April 8, 2025 • 11 mins
War often brings out the most curious aspects of the human mind. Today's tour through the Cabinet should help you get a glimpse of that.
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):
Many high achievers excel at more than one thing. Great
actors who are also karate masters or pro athletes with
degrees in chemistry. For example, legendary Queen guitarist Brian May
is also an astrophysicist. It makes sense that someone with
the drive to succeed at that level would be driven
to achieve even more. But sometimes a driven person doesn't
(00:59):
find some success but multiple failures. And in one curious
case from the Civil War era in America, a man
made a historic entire career out of being bad at
everything he set out to do. Daniel began his career
as a lawyer before getting elected to the House of
Representatives in eighteen fifty six. Pretty good for a guy
(01:19):
in his thirties, right, But he was also a notorious womanizer.
He brought sex workers into the congressional chambers and even
introduced one to Queen Victoria. So he wasn't much of
a congressman. But most infamously, he married the fifteen year
old daughter of one of his friends after getting her pregnant.
Her name was Teresa, and as you'd expect, he didn't
(01:40):
remain faithful to Teresa, but she felt no loyalty to
him either. With Daniel often away on business or having affairs,
Teresa was regularly escorted to social functions by her friend
Philip Barton Key. He was a prominent socialite, being the
son of Francis Scott Key, the writer of the Star
Spangled Banner. Before long, Teresa and Philip began an affair
(02:01):
of their own. The affair was one thing, obviously Daniel
was having affairs all the time, but Teresa's infidelity soon
became known throughout Washington. Daniel couldn't be seen as someone
who allowed this to go on, so he armed himself
and prepared to prove his manhood to the whole town.
Confronting Philip on the street, Daniel fired a shot into
Philip's groin. As the wounded man crawled away, Daniel fired again,
(02:25):
hitting Philip in the chest, killing him. It seems that
Daniel hadn't really thought past this point, though he was
now a murderer, which surely must have hurt his reputation
as much as his wife cheating on him. He was
a terrible congressman and a terrible husband. But Daniel, for
all his failures, wouldn't give up. He hired an excellent
lawyer who portrayed Daniel as the victim. He told the
(02:47):
jury a total sob story about how Daniel was completely
thrown by his wife's affair, how in a moment of
insanity he set out to kill Philip, not truly in
control of his own actions. And so the jury ruled
the Daniel wasn't guilty, marking the first successful temporary insanity
plea in US history. It's not an accomplishment to be
(03:07):
proud of, I know, but Daniel took it as a win,
then prepared to take on a new role, that of
a Civil War general. The war broke out in eighteen
sixty one and gave Daniel the opportunity to regain his
lost honor. By eighteen sixty three, he was a major
general leading a brigade at the Battle of Gettysburg. It
shows how at the time these positions were as much
(03:28):
about class as merit. Daniel was the only Civil War
general without a military education, but because he was from
the upper class, his friends were able to pull some
strings and put him in a leadership position, and once
again his desire for honor and glory outpaced his actual ability.
In an infamous moment from the battle, Daniel ordered his
(03:49):
men to take the high ground in a part of
the battlefield known as the peach Orchard. This went against
his own orders, but it seemed to him that the
high ground was always desirable, only in this case it
meant that his men were leaving a gap in the
line with the rest of the army, leaving them all
vulnerable to a charge from the enemy. Daniel's forces were devastated,
(04:10):
but for him, that wasn't even the worst of it.
He took a cannonball to the leg, shattering his tibia
and fibula, but even then this wasn't enough to keep
Daniel down. He had his leg amputated and donated the
shattered bones to the Army Medical Museum, and for years
afterward he would actually take his friends to see it
at the exhibit, bragging about his own bravery. At one
(04:32):
point none other than Samuel Clemens. The author Mark Twain,
was brought along on one of these tours. This led
Twain to remark, the General valued his lost leg away
above the one that is left. I am perfectly sure
that if he had to part with either of them,
he would part with the one that he has got.
Failed congressman, failed husband, and failed general. Instead of being
(04:55):
a high achiever, Daniel Sickles was a frequent failure, but
he always spun his failure years into personal wins. It
would be so inspiring if it weren't for the fact
that people died because of his mishaps. Curiously, Daniel did
go on to assist in reconstruction efforts, with mixed results
as always, Although his actions at the Battle of Gettysburg
(05:15):
were notorious, he was also instrumental in assuring that the
battlefield itself became a national park. Doctor Lytel Adams, or
(05:38):
Doc as he was known to his friends, was not
a mechanical engineer or a weapons manufacturer. He was a dentist,
and in December of nineteen forty one, he was on
a long overdue vacation in New Mexico. While exploring the
Carlsbad caverns. One evening, Doc Adams was treated to one
of the most incredible sights in the southwestern United States.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, the air filled
(06:00):
with chirps and chattering squeaks, and then the thrum of
tiny wings. He watched as millions of bats came pouring
out of the caves, taking to the sky in a chaotic,
screaming swarm. And this mesmerizing sight stuck with Doc Adams,
and he was still thinking about it a few days later.
During his long drive home to Pennsylvania. He had just
crossed out of New Mexico when the radio broadcast he
(06:23):
was listening to was interrupted by breaking news. Japan had
just launched a devastating attack on the US naval base
at Pearl Harbor. Thousands of Americans were dead or injured,
and rumors were already flying the Congress was going to
declare war. Doc Adams was so overwhelmed by the announcement
he had to pull over to process the news. At
sixty years old, there was no chance of being drafted himself,
(06:46):
but nevertheless, he found himself burning with a desire to contribute.
He had just started to wonder about the military's dentistry
needs when he was struck by an idea. He suddenly
imagined a weapon unlike anything the military had in its arsenal,
a bomb that could give his country the edge against
its enemies. Doc Adams sped home and penned a letter
(07:06):
to the White House describing his planned invention. While acknowledging
that the idea sounded strange, he promised that it would
be practical, inexpensive, and effective in his words, and Roosevelt agreed.
The President immediately greenlit the project, granting Doc Adams military
status and a multi million dollar budget. With no time
(07:26):
to waste, the former dentist got to work. His first
act was to assemble an eclectic team straight out of
a Hollywood heist film. There was a pilot, a former mobster,
a pair of US Marine brothers, a biologist, two teen
lab assistance, and a world famous Harvard chemist known for
inventing napalm. Most of the members were skeptical when they
(07:47):
first learned what Doc Adams had planned, but they all
signed on and moved to a high security Air Force
base in New Mexico. For the next two whole years,
they worked around the clock developing the top secret device,
which had been codenamed Project x RAY. Nothing like this
had ever been attempted before, and there were plenty of
kinks to work out. From the start, the project was
(08:07):
plagued by problems. Gathering the parts for the bomb they
wanted to make was especially challenging, and their volatile nature
made them difficult to work with. In one catastrophic incident,
six of the unfinished devices were triggered by mistake, sparking
a fire that destroyed the base's new airfield. Doc Adams
team was determined, though, and soon enough they had a
working prototype. The team tested the weapon on a simulated
(08:31):
Japanese village, which they had built just for this purpose,
and it worked. The village didn't just burn to the ground,
it was completely immolated. Based on that test, Doc Adams
team estimated that their device was twelve times more destructive
than the incendiary bombs the military was currently using. Despite
that success, Project x Ray hit a roadblock in nineteen
(08:52):
forty four, just as the team was getting ready to
enter mass production. After two years of an expensive war,
the military needed to make some cut and Doc learned
that they were about to choose between funding his device
or another experimental weapons project based out of New Mexico.
In the end, Project x Ray got the axe, the
team was disbanded, and the weapon was never used on
(09:13):
an enemy target. Because of that, few people know how
close the US came to using napalm equipped bats against
its enemy. Yeah, that was Doc's big idea. Capture millions
of Mexican high tail bats, fit them with tiny incendiary bombs,
and load them by the dozen into large canisters that
could be dropped from a plane. Once the shell plummeted
(09:33):
to four thousand feet, a parachute would trigger and the
shell would open. The bats would spread far and wide,
seeking out dark atticts and eaves to roost in, and
then a timer would trigger the bombs and the bats
would explode all at once. That kind of weapon could
have been especially catastrophic in the wooden cities of World
War II era Japan. It also would have been uniquely nightmarish.
(09:56):
Imagine your neighborhood burning to the ground while winged balls
of flame plung from the sky canceling. Doc adams project
prevented that image from becoming a reality and spared the
lives of millions of bats. In its place, though the
world got another kind of nightmare because Project x ray
lost its funding to another project with more promise, a
(10:17):
secret military program to develop the world's first atomic bomb,
the Manhattan Project. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
(10:37):
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 the Worldoflore dot com. And 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):
Many high achievers excel at more than one thing. Great
actors who are also karate masters or pro athletes with
degrees in chemistry. For example, legendary Queen guitarist Brian May
is also an astrophysicist. It makes sense that someone with
the drive to succeed at that level would be driven
to achieve even more. But sometimes a driven person doesn't
(00:59):
find some success but multiple failures. And in one curious
case from the Civil War era in America, a man
made a historic entire career out of being bad at
everything he set out to do. Daniel began his career
as a lawyer before getting elected to the House of
Representatives in eighteen fifty six. Pretty good for a guy
(01:19):
in his thirties, right, But he was also a notorious womanizer.
He brought sex workers into the congressional chambers and even
introduced one to Queen Victoria. So he wasn't much of
a congressman. But most infamously, he married the fifteen year
old daughter of one of his friends after getting her pregnant.
Her name was Teresa, and as you'd expect, he didn't
(01:40):
remain faithful to Teresa, but she felt no loyalty to
him either. With Daniel often away on business or having affairs,
Teresa was regularly escorted to social functions by her friend
Philip Barton Key. He was a prominent socialite, being the
son of Francis Scott Key, the writer of the Star
Spangled Banner. Before long, Teresa and Philip began an affair
(02:01):
of their own. The affair was one thing, obviously Daniel
was having affairs all the time, but Teresa's infidelity soon
became known throughout Washington. Daniel couldn't be seen as someone
who allowed this to go on, so he armed himself
and prepared to prove his manhood to the whole town.
Confronting Philip on the street, Daniel fired a shot into
Philip's groin. As the wounded man crawled away, Daniel fired again,
(02:25):
hitting Philip in the chest, killing him. It seems that
Daniel hadn't really thought past this point, though he was
now a murderer, which surely must have hurt his reputation
as much as his wife cheating on him. He was
a terrible congressman and a terrible husband. But Daniel, for
all his failures, wouldn't give up. He hired an excellent
lawyer who portrayed Daniel as the victim. He told the
(02:47):
jury a total sob story about how Daniel was completely
thrown by his wife's affair, how in a moment of
insanity he set out to kill Philip, not truly in
control of his own actions. And so the jury ruled
the Daniel wasn't guilty, marking the first successful temporary insanity
plea in US history. It's not an accomplishment to be
(03:07):
proud of, I know, but Daniel took it as a win,
then prepared to take on a new role, that of
a Civil War general. The war broke out in eighteen
sixty one and gave Daniel the opportunity to regain his
lost honor. By eighteen sixty three, he was a major
general leading a brigade at the Battle of Gettysburg. It
shows how at the time these positions were as much
(03:28):
about class as merit. Daniel was the only Civil War
general without a military education, but because he was from
the upper class, his friends were able to pull some
strings and put him in a leadership position, and once
again his desire for honor and glory outpaced his actual ability.
In an infamous moment from the battle, Daniel ordered his
(03:49):
men to take the high ground in a part of
the battlefield known as the peach Orchard. This went against
his own orders, but it seemed to him that the
high ground was always desirable, only in this case it
meant that his men were leaving a gap in the
line with the rest of the army, leaving them all
vulnerable to a charge from the enemy. Daniel's forces were devastated,
(04:10):
but for him, that wasn't even the worst of it.
He took a cannonball to the leg, shattering his tibia
and fibula, but even then this wasn't enough to keep
Daniel down. He had his leg amputated and donated the
shattered bones to the Army Medical Museum, and for years
afterward he would actually take his friends to see it
at the exhibit, bragging about his own bravery. At one
(04:32):
point none other than Samuel Clemens. The author Mark Twain,
was brought along on one of these tours. This led
Twain to remark, the General valued his lost leg away
above the one that is left. I am perfectly sure
that if he had to part with either of them,
he would part with the one that he has got.
Failed congressman, failed husband, and failed general. Instead of being
(04:55):
a high achiever, Daniel Sickles was a frequent failure, but
he always spun his failure years into personal wins. It
would be so inspiring if it weren't for the fact
that people died because of his mishaps. Curiously, Daniel did
go on to assist in reconstruction efforts, with mixed results
as always, Although his actions at the Battle of Gettysburg
(05:15):
were notorious, he was also instrumental in assuring that the
battlefield itself became a national park. Doctor Lytel Adams, or
(05:38):
Doc as he was known to his friends, was not
a mechanical engineer or a weapons manufacturer. He was a dentist,
and in December of nineteen forty one, he was on
a long overdue vacation in New Mexico. While exploring the
Carlsbad caverns. One evening, Doc Adams was treated to one
of the most incredible sights in the southwestern United States.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, the air filled
(06:00):
with chirps and chattering squeaks, and then the thrum of
tiny wings. He watched as millions of bats came pouring
out of the caves, taking to the sky in a chaotic,
screaming swarm. And this mesmerizing sight stuck with Doc Adams,
and he was still thinking about it a few days later.
During his long drive home to Pennsylvania. He had just
crossed out of New Mexico when the radio broadcast he
(06:23):
was listening to was interrupted by breaking news. Japan had
just launched a devastating attack on the US naval base
at Pearl Harbor. Thousands of Americans were dead or injured,
and rumors were already flying the Congress was going to
declare war. Doc Adams was so overwhelmed by the announcement
he had to pull over to process the news. At
sixty years old, there was no chance of being drafted himself,
(06:46):
but nevertheless, he found himself burning with a desire to contribute.
He had just started to wonder about the military's dentistry
needs when he was struck by an idea. He suddenly
imagined a weapon unlike anything the military had in its arsenal,
a bomb that could give his country the edge against
its enemies. Doc Adams sped home and penned a letter
(07:06):
to the White House describing his planned invention. While acknowledging
that the idea sounded strange, he promised that it would
be practical, inexpensive, and effective in his words, and Roosevelt agreed.
The President immediately greenlit the project, granting Doc Adams military
status and a multi million dollar budget. With no time
(07:26):
to waste, the former dentist got to work. His first
act was to assemble an eclectic team straight out of
a Hollywood heist film. There was a pilot, a former mobster,
a pair of US Marine brothers, a biologist, two teen
lab assistance, and a world famous Harvard chemist known for
inventing napalm. Most of the members were skeptical when they
(07:47):
first learned what Doc Adams had planned, but they all
signed on and moved to a high security Air Force
base in New Mexico. For the next two whole years,
they worked around the clock developing the top secret device,
which had been codenamed Project x RAY. Nothing like this
had ever been attempted before, and there were plenty of
kinks to work out. From the start, the project was
(08:07):
plagued by problems. Gathering the parts for the bomb they
wanted to make was especially challenging, and their volatile nature
made them difficult to work with. In one catastrophic incident,
six of the unfinished devices were triggered by mistake, sparking
a fire that destroyed the base's new airfield. Doc Adams
team was determined, though, and soon enough they had a
working prototype. The team tested the weapon on a simulated
(08:31):
Japanese village, which they had built just for this purpose,
and it worked. The village didn't just burn to the ground,
it was completely immolated. Based on that test, Doc Adams
team estimated that their device was twelve times more destructive
than the incendiary bombs the military was currently using. Despite
that success, Project x Ray hit a roadblock in nineteen
(08:52):
forty four, just as the team was getting ready to
enter mass production. After two years of an expensive war,
the military needed to make some cut and Doc learned
that they were about to choose between funding his device
or another experimental weapons project based out of New Mexico.
In the end, Project x Ray got the axe, the
team was disbanded, and the weapon was never used on
(09:13):
an enemy target. Because of that, few people know how
close the US came to using napalm equipped bats against
its enemy. Yeah, that was Doc's big idea. Capture millions
of Mexican high tail bats, fit them with tiny incendiary bombs,
and load them by the dozen into large canisters that
could be dropped from a plane. Once the shell plummeted
(09:33):
to four thousand feet, a parachute would trigger and the
shell would open. The bats would spread far and wide,
seeking out dark atticts and eaves to roost in, and
then a timer would trigger the bombs and the bats
would explode all at once. That kind of weapon could
have been especially catastrophic in the wooden cities of World
War II era Japan. It also would have been uniquely nightmarish.
(09:56):
Imagine your neighborhood burning to the ground while winged balls
of flame plung from the sky canceling. Doc adams project
prevented that image from becoming a reality and spared the
lives of millions of bats. In its place, though the
world got another kind of nightmare because Project x ray
lost its funding to another project with more promise, a
(10:17):
secret military program to develop the world's first atomic bomb,
the Manhattan Project. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
(10:37):
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 the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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