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Nodding Off · 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: History is full of stories about aviation. It seems there's
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  Speaker 1: no industry that quite inspires the imagination like that of flight.
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  Speaker 1: More than ever since the days of commercial aviation in
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  Speaker 1: the early twentieth century, air travel has unlocked parts of
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  Speaker 1: the world that would have seemed impossibly distant in the
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  Speaker 1: days of ships and trains. The average person was now
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  Speaker 1: a global citizen, rather than being trapped on their home
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  Speaker 1: come continent, which is one reason why airplanes are a marvel.
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  Speaker 1: But they can also be an escape. On July tenth
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  Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy seven, a plane took off from the
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  Speaker 1: city of Petrozovodsk, at the time part of the Soviet Union.
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  Speaker 1: It was bound for Leningrad with around seventy passengers on board,
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  Speaker 1: a perfectly ordinary flight. However, two of the passengers aboard
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  Speaker 1: had other plans. Once the plane was in the air,
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  Speaker 1: they revealed themselves to be armed and took the entire
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  Speaker 1: plane hostage. They demanded that the plane take them to Stockholm,
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  Speaker 1: out of the Soviet territory. The pilots, concerned for the
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  Speaker 1: safety of themselves and the passengers, did what they could,
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  Speaker 1: diverting the plane west on top of their guns. It
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  Speaker 1: seemed that the two young men also had a grenade,
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  Speaker 1: which put everyone at serious risk even if they could
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  Speaker 1: overwhelm the hijackers. The two men responsible were named Alexander
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  Speaker 1: and Ganadi. One was nineteen years old and the other
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  Speaker 1: was twenty two. They were convinced that their plan was
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  Speaker 1: going to go off without a hitch and no one
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  Speaker 1: was going to be hurt, that is until the pilots
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  Speaker 1: informed them about the plane's fuel levels. It seems that
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  Speaker 1: the plane had been fueled for their original trip, but
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  Speaker 1: the distance to Stockholm was much longer than the distance
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  Speaker 1: to their original destination. Their plane just didn't have enough
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  Speaker 1: fuel to make the trip full stop, so the hijackers
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  Speaker 1: agreed to a compromise. The plane diverted to another Scandinavian airport, Helsinki, Finland.
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  Speaker 1: There they would refuel replace the Soviet crew and complete
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  Speaker 1: the rest of the journey. They both assumed that they
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  Speaker 1: would serve time for hijacking when they arrived in Sweden,
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  Speaker 1: but wouldn't be extradited, which was good enough for both
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  Speaker 1: of them, a worthy price to pay for escaping the
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  Speaker 1: Soviet Union. The plane landed and in a gesture of goodwill,
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  Speaker 1: Alexander and Gennady allowed almost all of the passengers to deplane,
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  Speaker 1: holding back only a handful of people to serve as hostages.
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  Speaker 1: They issued their demands using the airplane's radio, and then
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  Speaker 1: they would wait, and wait and wait. Surely there were
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  Speaker 1: conversations happening on the other end. The Finnish government must
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  Speaker 1: be preparing to negotiate or provide the hijackers what they wanted.
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  Speaker 1: But in the cold confines of the plane, minutes stretched
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  Speaker 1: into hours, and after hours of waiting, the two men
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  Speaker 1: fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. The hostages on board, realizing
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  Speaker 1: what had happened, quickly left. When Alexander and Gnnedy woke up,
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  Speaker 1: they realized that they had been left alone on an
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  Speaker 1: empty plane. Worse this, playing was trapped in a country
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  Speaker 1: that still had an extradition treaty with the Soviet Union.
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  Speaker 1: Having no bargaining chips left, both men turned themselves in
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  Speaker 1: and were subsequently sent back to Russia. Their plans for
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  Speaker 1: their grand escape all amounted to nothing, and both men
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  Speaker 1: were eventually given relatively brief prison sentences fifteen years for one,
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  Speaker 1: seven for the other. In the aftermath of the hijacking,
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  Speaker 1: the Finnish authorities realized that the two hijackers were not
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  Speaker 1: nearly as dangerous as they had made themselves out to be.
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  Speaker 1: The grenade they had brandished was not even a real explosive,
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  Speaker 1: but a dummy grenade bade for training purposes. But the
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  Speaker 1: cherry on top of this story is the global impact
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  Speaker 1: of the hijacking. There was none. Although it was a
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  Speaker 1: shocking and dramatic event in the lives of the airplane passengers,
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  Speaker 1: it barely warranted mention in the international news. There were
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  Speaker 1: two other plane hijackings that week, and this incident was
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  Speaker 1: the most benign of them all. Nobody was hurt, and
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  Speaker 1: the hostages weren't trying to shock the world with a
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  Speaker 1: political message. They were just trying to relocate from one
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  Speaker 1: country to another. And if they hadn't been so tired,
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  Speaker 1: maybe they could have done it. It just goes to
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  Speaker 1: show it's always possible to sleep on an airplane, even
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  Speaker 1: in the most stressful of conditions. Unless you are one,
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  Speaker 1: it can be difficult to wrap your head around the
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  Speaker 1: unique connection that twins share. After all, when you're literally
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  Speaker 1: born as half of a set, it's almost inevitable that
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  Speaker 1: that relationship will come to define who you are. That
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  Speaker 1: was definitely the case for the Colorado Brothers, a pair
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  Speaker 1: of seventeenth century twins whose unique bond saved both their lives.
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  Speaker 1: Their names were Lazarus and John Baptista, and they were
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  Speaker 1: born in Genoa, Italy, in sixteen seventeen. From the moment
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  Speaker 1: they took their first breaths, the pair were inseparable. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: while Lazarus was healthy, John Baptista suffered from medical complications
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  Speaker 1: from birth. His body never fully developed and his head
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  Speaker 1: grew to an abnormally large size due to a condition
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  Speaker 1: that prevented his skull from draining cerebral spinal fluid. He
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  Speaker 1: also struggled to open his eyes or eat without assistance,
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  Speaker 1: making it impossible for John Baptista to live on his own.
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  Speaker 1: The good news was he had Lazarus, the healthier twin,
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  Speaker 1: was always by his side. Caring for him, feeding him,
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  Speaker 1: and cleaning his little brother. By working together, they managed
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  Speaker 1: to live a mostly normal life, although John Baptista's condition
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  Speaker 1: brought on a mountain of medical bills. Eventually money became
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  Speaker 1: so tight the brothers had to get creative. While they
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  Speaker 1: were in their early twenties, the pair embarked on a
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  Speaker 1: tour of Europe and Turkey. They traveled from town to town,
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  Speaker 1: supporting themselves by performing as a sort of circus act.
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  Speaker 1: Lazarus was the showman and John Baptista was the show Now.
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  Speaker 1: As you would probably expect, this career choice forced the
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  Speaker 1: brothers to swallow a lot of pride. Their advertisements depicted
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  Speaker 1: John Baptista as a malformed monster, playing up the visual
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  Speaker 1: contrast between the two twins. They even leaned into this
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  Speaker 1: by having John Baptiste to grow a haggard, grizzly beard. Lazarus,
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  Speaker 1: on the other hand, appeared as a well dressed gentleman.
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  Speaker 1: The show kept them afloat for several years, while the
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  Speaker 1: constant travel brought opportunities for John Baptista to see medical
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  Speaker 1: experts from all across Europe. In sixteen thirty eight, they
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  Speaker 1: were making their way through France when their trip was
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  Speaker 1: brought to an abrupt halt. One night after the show,
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  Speaker 1: the brothers were drinking at a local tavern when a
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  Speaker 1: barfly noticed John Baptista. The drunk man laughed at his
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  Speaker 1: unusual appearance and began to taunt him with crude insults.
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  Speaker 1: Lazarus flew to his brother's aid, hurling insults of his own.
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  Speaker 1: The situation escalated rapidly, and a brawl broke out. In
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  Speaker 1: the chaos, Lazarus grabbed a bottle of wine from behind
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  Speaker 1: the counter and brought it crashing down on the other
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  Speaker 1: man's head. The bottle shattered, and the drunk collapsed, with
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  Speaker 1: blood seeping from the gash in his skull. He was
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  Speaker 1: immediately rushed to the hospital, but soon died. After arriving,
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  Speaker 1: Lazarus was arrested, charged with murder, and hauled before the
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  Speaker 1: local judge. Realizing that he would face the death penalty,
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  Speaker 1: Lazarus made a desperate plea. He begged the judge not
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  Speaker 1: to separate him from his twin brother, explaining just how
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  Speaker 1: much John Baptista depended on him. They had been together
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  Speaker 1: since birth and separating them would be more than simply cruel,
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  Speaker 1: it would be a death sentence not just for him,
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  Speaker 1: but for his brother, who relied on him for virtually everything.
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  Speaker 1: He insisted that executing him would also be a death
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  Speaker 1: sentence for his brother, and this was literally true, since
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  Speaker 1: the twins shared several vital organs. The Colorados you see
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  Speaker 1: weren't just brothers. They were conjoined twins, with John's lower
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  Speaker 1: body attached to Lazarus's torso. The state of medicine during
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  Speaker 1: the seventeenth century meant that surgically separating the twins had
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  Speaker 1: never been a realistic option, and while that fact made
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  Speaker 1: life in pre enlightenment Europe extremely difficult, it now became
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  Speaker 1: their saving grace. The judge relented and ordered their release,
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  Speaker 1: since there was no way to punish Lazarus without also
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  Speaker 1: harming his brother. Lazarus walked out of the courtroom a
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  Speaker 1: free man, and as always, his brother, John Baptista was
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  Speaker 1: right at his side. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
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  Speaker 1: tour of the Cabin 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.