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Strike a Pose · 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. The Founding Fathers were brilliant, yet flawed individuals.
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  Speaker 1: They undertook a brazen act of rebellion to free their
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  Speaker 1: country of tyranny by using the most powerful tool in
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  Speaker 1: their arsenal, not guns or canons, but their minds. They
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  Speaker 1: believed in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But
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  Speaker 1: do you know what they didn't believe in dinosaurs. It
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  Speaker 1: all started a hundred years prior, during the six hundreds,
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  Speaker 1: with a man Robert Plott. Plot was born in England
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  Speaker 1: around sixteen forty. He focused hard on his studies and
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  Speaker 1: attended good schools as a child, eventually going on to
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  Speaker 1: study at Oxford. He graduated some years later with a
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  Speaker 1: bachelor's degree, a master's and a degree in civil law.
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  Speaker 1: Plot moved up quickly within the university. Post graduation. He
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  Speaker 1: became a professor as well as dean and vice principal
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  Speaker 1: for a time. He also oversaw three scientific departments at
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  Speaker 1: the school, including the Chemistry Lab, the Ashmolean Museum, and
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  Speaker 1: the School of Natural History. Plot was interested in natural history,
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  Speaker 1: specifically the ancient natural history of Oxfordshire, County, where he
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  Speaker 1: had lived. He approached his study of the area in
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  Speaker 1: a far more calculated way than the researchers of the
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  Speaker 1: past and even several of his contemporaries. He kept detailed
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  Speaker 1: notes about his travels, tracking the owners of the properties
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  Speaker 1: he visited, as well as rich descriptions of what he found.
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  Speaker 1: Plot categorized his findings under chapter headings with names like
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  Speaker 1: of the Heavens and Air End of Plants. However, there
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  Speaker 1: was one heading that seemed to jump off the page
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  Speaker 1: more than the others. It was the one titled of
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  Speaker 1: formed stones two Plot. Formed stones were rocks and minerals
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  Speaker 1: that resembled parts of the body, both human and animal.
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  Speaker 1: There were small spherical rocks that looked like eyes, and
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  Speaker 1: larger stones with indentations that bore a resemblance to the
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  Speaker 1: human brain. But there was one stone in particular that
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  Speaker 1: caught his attention, except it wasn't a stone at all.
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  Speaker 1: It was a fossilized bone, and it was massive, larger
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  Speaker 1: than any human bone he had ever seen before. Plot
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  Speaker 1: first thought it had come from an extinct form of
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  Speaker 1: elephant that had roamed the land when the ancient Romans
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  Speaker 1: were still in power, but soon tossed that theory out.
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  Speaker 1: There was no way an elephant of that kind would
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  Speaker 1: have ended up in this part of England. Instead, he
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  Speaker 1: deduced that the bone must have come from the femur
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  Speaker 1: of a long deceased giant he knew of giants from
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  Speaker 1: the past, like Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, who measured
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  Speaker 1: over eleven feet tall. There were Secondilla and Pussio, the
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  Speaker 1: keepers of the Roman gardens of Sellust. They both topped
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  Speaker 1: out at around nine and a half feet tall, and
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  Speaker 1: so it wasn't out of line with assumptions that this
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  Speaker 1: bone also had once belonged to a man or woman
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  Speaker 1: much larger than everyone else. Plot published his findings, Giant
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  Speaker 1: Hypothesis and all, in his book Natural History of Oxfordshire
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  Speaker 1: around sixteen seventy six. So how did Robert Plott's wildly
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  Speaker 1: inaccurate theory about fossils pertained to the founding Fathers. One
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  Speaker 1: hundred years later. Well in seventeen sixty seven, Benjamin Franklin
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  Speaker 1: received a package while he was in London on a
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  Speaker 1: diplomatic mission. He opened it up to find an array
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  Speaker 1: of bones, teeth, and tusks that had been found in
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  Speaker 1: the Ohio River Valley back in America. They appeared to
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  Speaker 1: belong to an elephant. He found the teeth fascinating, as
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  Speaker 1: they didn't look like the teeth of modern elephants. They
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  Speaker 1: had numerous protuberances and divots, like the teeth found on
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  Speaker 1: most carnivores, at least according to Franklin, so he took
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  Speaker 1: the files to the scientists that he knew where. It
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  Speaker 1: was speculated that they had come from a large elephant
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  Speaker 1: like creature that no longer existed. It would be almost
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  Speaker 1: one fifty years before British geologist William Buckland would discover
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  Speaker 1: the remains of a creature he named Megalosaurus. They'd become
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  Speaker 1: the first known fossils belonging to a dinosaur, though the
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  Speaker 1: term dinosaur wouldn't be coined for another twenty years. It's
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  Speaker 1: possible that the giant bone Robert Plott had found had
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  Speaker 1: also belonged to a dinosaur, but nobody knew such animals
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  Speaker 1: had ever lived. In fact, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin
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  Speaker 1: lived until the seventeen nineties, thirty years before Buckland's Megalosaurus
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  Speaker 1: shook the world of science, meaning that two of America's
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  Speaker 1: founding fathers died believing the giants were real, but never
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  Speaker 1: knowing that dinosaurs had ever existed at all. And I'd
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  Speaker 1: call that curious. The stage of piracy has something of
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  Speaker 1: an immortalizing effect on its players. Modern audiences swoon over
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  Speaker 1: the idea of a carefree, swashbuckling existence, often exemplified in
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  Speaker 1: the exploits of historical people like Ann Bonnie and Henry Caesar,
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  Speaker 1: and over modern and fictional names like Jack Sparrow and
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  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Swan. But not every pirate is romanticized into such
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  Speaker 1: prominent roles in the lore surrounding their profession. During the
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  Speaker 1: extended conflict between Spain and England, countless pirate legends were
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  Speaker 1: born from the indelible Edward Thatch code named Blackbeard, to
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  Speaker 1: the likes of Calico, Jack Black, Sam Bellamy, and many
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  Speaker 1: many more. The stories of pirates and privateers all have
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  Speaker 1: a relatively similar beginning point. Struggles turned to opportunity and
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  Speaker 1: a similar ending point capture and or death. And while
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  Speaker 1: that is where Henry began, it is not where Henry
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  Speaker 1: and did. As a boy, Henry found himself as a
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  Speaker 1: servant in Barbados. When a call to raid the Spanish
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  Speaker 1: reached Henry, he was quick to answer, finding gainful employment
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  Speaker 1: as a privateer under Christopher Mings. And it was also
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  Speaker 1: around this time, in the mid sixteen hundreds, that rum
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  Speaker 1: began to make the rounds aboard numerous privateer and pirate vessels,
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  Speaker 1: becoming the unspoken signature beverage of marauding sailors all over
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  Speaker 1: the world. It's easy to imagine that among the spoils
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  Speaker 1: of war and piracy, Henry often found himself with a
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  Speaker 1: glass in hand, a barrel in the hold, perhaps under foot,
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  Speaker 1: and a pocket of gold amassed from the sale of
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  Speaker 1: the native Caribbean drink. Henry established himself as a premier
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  Speaker 1: privateer against the Spanish fleet in the seas around Jamaica.
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  Speaker 1: He served as captain with the defenses when Spain sent
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  Speaker 1: their own invasion against the British stronghold in Jamaica, a
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  Speaker 1: defense that held and proved Henry the security of buying
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  Speaker 1: his own plantation on the island, which had quickly become
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  Speaker 1: his home. All told, Henry's exploits are not to be ignored.
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  Speaker 1: Among the most successful pirates and privateers to have ever lived,
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  Speaker 1: he proved himself versatile in attack and defense. He led
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  Speaker 1: successful raids against the Spanish for nearly a decade in
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  Speaker 1: places like Venezuela, Panama, Gibraltar, and more. He made sensible
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  Speaker 1: investments into his own foothold on land and rose in
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  Speaker 1: the ranks, so high, in fact, that he once found
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  Speaker 1: himself as the admiral in charge of a fleet of
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  Speaker 1: thirty ships. But all pirates come to an end, though
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  Speaker 1: Henry's end is not the usual end of pirates and scalawags.
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  Speaker 1: You see, Henry found his way into politics, landing himself
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  Speaker 1: a comfortable position in his adopted home of Jamaica, where
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  Speaker 1: he continued to have friendly relations with all his former
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  Speaker 1: privateer friends. He served briefly as governor before his health
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  Speaker 1: began to decline due to, according to his doctor, excessive drinking.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps the Rum had indeed taken a toll on Henry.
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  Speaker 1: After all these years, Henry's legacy is mixed. He doesn't
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  Speaker 1: stand up in the annals of his stree against the
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  Speaker 1: likes of people like Blackbeard, Henry Avery, and other household
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  Speaker 1: names of legend and lore. He was the muse of
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  Speaker 1: the nineteen two Captain Blood novel by Raphael Sabbatini, as
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  Speaker 1: well as John Steinbeck's first novel, Cup of Gold, published
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty nine, but after that he doesn't appear
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  Speaker 1: as a prominent figure in works of fiction seeking to
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  Speaker 1: glorify the Golden Age of pirates, nor is he often
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  Speaker 1: included in many lists compiling the best pirates in history.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps it's because he didn't go out in that familiar
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  Speaker 1: blaze of glory, or hanged for his crimes, or lost
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  Speaker 1: at sea, or even a brigand to the end, Henry had,
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  Speaker 1: minus the over indulgence in rum, a bit of a
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  Speaker 1: quiet ending, which might well have contributed to his quiet legacy.
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  Speaker 1: But there's one thing that Henry does have that makes
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  Speaker 1: him stand the test of time, perhaps more than any
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  Speaker 1: other pirate legend to dates, because while he did indeed
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  Speaker 1: rise above captain to the rank of admiral and even
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  Speaker 1: received knighthood later in life, most people today are even
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  Speaker 1: aware of him because his name is on a bottle
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  Speaker 1: of rum. Captain Morgan to be exact and if he
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  Speaker 1: were alive to see it, I imagine Admiral Morrigan would
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  Speaker 1: smile a bit and remember the good old days, back
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  Speaker 1: when even he had a little captain in it. I
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  Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities 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.