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Curious Minds · 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: Inventors have come to occupy a comical place in our
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  Speaker 1: cultural imagination. We picture wacky people trying to get rich
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  Speaker 1: quick off of a niche device that barely works. The
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  Speaker 1: movie Gremlins probably had a lot to do with this.
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  Speaker 1: Who could forget the scene where the mom uses her
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  Speaker 1: husband's inventions to dispatch the monsters in increasingly grotesque ways.
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  Speaker 1: Pop culture touchstones like this might cause us to forget
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  Speaker 1: that its originally occupied a very noble place in society,
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  Speaker 1: and without one inventor in particular, the modern world might
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  Speaker 1: have never come to be. Henry was the epitome of
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  Speaker 1: the wacky inventor archetype. Born in eighteen thirteen in England,
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  Speaker 1: he eventually grew into a man who was endlessly curious
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  Speaker 1: and self assured. Anytime he encountered some modern invention or tool,
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  Speaker 1: he immediately wanted to take it apart and figure out
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  Speaker 1: how he could make it better. Case in points, when
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  Speaker 1: he purchased an expensive gold picture frame for his sister,
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  Speaker 1: he immediately wondered how he could make it cheaper. He
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  Speaker 1: invented a bronze paint that made wooden frames look just
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  Speaker 1: as good at a fraction of the price. The invention
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  Speaker 1: was a huge success, but by eighteen fifty four, Henry
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  Speaker 1: had set his mind on more life and death inventions.
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  Speaker 1: The Crimean War had broken out, and Henry wondered if
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  Speaker 1: he could find a way to make cannons that fired
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  Speaker 1: more accurately. The iron ones of the time used round
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  Speaker 1: cannonballs that had a tendency to drift off target. At first,
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  Speaker 1: no one took him seriously. A guy who designed better
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  Speaker 1: home decor didn't seem like the person to trust with
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  Speaker 1: military equipment. But one chance evening, while traveling in Paris,
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  Speaker 1: Henry met with an unlikely dinner guest. The guest was
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  Speaker 1: none other than Emperor Napoleon, the third nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte.
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  Speaker 1: He could see the wisdom in Henry's idea and encouraged
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  Speaker 1: his passion for the topic. Anyone who cared this much
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  Speaker 1: about the minutia of technology, would surely accomplish whatever he
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  Speaker 1: set his mind to and nas. It turns out, Henry's
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  Speaker 1: interest in cannons led him to some incredible discoveries. He
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  Speaker 1: began with the shells, making them heavier and cutting grooves
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  Speaker 1: into them so that they spun in the air, keeping
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  Speaker 1: their trajectory. The only problem with this was that they
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  Speaker 1: were too heavy for most iron cannons to fire, and
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  Speaker 1: so he needed a better cannon. A cannon made of steel.
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  Speaker 1: At the time, Steele had an almost mythical quality to it.
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  Speaker 1: The inventors of the day were just as stumped as
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  Speaker 1: to what made good steel as the blacksmiths of the
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  Speaker 1: Middle Ages. All they knew was that good steel came
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  Speaker 1: about when you mixed molten iron with carbon and tried
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  Speaker 1: to remove the impurities of other elements. It took a
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  Speaker 1: lot of heat and specifically designed apparatusus to do this.
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  Speaker 1: Henry set up his own special device. Imagine a large
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  Speaker 1: metal capsule suspended on an axle between two legs. It
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  Speaker 1: had an opening to the top and it could be
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  Speaker 1: tilted forward to add to or empty. At first, Henry
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  Speaker 1: just tried to get the iron hotter and hotter to
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  Speaker 1: see if he could burn away the impurities. But when
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  Speaker 1: Henry happened to notice some molten iron in his workshop
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  Speaker 1: turned into steel when it came in contact with the air,
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  Speaker 1: he completely changed his approach. Henry fed a tube into
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  Speaker 1: the bottom of this bucket like device. He still dumped
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  Speaker 1: molten iron into the top, but then after that was done,
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  Speaker 1: he would blow cold air up through this tube in
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  Speaker 1: the bottom of the bucket. A few moments past and
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  Speaker 1: the device suddenly erupted with a volcano like stream of
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  Speaker 1: smoke and molten iron shooting from the top. It almost
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  Speaker 1: caught the workshop on fire, but when Henry tested the
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  Speaker 1: end result, he found that it was carbon free, malleable iron.
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  Speaker 1: He had removed the impurities. Now he just needed to
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  Speaker 1: add back in the right amount of carbon to make steel.
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  Speaker 1: Henry made his device just a little bigger so the
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  Speaker 1: chemical reaction of oxygen and carbon could be safely contained.
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  Speaker 1: The resulting gases still burned off through the top, and
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  Speaker 1: any remaining impurities could be skimmed off the top of
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  Speaker 1: the molten metal. A small precise amount of carbon would
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  Speaker 1: then be added back in, and when the metal cooled,
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  Speaker 1: it was now pure malleable steel. Henry Bessemer's device became
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  Speaker 1: known as the Bessemer converter, and his process for making
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  Speaker 1: iron is now known as the Bessemer process. He patented
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  Speaker 1: that process and became a millionaire as manufacturers all over
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  Speaker 1: the globe used his steel to make buildings, weapons, cars,
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  Speaker 1: and railroad tracks. One curious mind was all it took
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  Speaker 1: to send the world erupting into the future. A common
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  Speaker 1: misconception about the Middle Ages is that they were a
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  Speaker 1: time of ignorance, often called the Dark Ages. While it's
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  Speaker 1: certainly true that the state of literature and science had
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  Speaker 1: yet to evolve, that did not mean that there were
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  Speaker 1: not plenty of people around the world who were curious
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  Speaker 1: and eager to study and expand human knowledge. As ever before,
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  Speaker 1: humanity looked the stars for answers to our questions about
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  Speaker 1: our place in the universe. The truth is this Dark
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  Speaker 1: Age in Europe coincided with a period known as the
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  Speaker 1: Islamic Golden Age. From the eighth to the thirteenth centuries.
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  Speaker 1: The Muslim world made great strides in understandings of science, math, medicine,
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  Speaker 1: and philosophy. Astronomy was a particular utility to Islamic nations
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  Speaker 1: for their faith required them to pray five times a day,
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  Speaker 1: a schedule that was strictly determined by the position of
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  Speaker 1: the sun in the sky, and thus tracking the sun
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  Speaker 1: required more precise instruments. Muslim astronomers refined an ancient Greek
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  Speaker 1: device known as an astrolabe, which was used to measure
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  Speaker 1: the positions of the stars in the sky. Appearing like
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  Speaker 1: a flat circular disc, each astrolabe is engraved with static
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  Speaker 1: star positions and concentric rings that adjust to measure the
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  Speaker 1: visible dome of the sky. By the tenth century, astrolabes
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  Speaker 1: were a popular tool for divining horoscopes and keeping time.
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  Speaker 1: The ones that came out of the Islamic world would
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  Speaker 1: often be inscribed with religious verses out of the Quran,
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  Speaker 1: and the production of these devices would become a profession
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  Speaker 1: all of its own. In the nine hundreds, in Baghdad,
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  Speaker 1: a man began an apprenticeship under a famed astrolabist named Bitdalus.
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  Speaker 1: Unlike many other craftsmen of the area, he would share
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  Speaker 1: his knowledge with his daughter, who was showing an interest
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  Speaker 1: in astronomy from an early age, and soon the of
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  Speaker 1: them were studying together. The daughter's name was Algelia, and
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  Speaker 1: she would become one of the first women astrologers in
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  Speaker 1: recorded history. We know little of her life after that,
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  Speaker 1: but she became prominent enough that her name shows up
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  Speaker 1: in a piece of medieval Syrian literature discussing the manufacture
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  Speaker 1: of astrolabes, and she became so well renowned for her
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  Speaker 1: work that she eventually served at the court of Sayef
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  Speaker 1: al Dullah, the first Emir of Aleppo. Although this mention
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  Speaker 1: of her is brief, containing very few specifics, her presence
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  Speaker 1: in popular culture looms large. She would become known by
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  Speaker 1: the name Meriam Astrolabia or Meriam of the Astrolabes. The
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  Speaker 1: astrolabe would remain a crucial instrument throughout the medieval period
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  Speaker 1: and into the Age of Discovery, although eventually star charts
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  Speaker 1: and mechanical clocks would supplant them in practicality. The last
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  Speaker 1: of these devices would be produced in the late fourteenth
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  Speaker 1: and early fifteenth centuries, and some might even say that
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  Speaker 1: the astrolabe is the precursor to the modern GPS due
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  Speaker 1: to its usefulness in navigation. But the legacy of astrolab
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  Speaker 1: makers like Algaelia does not stop there. Many centuries after
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  Speaker 1: she lived in the year nineteen ninety, an astronomer would
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  Speaker 1: name an asteroid in her honor. Seven zero six zero
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  Speaker 1: Algaelia still floats far far over our heads in our
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  Speaker 1: galaxies asteroid Belt, reminding us all that if you dedicate
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  Speaker 1: yourself to studying the stars, one day, you may find
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  Speaker 1: your name among them. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
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  Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
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  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
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  Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
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  Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.