March 11, 2025 • 11 mins
Some curiosities are hiden right among us, and others require a bit of searching. Today's tour will explore a bit of both.
Order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
Everyone loves a little celebrity gossip, and the seventeenth century
French court was no different. At the time, the talk
of Paris was an opera singer named Julie Dobini. What
was so scandalous about Julie, you might ask, Well, in
all honesty, you'd have an easier time answering what wasn't scandalous,
And far from being over in fifteen minutes, Julie's fame
(00:57):
is something that people are still talking about today. She
was born around sixteen seventy in Paris and was the
daughter of a master swordsman. Her father taught her about
all his favorite passions, drinking, gambling, and of course, fencing.
Rounding out her schooling was a formal education he insisted
that she received, despite that type of learning being reserved
(01:19):
for boys at the time. As Julie grew into a teenager,
it became clear that she wasn't content to act like
a lady of the court. She began dressing in men's clothes,
challenging men to duels, and quickly grew comfortable being on
the wrong side of the law. By sixteen eighty seven,
Julie had already been married to a tax collector named
Jean de Maupin. However, Julie, like many French aristocrats at
(01:42):
the time, wasn't one to let a little thing like
matrimony get in her way. She struck up one of
her many relationships with a fencing master, and when he
killed a man in a duel, she fled to the
countryside with him. Julie toured rule France with her lover,
providing fencing demonstrations and even singing to the crowds. Although
she had no formal training, her strong voice soon attracted
(02:03):
the fans, and she began performing at the Marseillese Opera
at the age of seventeen. Julie was already a swordswoman
on the run and a singer in the opera, but
when she met a beautiful young noble girl, she moved
on to her next role, escape artist While Julie and
her lover were smitten with each other, the girl's parents
were less pleased. They sent their daughter to a convent
(02:24):
in avign Young to keep her away from Julie, but
as you'd imagine, the convent walls weren't strong enough for
someone with her willpower. Julie joined the convent herself, pretending
to be a young novice to get closer to her girlfriend.
When one of the sisters passed away, the two stole
the nun's body, put it in the young girl's bed,
and set it and the entire room on fire. They
(02:46):
fled the convent, hoping that the nuns would believe that
the burned body was Julie's lover. However, a convent full
of nuns usually have a bit more wisdom than two
impulsive teenagers, and the scheme was quickly discovered. The local
government sentenced Julie to death in absentia, and the two
fugitives were officially running for their lives. Julie and her
(03:07):
companion spent several months wandering around the countryside before Julie's
lover decided to return to her plush life at home.
Heartbroken and on the run from the law, Julie decided
to make the very logical next step of taking singing lessons.
Her time at the Marseille Opera made her realize that
people loved her voice, and perhaps, if they loved it enough,
(03:27):
it could pave her way back to society. When Julie
was around twenty, her hard work paid off King Louis
the fourteenth pardon Julie so she could sing at the
Paris Opera. Opera was new to France at the time,
and the Paris Opera was just twenty one years old,
so here, like in her personal life, Julie broke new
ground with a low range and a powerful character to
(03:48):
her voice. She often made goddesses and warrior women the
stars of the show rather than gentle, romantic soprano roles. Today,
she would probably be considered a contralto, which is the
lowest range for us a female singer. Of course, Julie's
behavior offstage attracted just as much attention. In sixteen ninety seven,
when Julie was about twenty seven years old, she attended
(04:10):
a society ball in men's clothing. While this was already
enough to cause scandal, she upped the ante by kissing
a woman on the dance floor. What Julie didn't know
was that three noblemen had been vined for that woman's attention.
All three of them challenged Julie to a duel, and she,
of course defeated them all. What she didn't know, though,
was that the king had outlawed dueling, so once more
(04:33):
she fled the city under pain of death. However, she
was quickly pardoned the next year to continue her career
at the opera. Around seventeen oh three, Julie began a
relationship with Madame la Marquis de Florensac, one of the
greatest beauties of the French court. It seemed like finding
love with the Madam made Julie finally settle down. The
two lived together for two whole years until Madame Florenzach
(04:56):
fell ill in seventeen oh five and passed away. Devis
stated by the loss, Julie retired from the stage, and
for the first time in her career, she fell quiet.
She followed not long after, dying in seventeen oh seven.
Like any good song, Julie's short life certainly had highs
and lows, but at just thirty seven years old, it
(05:17):
ended on a single Somber note, humanity has always been
fascinated by lights in the sky. Since the dawn of time.
(05:38):
We worshiped the stars, the moon, and the Sun. People
fought and died over the idea that the Earth orbited
the Sun and not the other way around. Then, by
the nineteenth century, some began to believe that visitors from
other worlds could be seen flying by in their spaceships
if one only looked closely enough. It all goes to
show how meaningful celestie steel phenomena can be. And yet
(06:02):
when the largest celestial event in recorded history appeared in
nineteen oh eight, hardly anyone noticed. The Shanyager people had
lived in the Siberia region for generations, building huts along
the rivers and herding the plentiful reindeer. But one sunny afternoon,
the land that had long nurtured them suddenly felt changed.
(06:22):
The air became warm instead of its icy cold, and
invisible force knocked them over. Then lightning shot out of
the sky, scorching the trees in the forests and lighting
them on fire. As astounding as all of this was,
it was nothing compared to what came next. A second
sun appeared in the sky, nearly blinding the shanyagear. Then
(06:43):
there was a massive bang, louder than any thunder they
had ever heard. This second sun seemed to explode, vaporizing
the herd of reindeer beneath it. The entire forest was
knocked over, the leaves burned, the shanya gear's huts reduced
to sticks. There were more flashes, more thunder under, until
finally the air cooled, the flashes stopped, and all that
(07:04):
remained was an even more desolate landscape. Many miles away,
in Saint Petersburg, Russia, scientists detected unusual seismic readings from
the direction of Siberia, but they didn't think much of it.
Only one of them, Leonid Koulik, wanted to investigate. He
had heard rumors about the event and believed that there
might be an asteroid impact involved. If so, the leftover
(07:26):
minerals could be worth a lot of money. But he
was soon distracted, as was the world, by the Great War,
followed by the equally violent Russian Civil War. By nineteen
twenty one, things had quieted down some and Leonid was
finally able to secure funding for an expedition into Siberia.
He questioned many villagers about the event, but his first
trip to the area didn't yield any significant findings. Siberia
(07:50):
is a third larger than the United States as a whole,
and far less populated. It constitutes the entire northern half
of Asia. Leonid's search area was about five hundred squareles
needle in a haystack doesn't even begin to cover it.
But he was persistent, and he always found little breadcrumbs
when speaking with villagers who remembered the event. He returned
(08:11):
to Siberia in nineteen twenty seven, this time traveling farther north.
He followed a trail of villagers and indigenous people who
all remembered the day the sky lit up and their
homes were blown over. He traveled so far that eventually
his expedition had to abandon their horse drawn carriages due
to the deep snow. They packed their belongings onto the
(08:32):
backs of reindeer and continued on. And finally, after a
long journey, Leonid and his team crested a hill and
were met with a most extraordinary sight they could have
ever imagined. For miles and miles below them, the forest
had been destroyed. All that remained were naked, dead tree trunks,
some of them toppled over and some of them standing still.
(08:53):
There were literally millions of dead trees, and they all
seemed to be leaning away from a central point. Leonid
and his men rushed to the center, hoping to confirm
his asteroid theory. They excavated carefully four years, but there
was no evidence of extraterrestrial matter. Finally, though it dawned
on Leonid there had been an asteroid, and a large
(09:14):
one at that, but it was vaporized in the atmosphere.
The explosion was still massive, causing what we now know
today as the Tunguska Event. The impact was enough to
knock down the forest and many small settlements, and likely
killed thousands of animals and at least a few people. However,
there was no crater, no minerals, as the asteroid never
(09:35):
actually touched the Earth. Later on, people in Ireland and
England realized that they had witnessed the event as well,
although obviously from a greater distance and at night. To them,
the night sky was just unnaturally bright, especially considering that
the moon wasn't even out at that time. Today, the
Tunguska Event remains the largest celestial impact in recorded history.
(09:57):
NASA has even studied it and formed an organization called
the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which might be the coolest
name in recorded history, and their mission to stay curious,
of course, about the night skies, watching for any signs
of the next Tunguska event. If an object of that
size ever touched down in a populated area, it could
(10:19):
be disastrous, and so the PDCO remains vigilant, ready to
divert any asteroid that heads our way. If you live
in a remote area, make sure you call them first
if your house mysteriously falls over. I hope you've enjoyed
today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
(10:42):
free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
learn all about it over at Theworldoflore dot com. And
(11:04):
until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
Everyone loves a little celebrity gossip, and the seventeenth century
French court was no different. At the time, the talk
of Paris was an opera singer named Julie Dobini. What
was so scandalous about Julie, you might ask, Well, in
all honesty, you'd have an easier time answering what wasn't scandalous,
And far from being over in fifteen minutes, Julie's fame
(00:57):
is something that people are still talking about today. She
was born around sixteen seventy in Paris and was the
daughter of a master swordsman. Her father taught her about
all his favorite passions, drinking, gambling, and of course, fencing.
Rounding out her schooling was a formal education he insisted
that she received, despite that type of learning being reserved
(01:19):
for boys at the time. As Julie grew into a teenager,
it became clear that she wasn't content to act like
a lady of the court. She began dressing in men's clothes,
challenging men to duels, and quickly grew comfortable being on
the wrong side of the law. By sixteen eighty seven,
Julie had already been married to a tax collector named
Jean de Maupin. However, Julie, like many French aristocrats at
(01:42):
the time, wasn't one to let a little thing like
matrimony get in her way. She struck up one of
her many relationships with a fencing master, and when he
killed a man in a duel, she fled to the
countryside with him. Julie toured rule France with her lover,
providing fencing demonstrations and even singing to the crowds. Although
she had no formal training, her strong voice soon attracted
(02:03):
the fans, and she began performing at the Marseillese Opera
at the age of seventeen. Julie was already a swordswoman
on the run and a singer in the opera, but
when she met a beautiful young noble girl, she moved
on to her next role, escape artist While Julie and
her lover were smitten with each other, the girl's parents
were less pleased. They sent their daughter to a convent
(02:24):
in avign Young to keep her away from Julie, but
as you'd imagine, the convent walls weren't strong enough for
someone with her willpower. Julie joined the convent herself, pretending
to be a young novice to get closer to her girlfriend.
When one of the sisters passed away, the two stole
the nun's body, put it in the young girl's bed,
and set it and the entire room on fire. They
(02:46):
fled the convent, hoping that the nuns would believe that
the burned body was Julie's lover. However, a convent full
of nuns usually have a bit more wisdom than two
impulsive teenagers, and the scheme was quickly discovered. The local
government sentenced Julie to death in absentia, and the two
fugitives were officially running for their lives. Julie and her
(03:07):
companion spent several months wandering around the countryside before Julie's
lover decided to return to her plush life at home.
Heartbroken and on the run from the law, Julie decided
to make the very logical next step of taking singing lessons.
Her time at the Marseille Opera made her realize that
people loved her voice, and perhaps, if they loved it enough,
(03:27):
it could pave her way back to society. When Julie
was around twenty, her hard work paid off King Louis
the fourteenth pardon Julie so she could sing at the
Paris Opera. Opera was new to France at the time,
and the Paris Opera was just twenty one years old,
so here, like in her personal life, Julie broke new
ground with a low range and a powerful character to
(03:48):
her voice. She often made goddesses and warrior women the
stars of the show rather than gentle, romantic soprano roles. Today,
she would probably be considered a contralto, which is the
lowest range for us a female singer. Of course, Julie's
behavior offstage attracted just as much attention. In sixteen ninety seven,
when Julie was about twenty seven years old, she attended
(04:10):
a society ball in men's clothing. While this was already
enough to cause scandal, she upped the ante by kissing
a woman on the dance floor. What Julie didn't know
was that three noblemen had been vined for that woman's attention.
All three of them challenged Julie to a duel, and she,
of course defeated them all. What she didn't know, though,
was that the king had outlawed dueling, so once more
(04:33):
she fled the city under pain of death. However, she
was quickly pardoned the next year to continue her career
at the opera. Around seventeen oh three, Julie began a
relationship with Madame la Marquis de Florensac, one of the
greatest beauties of the French court. It seemed like finding
love with the Madam made Julie finally settle down. The
two lived together for two whole years until Madame Florenzach
(04:56):
fell ill in seventeen oh five and passed away. Devis
stated by the loss, Julie retired from the stage, and
for the first time in her career, she fell quiet.
She followed not long after, dying in seventeen oh seven.
Like any good song, Julie's short life certainly had highs
and lows, but at just thirty seven years old, it
(05:17):
ended on a single Somber note, humanity has always been
fascinated by lights in the sky. Since the dawn of time.
(05:38):
We worshiped the stars, the moon, and the Sun. People
fought and died over the idea that the Earth orbited
the Sun and not the other way around. Then, by
the nineteenth century, some began to believe that visitors from
other worlds could be seen flying by in their spaceships
if one only looked closely enough. It all goes to
show how meaningful celestie steel phenomena can be. And yet
(06:02):
when the largest celestial event in recorded history appeared in
nineteen oh eight, hardly anyone noticed. The Shanyager people had
lived in the Siberia region for generations, building huts along
the rivers and herding the plentiful reindeer. But one sunny afternoon,
the land that had long nurtured them suddenly felt changed.
(06:22):
The air became warm instead of its icy cold, and
invisible force knocked them over. Then lightning shot out of
the sky, scorching the trees in the forests and lighting
them on fire. As astounding as all of this was,
it was nothing compared to what came next. A second
sun appeared in the sky, nearly blinding the shanyagear. Then
(06:43):
there was a massive bang, louder than any thunder they
had ever heard. This second sun seemed to explode, vaporizing
the herd of reindeer beneath it. The entire forest was
knocked over, the leaves burned, the shanya gear's huts reduced
to sticks. There were more flashes, more thunder under, until
finally the air cooled, the flashes stopped, and all that
(07:04):
remained was an even more desolate landscape. Many miles away,
in Saint Petersburg, Russia, scientists detected unusual seismic readings from
the direction of Siberia, but they didn't think much of it.
Only one of them, Leonid Koulik, wanted to investigate. He
had heard rumors about the event and believed that there
might be an asteroid impact involved. If so, the leftover
(07:26):
minerals could be worth a lot of money. But he
was soon distracted, as was the world, by the Great War,
followed by the equally violent Russian Civil War. By nineteen
twenty one, things had quieted down some and Leonid was
finally able to secure funding for an expedition into Siberia.
He questioned many villagers about the event, but his first
trip to the area didn't yield any significant findings. Siberia
(07:50):
is a third larger than the United States as a whole,
and far less populated. It constitutes the entire northern half
of Asia. Leonid's search area was about five hundred squareles
needle in a haystack doesn't even begin to cover it.
But he was persistent, and he always found little breadcrumbs
when speaking with villagers who remembered the event. He returned
(08:11):
to Siberia in nineteen twenty seven, this time traveling farther north.
He followed a trail of villagers and indigenous people who
all remembered the day the sky lit up and their
homes were blown over. He traveled so far that eventually
his expedition had to abandon their horse drawn carriages due
to the deep snow. They packed their belongings onto the
(08:32):
backs of reindeer and continued on. And finally, after a
long journey, Leonid and his team crested a hill and
were met with a most extraordinary sight they could have
ever imagined. For miles and miles below them, the forest
had been destroyed. All that remained were naked, dead tree trunks,
some of them toppled over and some of them standing still.
(08:53):
There were literally millions of dead trees, and they all
seemed to be leaning away from a central point. Leonid
and his men rushed to the center, hoping to confirm
his asteroid theory. They excavated carefully four years, but there
was no evidence of extraterrestrial matter. Finally, though it dawned
on Leonid there had been an asteroid, and a large
(09:14):
one at that, but it was vaporized in the atmosphere.
The explosion was still massive, causing what we now know
today as the Tunguska Event. The impact was enough to
knock down the forest and many small settlements, and likely
killed thousands of animals and at least a few people. However,
there was no crater, no minerals, as the asteroid never
(09:35):
actually touched the Earth. Later on, people in Ireland and
England realized that they had witnessed the event as well,
although obviously from a greater distance and at night. To them,
the night sky was just unnaturally bright, especially considering that
the moon wasn't even out at that time. Today, the
Tunguska Event remains the largest celestial impact in recorded history.
(09:57):
NASA has even studied it and formed an organization called
the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which might be the coolest
name in recorded history, and their mission to stay curious,
of course, about the night skies, watching for any signs
of the next Tunguska event. If an object of that
size ever touched down in a populated area, it could
(10:19):
be disastrous, and so the PDCO remains vigilant, ready to
divert any asteroid that heads our way. If you live
in a remote area, make sure you call them first
if your house mysteriously falls over. I hope you've enjoyed
today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
(10:42):
free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
learn all about it over at Theworldoflore dot com. And
(11:04):
until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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