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Tourist Trap · 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: Midnight release parties, book themed Halloween costumes, author tour events.
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  Speaker 1: People have always found ways to pay homage to their
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  Speaker 1: favorite works of fiction. Sometimes they even travel hundreds or
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  Speaker 1: even thousands of miles to see the place that inspired
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  Speaker 1: their favorite works, or, in the case of one eighteenth
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  Speaker 1: century protagonist, her untimely death. In the late eighteen hundred,
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  Speaker 1: a family of mourners gathered around a headstone at Trinity
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  Speaker 1: Church Graveyard in New York City. A mother wept as
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  Speaker 1: her teenage daughter laid a small bundle of flowers on
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  Speaker 1: the long gray stone slab that marked the grave. The
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  Speaker 1: stone was already decorated with other small bouquets and cards
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  Speaker 1: gifts from other mourners. The family commented on how nice
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  Speaker 1: it was that so many people had come to pay
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  Speaker 1: their respects. In fact, this was the most visited grave
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  Speaker 1: at Trinity Church. Well wishers from all over the country
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  Speaker 1: came to visit the burial plot. Not because the person
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  Speaker 1: lying beneath the stone slab was a political hero or
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  Speaker 1: an industrial pioneer. No, she was the protagonist of a
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  Speaker 1: novel called Charlotte, A Tale of Truth. The book was
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  Speaker 1: written by Susannah Rausen and published in seventeen ninety one.
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  Speaker 1: It was a bit melodramatic, but a tear jerker all
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  Speaker 1: the same. It followed sixteen year old Charlotte Temple, who
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  Speaker 1: was seduced by a villainous playboy named Lord Montraville. He
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  Speaker 1: brought her to America, then a banded her to marry
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  Speaker 1: another woman and fight with the British in the Revolutionary
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  Speaker 1: War Penny Listen alone, Charlotte soon learned that she was pregnant.
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  Speaker 1: Her father arrived in New York hoping to find and
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  Speaker 1: save Charlotte's only to learn that he was too late.
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  Speaker 1: She had died shortly after childbirth, and Americans loved the novel.
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  Speaker 1: At the time, the US was a brand new nation,
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  Speaker 1: as wide eyed and vulnerable as Charlotte herself. Something about
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  Speaker 1: her ordeal after being betrayed by a powerful englishman resonated
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  Speaker 1: with them. Charlotte became the best selling novel in the
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  Speaker 1: US for more than fifty years until the release of
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  Speaker 1: Uncle Tom's Cabin in eighteen fifty two. Now Here's the Kicker.
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  Speaker 1: The author, Susanna Roussen, always said that the book was
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  Speaker 1: based on a real person, even though multiple historians in
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  Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds disputed that fact. Then one day in
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  Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties, visitors to the Trinity Church in New
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  Speaker 1: York City noticed a simple, weathered grave in the corner
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  Speaker 1: of the churchyard with the name Arlotte Temple etched into
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  Speaker 1: the stone. One of the visitors asked the nearest groundskeeper
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  Speaker 1: if the grave belonged to the Charlotte Temple, and the
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  Speaker 1: groundskeeper said yes, that it was, in fact her tomb.
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  Speaker 1: Words spread like wildfire that the real Charlotte Temple was
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  Speaker 1: buried there at Trinity Church, and soon Charlotte's Grave became
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  Speaker 1: a tourist attraction. Groundskeepers were peppered with questions about Charlotte's
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  Speaker 1: but they knew nothing about her as a person. At
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  Speaker 1: one point, Charlotte's grave was the most popular site in
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  Speaker 1: Trinity Church, even more than the graves of founding fathers.
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  Speaker 1: Like Alexander Hamilton and James Monroe. Charlotte's Headstone remained an
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  Speaker 1: attraction until the book fell out of popularity in the
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  Speaker 1: twentieth century. But even today, those who know its history
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  Speaker 1: stopped by to see the grave while visiting the church.
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  Speaker 1: Except there's just one problem with Charlotte's Grave. In two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and eight, the Trinity Archives team received permission to
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  Speaker 1: lift the stone slab and see if there was a
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  Speaker 1: burial vault underneath, but all they found was packed dirt.
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  Speaker 1: So they inserted a scope into the ground to find
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  Speaker 1: any remains that might be resting in the plot, and
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  Speaker 1: again they came up empty. Soon the team was able
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  Speaker 1: to conclude that nobody, and especially not Charlotte Temple, was
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  Speaker 1: buried beneath the gravestone. That probably that the grave was
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  Speaker 1: a hoax, which makes sense. It was first noticed in
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  Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties, not long after the current Trinity Church
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  Speaker 1: was rebuilt, and it's made from the exact same brownstone
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  Speaker 1: as the new building. One archivist suspects that Charlotte's Grave
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  Speaker 1: was crafted by one of the stonecutters. Maybe he intended
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  Speaker 1: for the gravestone to be a small tribute to the book.
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  Speaker 1: He loved, But archivist Katherine Hurwitz has another theory. In
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  Speaker 1: the eighteen forties, tourism as a business was just beginning,
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  Speaker 1: and a lot of New York residents were looking to
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  Speaker 1: profit from this budding industry. Hurwitz wonders if the grave
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  Speaker 1: was created by someone looking to sell tourism maps with
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  Speaker 1: Charlotte's Grave listed as an attraction, and how popular the
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  Speaker 1: site became. The hoax clearly worked. Will likely never know
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  Speaker 1: who planted the fake grave that drew so many unsuspecting fans,
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  Speaker 1: but for the time being, Trinity Church intends on keeping
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  Speaker 1: the grave where it's at. It might be a work
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  Speaker 1: of fiction, but just like Charlotte Temple, it's a good
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  Speaker 1: story worth keeping around. Today, we're traveling back in time
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  Speaker 1: to the seventeen nineties in Lyon, France, to a man
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  Speaker 1: whose hunger never ceased. In fact, his biology has given
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  Speaker 1: rise to one of the most curious medical mysteries in history.
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  Speaker 1: Although his true name is lost to time, the man
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  Speaker 1: is now known as Tarare. The name is thought to
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  Speaker 1: be a reference to the loud explosions of canons during
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  Speaker 1: military parades. Tarrare's powerful farts reminded people of this sound
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  Speaker 1: and that was actually one of the less remarkable things
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  Speaker 1: about him. He also had a massive mouth that stretched
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  Speaker 1: so far across his face that he didn't even really
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  Speaker 1: have lips. This gaping maw led to his stomach, which
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  Speaker 1: hung loose around him except for when he ate. You see,
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  Speaker 1: Tarare was always hungry. He could down an entire barrel
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  Speaker 1: of apples, swallowing each one whole, and still be ready
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  Speaker 1: for more. He ate as much meat as he could
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  Speaker 1: get his hands on, fighting with dogs for the scraps
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  Speaker 1: outside of butcher shops. He would even eat wood chunks
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  Speaker 1: or corks if he couldn't get his hands on any
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  Speaker 1: actual food. After he ate, his belly would distend like
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  Speaker 1: a balloon and he would fall into a deep sleep.
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  Speaker 1: His entire body would become drenched with sweat, and a thick,
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  Speaker 1: pungent vapor would literally rise up off of him. The
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  Speaker 1: smell was so bad that no one could stand to
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  Speaker 1: be within sixty feet of the guy. Once Tarare's horrible
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  Speaker 1: meals had finished digesting, he would emit what has been
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  Speaker 1: described as a nightmarish diarrhea for several minutes before hitting
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  Speaker 1: back up and looking for more food. When the French
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  Speaker 1: military got word of this strange man, they decided to
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  Speaker 1: press him into service. They had him swallow a wooden
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  Speaker 1: box with secret orders written inside, and then they sent
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  Speaker 1: him into Germany to contact French troops there. This ended
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  Speaker 1: up being a terrible idea, though, as Tare didn't speak German,
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  Speaker 1: so he was immediately discovered as a spy, captured and beaten.
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  Speaker 1: The Germans did eventually let him go, realizing he knew
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  Speaker 1: very little about his government's plans. Once back in France,
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  Speaker 1: Terrare was traumatized enough by the experience to finally seek
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  Speaker 1: help for his medical condition. Doctors were shocked to find
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  Speaker 1: that Tarare was truly capable of eating anything, so they
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  Speaker 1: tried giving him the only appetite suppressants that they knew
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  Speaker 1: of at the time, which included common things like tobacco
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  Speaker 1: and eggs, and some stranger things like opium and various
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  Speaker 1: kinds of acid. None of these things worked, though, and
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  Speaker 1: Tarare was slowly becoming a problem around the hospital. Ually,
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  Speaker 1: the rumors became too terrible and he had to flee
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  Speaker 1: the hospital. He was heard from just once more. A
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  Speaker 1: few years later, when he checked into a different hospital
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  Speaker 1: with new worsening symptoms. He became very weak, and for
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  Speaker 1: once he couldn't eat at all. He started to have
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  Speaker 1: seemingly endless diarrhea, which continued until he finally passed away.
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  Speaker 1: He was just twenty six years old. The autopsy revealed
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  Speaker 1: that Terrare's organs were all much larger than normal. His
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  Speaker 1: body cavity was also filled with some kind of putrid
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  Speaker 1: substance that kept doctors from being able to explore much further.
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  Speaker 1: It was as if he had rotted away much more
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  Speaker 1: quickly than a normal corpse. Today, doctors do acknowledge that
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  Speaker 1: Terrare's case is well documented enough to be taken as
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  Speaker 1: legitimate history, although many of the rumors about the things
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  Speaker 1: that he did eat to have no evidence to back
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  Speaker 1: them up. The most likely explanation for his condition is
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  Speaker 1: some kind of brain disorder that led him to be
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  Speaker 1: constantly hungry. All his other characteristics were likely secondary to this.
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  Speaker 1: Massive mouth and stomach possibly stretched over time to accommodate
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  Speaker 1: his lifestyle, and the toxicity that seemed to permeate his
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  Speaker 1: body was probably a result of him eating tons of
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  Speaker 1: absolutely disgusting things, from rotting animal carcasses to actual feces.
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  Speaker 1: Unlike Terrari's hunger. I'm guess seeing that everyone's curiosity is
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  Speaker 1: probably satiated for the day. I want you to be
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  Speaker 1: thankful the next time you have a meal and feel full.
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  Speaker 1: But I'm probably sure that none of us want to
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  Speaker 1: think about this story ever again, especially while we're eating.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.