in rural Texas,
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  Speaker 1: in entertainment was hard to come by. Aside from the
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  Speaker 1: Sunday church services and social groups, folks had to look
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  Speaker 1: for ways to keep themselves occupied. But every once in
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  Speaker 1: a while something would happen that would horrify and enthrall them. Disasters,
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  Speaker 1: both man made and natural, made for welcome distractions from
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  Speaker 1: the mundanity of their lives, and in eighteen six such
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  Speaker 1: a disaster arrived, one so explosive it captivated forty thou
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  Speaker 1: people and killed two all because of one man's actions.
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  Speaker 1: His name was William George Crush, and he worked for
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  Speaker 1: the Missouri Kansas Texas Railroad, also known as the Caddy.
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  Speaker 1: Caddy had been successful up until that time, earning over
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  Speaker 1: four million dollars the previous year from both passenger ticket
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  Speaker 1: sales and hauling freight. However, other railroad companies hadn't fared
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  Speaker 1: so well since the start of an economic depression in
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  Speaker 1: Many had gone belly up, and Crush had no intention
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  Speaker 1: of letting Caddies succumb to the same fate. One way
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  Speaker 1: the railroad had found to boost their revenues was by
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  Speaker 1: boosting the size of their locomotives. The old thirty five
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  Speaker 1: tons steamers had been retired in favor of sixty ton
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  Speaker 1: models capable of moving faster, traveling farther, and carrying more weight.
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  Speaker 1: That left the Caddy with an abundance of older, smaller
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  Speaker 1: locomotives and nowhere to put them. So Crush came up
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  Speaker 1: with an idea. He'd bring two of the old steam
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  Speaker 1: engines to Texas and invite people to come out and
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  Speaker 1: watch them roll through town before they disappeared for good.
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  Speaker 1: With permission from the company's higher ups, the enterprising agent
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  Speaker 1: commissioned to thirty five ton locomotives and had a long
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  Speaker 1: track installed just north of Waco in a temporary town
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  Speaker 1: that he called Crush. He saw this event as a
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  Speaker 1: big ticket draw for the local population and made sure
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  Speaker 1: that there were plenty of concession stands and a restaurant
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  Speaker 1: ready to accommodate them all. Now, a couple of trains
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  Speaker 1: passing through town doesn't sound like a lot of fun
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  Speaker 1: for most people today, but in eight nineties six, it
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  Speaker 1: was better than nothing. On September fift visitors paid two
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  Speaker 1: dollars for their own train tickets to travel up to Crush,
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  Speaker 1: Texas and watch the locomotives go by. Two hundred police
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  Speaker 1: officers swarmed the makeshift town to keep everyone in line,
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  Speaker 1: which proved more difficult than they had expected. The crowds
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  Speaker 1: pressed forward, hoping to get close to the action, as
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  Speaker 1: the police pushed them back to a safer distance. Crush
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  Speaker 1: had become a microcosm of Greater Texas, with individuals from
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  Speaker 1: all walks of life and attendance. Farmers stood beside doctors,
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  Speaker 1: lawyers mingled with shopkeepers, and the audience had grown from
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  Speaker 1: ten thousand in the morning to forty by four pm.
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  Speaker 1: William Crush rode into town on a white horse. Just
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  Speaker 1: after five pm, a site that might have appeared as
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  Speaker 1: an omen to Simon the crowd with a wave of
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  Speaker 1: his hat. The trains took off. They chugged along the
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  Speaker 1: track with box cars full of railroad ties, picking up
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  Speaker 1: speed as they went, except something was wrong. The trains
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  Speaker 1: had been oriented in opposite directions on the same track.
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  Speaker 1: The crowd leaned in as the locomotives pushed forward, steam
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  Speaker 1: spewing from their stacks while their whistles filled the air
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  Speaker 1: with shrieks of panic. The ground rumbled, people gasped. Within moments,
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  Speaker 1: the two trains had collided head first. Wood splintered and
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  Speaker 1: metal groaned as each of their boilers exploded, sending shrapnel
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  Speaker 1: and debris flying into the sky. Everyone ran from the
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  Speaker 1: scene when they realized that what went up had to
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  Speaker 1: come down. Pieces of the trains crashed into two unfortunate souls.
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  Speaker 1: Six others were injured, including a photographer who was partially
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  Speaker 1: blinded by a torpedo like bolt that took out one
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  Speaker 1: of his eyes. However, despite the tragedy, the event went
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  Speaker 1: off exactly as Crush had hoped. The trains were never
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  Speaker 1: meant to just roll lawned by each other. He'd set
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  Speaker 1: up the crash at Crush as a publicity stunt to
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  Speaker 1: improve business for the local railroad. His managers, though, were
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  Speaker 1: less than pleased. William was immediately fired after the event,
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  Speaker 1: before being rehired the very next day. It turns out
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  Speaker 1: that the spectacle had been a huge success, and newspaper
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  Speaker 1: headlines had declared Crush a marketing genius. Other railroads put
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  Speaker 1: on their own crashes in the years to come, but
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  Speaker 1: few would capture the electricity of the one that had
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  Speaker 1: been staged in Texas. Advertising can be brutal. Building excitement
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  Speaker 1: for a product takes finesse and an understanding of what
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  Speaker 1: customers want, sometimes before they even know they want it.
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  Speaker 1: But for people in Texas, in what they wanted was
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  Speaker 1: pretty simple to see two trains crash. 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 Podcasts, or learn more about the
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  Speaker 1: show by visiting curi Pocities 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, Yeah,