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Crunch Time · 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. Everybody underestimates the class clown. They're lazy, they're unfocused,
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  Speaker 1: and in most cases they're pretty disruptive. They'd rather crack
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  Speaker 1: a joke than crack a book. The thing is, they're
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  Speaker 1: the ones you want to watch out for, because left
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  Speaker 1: to their own devices, they might wreak untold havoc or
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  Speaker 1: start their own companies. In the late nineteen fifties and
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  Speaker 1: early sixties, a new phenomenon was taking hold of america
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  Speaker 1: youth and in a surprising place, Ivy League universities. It
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  Speaker 1: was called phone freaking with a pH, and it was
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  Speaker 1: an early form of hacking. Freakers as they were called,
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  Speaker 1: would find new and innovative ways to disrupt landline phone systems.
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  Speaker 1: For example, they might impersonate switchboard operators or telephone company
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  Speaker 1: employees while talking to unsuspecting customers. They would also pay
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  Speaker 1: attention to the tones that rang out when calls were
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  Speaker 1: routed or ended. Breakers with perfect pitch could then replicate
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  Speaker 1: those tones with a whistle to open a phone line
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  Speaker 1: to connect themselves long distance for free. As time went on, however,
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  Speaker 1: those who couldn't whistle wound up relying on simple devices
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  Speaker 1: to create those sounds for them. One such device was
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  Speaker 1: made famous by former United States Air Force engineer John Draper.
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  Speaker 1: Draper had come into the possession of a Bosun's pipe,
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  Speaker 1: a kind of signaling tool used by the Navy to
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  Speaker 1: send commands to a ship's crew. But how did a
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  Speaker 1: member of the U. S. Air Force get hold of
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  Speaker 1: a Navy whistle? Why straight from a captain, of course,
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  Speaker 1: Captain Crunch. The little plastic pipes were given away as
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  Speaker 1: prizes and boxes of cereal starting in the mid nineteen sixties.
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  Speaker 1: It didn't take long for Draper to discover a hidden
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  Speaker 1: secret about them, though. When he blew into the mouthpiece
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  Speaker 1: of his phone, the whistle made a perfect hurts tone,
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  Speaker 1: the exact frequency needed to take over a phone line
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  Speaker 1: on a T and T. Draper's little hack and the
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  Speaker 1: tool he used to do it, earned him the nickname
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  Speaker 1: Captain crunch and led to the creation of new technology
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  Speaker 1: centered around bypassing onerous telephone company charges. They were called
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  Speaker 1: blue boxes, small electronic pads capable of generating the same
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  Speaker 1: tones as the serial toy they were based on. Phone
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  Speaker 1: freaking was not as widespread as computer hackiness today, but
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  Speaker 1: it did spread pretty far and wide. Still, from its
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  Speaker 1: inception in the nineteen fifties all the way to the
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, freaking hadn't caught on beyond pockets of enthusiasts
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  Speaker 1: who enjoyed pushing the limits of social and telephone engineering.
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  Speaker 1: But around the blue box would grow beyond its limited
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  Speaker 1: user group to a wider audience with the help of
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  Speaker 1: a couple of guys from California. Steve was in high
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  Speaker 1: school when he became best friends with a student at
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  Speaker 1: nearby UC Berkeley. They spent much of their downtime tinkering
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  Speaker 1: around with electronics, and that's when Steve realized the widespread
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  Speaker 1: potential in a digitized blue box, not just as a
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  Speaker 1: nerdy hobby for board teenagers and college kids, that as
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  Speaker 1: a real business. So they reached out to John Draper
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  Speaker 1: and learned everything they could before building and selling their
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  Speaker 1: own blue boxes. Looking back, it was the start of
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  Speaker 1: a legendary and lucrative partnership. Steve tried his hand at
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  Speaker 1: college after graduating high school, but realized after one semester
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  Speaker 1: it just wasn't for him, and so he dropped out. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: he got a job in the relatively new video game
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  Speaker 1: industry at a little company called Atari. He moved in
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  Speaker 1: with his girlfriend and even took a spiritual journey to India.
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  Speaker 1: Upon his return home, though, Atari presented him with a challenge.
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  Speaker 1: They were working on a new arcade game called Breakout,
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  Speaker 1: and Steve was put in charge of building the circuit board.
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  Speaker 1: They even incentivized him by promising a larger bonus if
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  Speaker 1: he could reduce the boards size. There was just one problem.
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  Speaker 1: Steve couldn't really build circuit boards. In fact, he'd lied
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  Speaker 1: his way into the job at the company. He wasn't
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  Speaker 1: really an engineer at all, but his friend from UC
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  Speaker 1: Berkeley sure was. With his help, Steve earned a whopping
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  Speaker 1: five thousand dollars for handing in a smaller, more efficient
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  Speaker 1: circuit board for the game. He told his friend that
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  Speaker 1: they'd only made seven hundred and gave him half just
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  Speaker 1: three fifty dollars, pocketing the rest for himself. Even when
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  Speaker 1: his friend eventually found out what Steve had done, though
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  Speaker 1: it didn't change their partnership. They soon went into business
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  Speaker 1: together again, designing their own circuit boards, oh and screens
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  Speaker 1: and software. And if you haven't figured it out by now,
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  Speaker 1: our Steve was Steve Jobs, co founder of Apple Computer,
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  Speaker 1: and his friend, also a Steve Steve Wozniak or was.
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  Speaker 1: Together they helped build one of the most successful and
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  Speaker 1: influential companies in the world, and, thirty years after its founding,
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  Speaker 1: Jobs took the phone companies on one more time. This
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  Speaker 1: time though he traded in his blue box for a
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  Speaker 1: glass rectangle the beginning of a sensation that changed the
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  Speaker 1: way we communicate forever. And that, my friends, is how
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  Speaker 1: Captain Crunch, in a roundabout sort of way, gave the
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  Speaker 1: world the iPhone. The ship had a name meant for greatness.
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  Speaker 1: It's hard to believe they were shooting for anything less
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  Speaker 1: when they christened the clippers ship Neptunes Car. A few
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  Speaker 1: people would have known that better than Mary Patton. After all,
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  Speaker 1: her husband was the ship's captain, and Ry had traveled
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  Speaker 1: with him on his successful voyages to San Francisco, China
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  Speaker 1: and London. On those trips he had turned Neptune's car
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  Speaker 1: into a symbol of swift sailing. So in eighteen fifty
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  Speaker 1: six there were more than a few clients. New York
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  Speaker 1: merchants had machines and supplies ready for California gold mines,
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  Speaker 1: so Neptune's car was loaded with cargo and on the
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  Speaker 1: first of July the ship headed out to open sea. Again.
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  Speaker 1: Mary was on board, and this journey would be a
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  Speaker 1: long one, all the way from New York to San
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  Speaker 1: Francisco by way of the dangerous Cape Horn far to
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  Speaker 1: the south. It was going to be a fifteen thousand
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  Speaker 1: mile trip. She might have been a quiet New Englander,
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  Speaker 1: but Mary was also educated, curious, and fiercely intelligence. On
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  Speaker 1: their earlier voyages, Mary's husband had taught her the art
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  Speaker 1: and science of navigation, measuring the son's angle and calculating
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  Speaker 1: the ship's position. She even turned out to be the
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  Speaker 1: quicker mathematician, and she watched him command the three dozen
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  Speaker 1: men on his crew as they pushed the tunes Car
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  Speaker 1: to incredible speed. It's a good thing too, because their
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  Speaker 1: journey in eighteen fifty six would turn out to be
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  Speaker 1: a fateful one. To start with, there was trouble with
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  Speaker 1: the first mate, Mr Keeler. He'd been a last minute
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  Speaker 1: addition to their crew, and as the days rolled by,
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  Speaker 1: it became clear that he wasn't taking his work seriously.
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  Speaker 1: He slept through his watches, he ignored orders to furral
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  Speaker 1: and unfurrel sales. In fact, it became clear that he
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  Speaker 1: wasn't doing much of anything at all. Soon enough, Mary
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  Speaker 1: and the rest of the crew would learn why. You see,
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  Speaker 1: Neptune's Car wasn't the only ship that had left New
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  Speaker 1: York that summer headed for San Francisco. Others had launched
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  Speaker 1: as well, and as you can guess, there were plenty
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  Speaker 1: of people who had placed bets on which ship would
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  Speaker 1: reach their destination first. It was something of a race, actually.
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  Speaker 1: Mr Keeler, though, thought he had an ace up his sleeve.
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  Speaker 1: He bet against the Neptune's Car his own ship. He
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  Speaker 1: thought he could do enough to slow down the clipper
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  Speaker 1: and collect winnings on his return, but he got something
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  Speaker 1: else and stead. Mary's husband had him seized and thrown
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  Speaker 1: into the brig. It was only after that drama that
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  Speaker 1: the ship sailed into a massive storm. Wind and rain
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  Speaker 1: and powerful waves crashed against the ship for eight days straight.
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  Speaker 1: On the other side, the ship came through unscathed, but
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  Speaker 1: Mary's husband wasn't as lucky. After the effort of surviving
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  Speaker 1: the storm, he collapsed. He was delirious and couldn't even stand.
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  Speaker 1: The crew said he had what they called brain fever. First,
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  Speaker 1: Mary ordered her thrashing, raving husband tied down to his bunk.
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  Speaker 1: She tried to nurse him back to health, but he
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  Speaker 1: didn't seem to respond, and with Mr Keeler locked up
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  Speaker 1: for his attempt to sabotage the journey, there was no
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  Speaker 1: one in command, so that's when Mary stepped in. On
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  Speaker 1: top of nursing her sick husband, Mary was soon enough
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  Speaker 1: setting the ship's course. Working with the second mate, she
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  Speaker 1: had the crew working overtime, headed again for San Francisco.
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  Speaker 1: But that's where Mr. Keeler saw an opportunity. From his
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  Speaker 1: place in lock up, he scribbled and out that the
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  Speaker 1: crew brought to Mary. Think of the dangers, he wrote,
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  Speaker 1: think of the huge weights of responsibility. Wouldn't it just
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  Speaker 1: be easier if you let me out and let me
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  Speaker 1: take control of the ship. Mary's response was brief. He
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  Speaker 1: had proved himself unfit for command, so he would stay below.
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  Speaker 1: Furious with Mary, Mr Keeler tried to rally the crew
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  Speaker 1: against her, but when Mary caught wind of the plot,
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  Speaker 1: she called the mates and sailors to the aft of
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  Speaker 1: the ship and she addressed them. They knew what had
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  Speaker 1: happened before, They knew what Mr Keeler had done, and
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  Speaker 1: they were beginning to sense Mary's medal as well. If
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  Speaker 1: they stood by her, she said she would get them
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  Speaker 1: safely to San Francisco. Every single man in the weather
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  Speaker 1: beaten crew gave her their word they would stand by her.
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  Speaker 1: For weeks, Mary guided the Neptune's car through its treacherous voyage.
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  Speaker 1: They slipped through storms as they rounded Cape Horn, they
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  Speaker 1: dodged icebergs in the narrow passage. Mary held the crew
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  Speaker 1: together as they waited out duldrums, and when the clouds
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  Speaker 1: were too impenetrable for Mary to use her sextant, she
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  Speaker 1: led them by dead reckoning. So it was under her
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  Speaker 1: firm hand that the ship, crew and cargo got back
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  Speaker 1: on course and reached San Francisco on November. When they
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  Speaker 1: neared the Golden Gate Bay, Mary personally took the helm
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  Speaker 1: and guided the ship to port. She had managed a
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  Speaker 1: crew of three dozen men and kept her husband alive
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  Speaker 1: through storm, sickness, and a failed insurrection. When she stepped
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  Speaker 1: off of Neptune's car, Mary told the company officers that
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  Speaker 1: she hadn't been able to change her clothes for fifty days.
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  Speaker 1: She was happy to leave the vessel in their care
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  Speaker 1: and find herself and her husband a place to rest
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  Speaker 1: and recover. I can only imagine their dumbfounded looks as
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  Speaker 1: they agreed. It took some time for the enormity of
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  Speaker 1: Mary's achievement to hit home. She had commanded a clipper
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  Speaker 1: ship for fifty six days, and the newspapers at the
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  Speaker 1: time said she brought it into ports better than any
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  Speaker 1: of her competitors, not to mention that she beat all
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  Speaker 1: of them but one. By some accounts, this made her
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  Speaker 1: the first woman to command an American merchant vessel. But
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  Speaker 1: there are a couple more things that make her achievements
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  Speaker 1: even more remarkable. First, when they left New York that July,
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  Speaker 1: Mary was already four months pregnant. And second, when Mary
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  Speaker 1: Patton took command of Neptune's car, she was just nineteen
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  Speaker 1: years old. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
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  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
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  Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
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  Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
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  Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
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  Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
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  Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.