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Up and Atom · 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 right there on display, just waiting
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  Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: It was just another day for Clara. She was at
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  Speaker 1: her desk when the assignment came in with the most
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  Speaker 1: basic instructions. For a while, she stared at the objects
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  Speaker 1: before her. Working with a model of molecules, she twirled
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  Speaker 1: the pieces in her hand. She connected and disconnected them,
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  Speaker 1: going over the chemistry project again and again. Those who
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  Speaker 1: knew her often said that when she set her mind
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  Speaker 1: to something, she was deterred to see it through to
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  Speaker 1: the end. It took a little time, but then everything
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  Speaker 1: just sort of clicked into place. Clara put the model
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  Speaker 1: together and reviewed her work. Not only had she finished
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  Speaker 1: her assignment, but she felt pretty sure that she might
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  Speaker 1: have just discovered something new. To verify her results, she
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  Speaker 1: handed the model over to Kenneth Bonner, an employee ad
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  Speaker 1: Border Star in Kansas City, Missouri, and waited patiently for
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  Speaker 1: his opinion had she come up with a new scientific discovery.
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  Speaker 1: Although he'd given her the assignment, he wasn't a chemistry expert.
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  Speaker 1: Kenneth snap some photos on his cell phone and sent
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  Speaker 1: them to Professor Robert Zohner, a friend of his working
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  Speaker 1: at humbold State University in California, and then Clara and
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  Speaker 1: Kenneth waited. Robert stared at the photos on his phone.
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  Speaker 1: Usually he could tell right away if a new molecule
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  Speaker 1: was the real deal or not, but this time he
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  Speaker 1: had to take another look. He had never seen anything
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  Speaker 1: quite like it. Intrigued, he ran one of the photos
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  Speaker 1: through an online chemistry database. After an exhaustive search through
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  Speaker 1: literature dating back to nineteen oh four, the software came
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  Speaker 1: back with something he never expected. Although Clara's molecule that
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  Speaker 1: contained carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen didn't exist in nature, it
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  Speaker 1: was something very real. It shared a formula with another finding,
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  Speaker 1: except the Adams had a different arrangement. The reports showed
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  Speaker 1: that adams between the two discoveries had similarities, namely nitroglycerin. Essentially,
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  Speaker 1: Clara had created a molecule capable of creating an explosion,
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  Speaker 1: and while that sounds simple enough, it also showed promise
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  Speaker 1: for storing energy in theory, it could do both. No
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  Speaker 1: one at the university was sure of which and to
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  Speaker 1: what degree. Robert published a paper in Computational and Theoretical
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  Speaker 1: Chemistry on the breakthrough, with Clara and Kenneth as his
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  Speaker 1: co authors. They called the molecule tetra nitra toxicarbon, and
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  Speaker 1: if you think that's a mouthful, my friend, that is
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  Speaker 1: the short name for it. The trio is still unsure
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  Speaker 1: of how the scientific community will respond or what the
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  Speaker 1: discovery might be used for in the fuel future, but
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  Speaker 1: Clara was a static and kitted that she had never
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  Speaker 1: expected to be published as an author at that point
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  Speaker 1: in her life. Given the circumstances, the press couldn't wait
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  Speaker 1: to interview Clara. The attention didn't seem to face her, though.
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  Speaker 1: She suggested to the journalist that maybe she could sell
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  Speaker 1: the ideas to the military. Outside of the government, it
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  Speaker 1: also might be of interest to scientists searching for new
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  Speaker 1: ways to store energy. Meanwhile, Clara has a renewed love
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  Speaker 1: of chemistry and biology. Even her peers seem more interested.
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  Speaker 1: Back at the university, Robert hopes that his co author
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  Speaker 1: will inspire young girls to become scientists. He admits that
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  Speaker 1: he's never co authored with anyone like Clara before, and
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  Speaker 1: to Kenneth, nothing makes him happier. It's unclear if the
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  Speaker 1: interviewer asked what was next for the talented inventor, but
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  Speaker 1: I can imagine her response. Graduation, not college or high school.
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  Speaker 1: We're talking middle school here. You see. Kenneth is a
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  Speaker 1: teacher at the Border Star Montissori School in Kansas, and
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  Speaker 1: at the time of her explosive discovery, his student, Clara Lasin,
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  Speaker 1: was just ten years old. Mind blown. I guess you
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  Speaker 1: could say that when it comes to science, Clara is
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  Speaker 1: in her element. In the eleven seventies BCE, the world
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  Speaker 1: was ending. The Late Bronze Age was a great moment
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  Speaker 1: for humanity, with an explosion of trade, agriculture, technology, and
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  Speaker 1: in less than a century it was all gone. It
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  Speaker 1: was like something out of an apocalypse movie. Cities left
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  Speaker 1: totally abandoned and crumbling, farmlands burned to ash, and the
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  Speaker 1: remnants of battles between the inhabitants and some mysterious foe.
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  Speaker 1: For years, historians have debated the cause of such a
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  Speaker 1: massive and widespread collapse of civilization. Some believe that there
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  Speaker 1: were natural explanations earthquakes or climate change, which could have
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  Speaker 1: caused drought and famine. Natural disasters would of course lead
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  Speaker 1: to internal instability that could spread far and wide. Maybe
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  Speaker 1: that's what happened to the near mythical Sea Peoples. We
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  Speaker 1: have no idea where they came from or why they
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  Speaker 1: took up rating. Maybe it was a grudge, maybe it
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  Speaker 1: was sheer desperation, or maybe it was jealousy that brought
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  Speaker 1: the Sea People to egypt shores time and time again.
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  Speaker 1: When the collapse began in the eleven seventies, heralded by
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  Speaker 1: a solar eclipse if you can believe it, Plenty of
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  Speaker 1: civilizations crumbled, yet Egypt endured. It was hardly a comfortable
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  Speaker 1: position to be in, especially given the frequent raids by
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  Speaker 1: the Sea Peoples. Ramsey the third has gone down in
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  Speaker 1: history as the last good pharaoh of the New Kingdom,
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  Speaker 1: and a lot of that was likely due to his
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  Speaker 1: defeat of the Sea Peoples and an end to their
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  Speaker 1: reign of terror. Still, casualties were heavy on both sides.
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  Speaker 1: This loss of life, combined with a diminished harvest and
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  Speaker 1: fewer viable trade routes, was steadily tanking their economy. This
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  Speaker 1: was hardly the time for a grand tour, but Ramsey's
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  Speaker 1: the Third was determined to raise Egypt back up to
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  Speaker 1: their former glory. That kind of ambition took money and resources,
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  Speaker 1: and Egypt was kind of flacking in both at the moment.
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  Speaker 1: Ramsey's attempts to raise those funds were unsuccessful. The country
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  Speaker 1: was in a deep pit following the wars with the
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  Speaker 1: sea people's and corrupt officials Siphoning the money away couldn't
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  Speaker 1: have helped. The coffers remained relatively bare. When in eleven
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  Speaker 1: fifty nine BCE, wages for tomb builders and artisans, Egypt's
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  Speaker 1: most important laborers arrived a month late and a time
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  Speaker 1: when money and food were stretched thin. He would think
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  Speaker 1: that officials would have been falling all over themselves to
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  Speaker 1: correct the problem. And to be fair, there was a
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  Speaker 1: distribution of grain, but nothing was fixed. Essentially, what the
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  Speaker 1: officials gave them amounted to a modern office pizza party.
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  Speaker 1: Officials had bigger things on their mind at the time,
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  Speaker 1: namely a huge celebration that was being thrown in honor
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  Speaker 1: of Ramsey's the Third's thirty years on the throne. The
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  Speaker 1: Grand Festival was eating up labor, time and money, and
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  Speaker 1: once again, a month later, wages were delayed. The workers
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  Speaker 1: waited eighteen days for their pay to be delivered, and
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  Speaker 1: when the officials weren't forthcoming with coin or information, they
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  Speaker 1: threw down their tools and marched towards the city, shouting,
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  Speaker 1: we are hungry. It was the first recorded strike in history.
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  Speaker 1: They assembled at Ramsey's, the third Mortuary Temple, agitated and
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  Speaker 1: calling for their wages. The officials were flabbergasted. According to
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  Speaker 1: their religious beliefs, anyone from the pharaoh to a peasant
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  Speaker 1: had a place in the universe that they could never
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  Speaker 1: rise or fall from. A strike totally violated those principles,
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  Speaker 1: and they didn't know what to do. After deliberating for
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  Speaker 1: some time, officials had an airtight plan pastries, which were
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  Speaker 1: delivered to the furious workers. After all, they were hungry. Unsurprisingly,
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  Speaker 1: the workers weren't persuaded and marched on to the grain
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  Speaker 1: storehouses in Thebes the When they broke in, pol police
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  Speaker 1: were summoned and the chief demanded the workers returned to
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  Speaker 1: their posts. The laborers, though refused. The chief baffled, shrugged
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  Speaker 1: over the lack of results, and abandoned the officials to
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  Speaker 1: handle the situation. Negotiations were about to begin. Officials forked
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  Speaker 1: over the back pay to the workers, who then dispersed,
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  Speaker 1: But no sooner had they reached their village than word
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  Speaker 1: arrived that their next wages were not coming. Once again,
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  Speaker 1: they went on strike, but this time they took it
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  Speaker 1: a step further and blockaded access to the valley of
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  Speaker 1: the King's In a culture that so revered death, offerings
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  Speaker 1: were incredibly important, so this was a devastating measure. They
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  Speaker 1: meant business and stood their ground when officials arrived with
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  Speaker 1: armed guards. When threatened, the strikers threatened to damage the
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  Speaker 1: royal tombs. Both sides had reached an impasse. This strike
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  Speaker 1: could have brought down the pharaoh himself. According to their
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  Speaker 1: order of the universe, the pharaoh was supposed to take
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  Speaker 1: care of their people, and if he wasn't, then what
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  Speaker 1: good was he. The strike lasted for three years, off
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  Speaker 1: and on. Finally, though officials reached out to a vizier
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  Speaker 1: for help, but they might not have told them the
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  Speaker 1: whole story. The strike didn't really reflect well on them,
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  Speaker 1: and there was a possibility that they could be executed
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  Speaker 1: for failing to do their duty. Negotiations began, pay was distributed,
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  Speaker 1: the laborers abandoned their strike camps and returned home, and
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  Speaker 1: the jubilee went off without a hitch. In eleven fifty
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  Speaker 1: six BCE, a party would help anyone forget their daily woes,
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  Speaker 1: But the shadow of the strike lingered, and it was
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  Speaker 1: only the first one big event in the deep mists
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  Speaker 1: of time, reminding all of us that were stronger together.
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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 podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.