May 4, 2021 • 9 mins
Some of the most curious stories are about things we assume we know really well. But there's always more to discover...isn't there?
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
I Heart Radio and Grim 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
(00:27):
of Curiosities. It was childish, really, the kind of schoolyard
name calling that might have involved mentions of someone's mother
or ugly shaved dogs walking backwards. I'm sure you can
recall a few from your own childhood, except the ones
(00:49):
hurling the insults weren't children, No far from it. They
were grown men fighting a war. During the Revolutionary War,
both the Americans and the British troops disparaged each other
with the most deprecating putdowns they could come up with.
It was war, after all, But instead of mere taunts,
both sides used ditties, simple songs with memorable, pointed lyrics.
(01:12):
You see, the American and British troops played fifes and
drums to signal battle, wake up, performed chores, and boost
the men's fighting morale. As they headed to battle, both
sides saying a variety of verses mocking the other. Each
had their favorite targets to Americans love to insult King
George the Third and the British love to insult the Americans.
(01:34):
For the British Red Coats, the melody They've Chosen had
been around for a couple hundred years or more, but
it was a quick witted British army doctor who is
credited with revising the lyrics from their soldiers came up
with even more verses, and the more degrading the better.
It became a kind of competition within their troops. The
title alone was meant to be as insulting as possible Yankee, Doodle, dandy,
(01:57):
and yes, we sing this as a patriotic song today,
despite the original meaning behind the words. During war, Yankee
was British slang for being an American rebel, whether derived
from a similar sounding Cherokee word meaning coward or a
Dutch word meaning little Johnny. Yankee wasn't meant as a compliment.
(02:18):
A doodle was a bumbling, sloppy fool, which is how
the primly dressed British Redcoats saw the Americans, and the
word dandy was an alternate word for a man obsessed
with clothing in the mid seventeen hundreds, The most flamboyant
and eccentrically dressed of these men were called Macaronis, which
had nothing to do with Italian pasta. Macaronis were part
(02:39):
of the British subculture who wore the tiniest of hats
upon the largest of wigs, loud and flashy waistcoats, bright hosiery,
and dainty shoes. In Britain, these men's suspected orientation was
nothing shorts of scandalous. In the song the bumbling American
road to Town on a pony instead of a real horse.
(02:59):
Lacking social grace or status, he placed a feather in
his hat and declared himself as fashionable as the Macaronies.
The innuendo was that the inept Americans couldn't even manage
to be a proper member of the gay community. In
April of seventeen seventy five, the British play the tune
from Boston to Lexington and Conquered. The battle with the
(03:21):
Americans didn't go in their favor, though, and as the
Red Coats hastily retreated, the drums, fife and singing played
back the perky tune once more, not from the British,
though the Americans now mocked them with their own rendition.
One officer condemned the act, claiming the Rebels had made
them dance until they were tired, and it wouldn't be
(03:42):
the last time either. After defeating the British at Saratoga
in seventeen seventy seven, the Americans repeatedly serenaded the Red
Coats with the song, causing an English officer to say
hearing the once degrading words sung back at them in
their moment of defeat was pure agony. The America Prikins
had turned the insult around, making the tune their victory song,
(04:04):
minimizing the mockery and disparaging the words meant as weapons.
As schoolyard insults went, the Rebels did a pretty good
job with that old I'm rubber and your glue technique.
The Americans sang it again at Yorktown, much to the
Red coats chagrin. The catchy Diddy became the state anthem
for Connecticut. Before long, the British came to loathe the
(04:25):
song they had written. It haunted them on every battlefield.
The Rebels even sang the song at Fort McHenry, while
Francis Scott Key wrote America's second national anthem, yes I
said second, because Yankee dood old Andy was America's first.
(04:55):
It was seen as the ugliest structure in Paris when
Gustav Eiffel's ought iron structure began construction in July of
eighteen eighties seven, over three hundred artists, sculptures, and fellow
architects petition the World's Fair Commission against the plan. It
looked like a giant black smokestack. They protested. The tower
would be a monstrosity so hideous and loathed that even
(05:17):
the commercially minded Americans wouldn't want it. Their complaints were ignored,
though that same commissioner helped choose Eiffel's design from over
one other entries in a contest for the chance to
build the centerpiece for the eighteen eighty nine Paris World's Fair,
and while the tower bears Gustav's name, it actually was
one of his employees who drew the original design. Guzdav
(05:40):
rejected the engineer's first submission, asking him to go back
and add more flourishes. At a thousand feet tall, the
Eiffel Tower became the world's tallest building. Over eighteen thousand
pieces of iron were used, each of the four corners
oriented with the four points of the compass, and for
opening day, the tower had been painted a reddish brown color.
(06:00):
While visitors from around the world marveled at the structure
during the fair, most Parisians considered it an isore. Novelist
guy du Mampasan reportedly ate his lunch at the tower's base,
the only place he could find where he could look
at the skyline and not see the tower. Since Eiffel
had paid eighty percent of the construction costs himself, the
city granted him twenty years to recoup his money before
(06:23):
tearing the tower down for scrap metal. For a small fee,
people could take an elevator to the third floor to
enjoy a view of the city. In the past, only
the wealthy could see Paris from such heights, and only
from a hot air balloon. Ten years after the World's Fair,
the tower was painted yellow to match the ever popular
style trends of the city. While the tower brought in
(06:44):
modest funds from visitors looking to view the world's most
romantic city, it wasn't enough to make the tower more useful,
Eiffel had a meteorology lab installed on the third floor,
buying the tower a little more time. In nineteen ten,
during World War One, the government granted Eiffel an extension.
The French found that the structure was useful to transmit
(07:05):
telegraphs to ships in the Atlantic Ocean. The tower was
also used to relay zeppelin alerts to dispatch troops reinforcements.
They found other uses for it too. In nineteen o nine,
Eiffel installed a wind tunnel at the tower's base. Companies
and inventors have run thousands of tests in that tunnel,
including the Wright Brothers airplanes. In nineteen eleven, a German
(07:25):
scientist used the tower to detect radiation levels known today
as cosmic rays. In fact, seventy two of the country's
most acclaimed scientists have their names engraved on the first
floor gallery. Daredevils have also taken to the tower, the
first in nineteen twelve, where a tailor attempted to fly
from the first floor tower using a spring loaded parachute.
(07:47):
He crashed, though he luckily survived. Fourteen years later, another
pilot attempted to fly between the four corners and died
when his plane became entangled in the aerial wire station
and burst into flames between nineteen twenty five. At nineteen
thirty six, the French automobile company Citron paid to use
the tower as a giant billboard. The lights on the
(08:09):
one hundred foot tall letters burned so bright that Charles
Lindbergh used the Eiffel Tower as a beacon to land
in Paris during his transatlantic solo flight of nineteen twenty seven.
In nineteen forty, the French cut the elevator cables to
the tower. The Germans who occupied Paris were forced to
climb the stairs to fly the Nazi flag from the top.
(08:29):
Hitler later ordered the tower destroyed, but his own general
disobeyed him. By nineteen fifty seven, television transmitters were attached
to the tower, and at last the tower was declared
a national treasure in nineteen sixty four. But it was
an event fifty years earlier in nineteen fourteen that helped
solidify the tower as a permanent structure, and it all
(08:52):
had to do with capturing a spy. That year, a
radio message was intercepted from the tower between Germany and Spain.
The details not only allowed the French to counter organize
an attack. They also captured and executed the notorious spy
Mata Harri. It's ironic, really, and more than a little curious.
Although millions visit the famous landmark every year for what
(09:15):
they can see, it was something invisible that ultimately saved
the Eiffel Tower from becoming scrap metal radio waves. 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 dot com. The show
(09:38):
was created by me Aaron Manky 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 World
of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
I Heart Radio and Grim 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
(00:27):
of Curiosities. It was childish, really, the kind of schoolyard
name calling that might have involved mentions of someone's mother
or ugly shaved dogs walking backwards. I'm sure you can
recall a few from your own childhood, except the ones
(00:49):
hurling the insults weren't children, No far from it. They
were grown men fighting a war. During the Revolutionary War,
both the Americans and the British troops disparaged each other
with the most deprecating putdowns they could come up with.
It was war, after all, But instead of mere taunts,
both sides used ditties, simple songs with memorable, pointed lyrics.
(01:12):
You see, the American and British troops played fifes and
drums to signal battle, wake up, performed chores, and boost
the men's fighting morale. As they headed to battle, both
sides saying a variety of verses mocking the other. Each
had their favorite targets to Americans love to insult King
George the Third and the British love to insult the Americans.
(01:34):
For the British Red Coats, the melody They've Chosen had
been around for a couple hundred years or more, but
it was a quick witted British army doctor who is
credited with revising the lyrics from their soldiers came up
with even more verses, and the more degrading the better.
It became a kind of competition within their troops. The
title alone was meant to be as insulting as possible Yankee, Doodle, dandy,
(01:57):
and yes, we sing this as a patriotic song today,
despite the original meaning behind the words. During war, Yankee
was British slang for being an American rebel, whether derived
from a similar sounding Cherokee word meaning coward or a
Dutch word meaning little Johnny. Yankee wasn't meant as a compliment.
(02:18):
A doodle was a bumbling, sloppy fool, which is how
the primly dressed British Redcoats saw the Americans, and the
word dandy was an alternate word for a man obsessed
with clothing in the mid seventeen hundreds, The most flamboyant
and eccentrically dressed of these men were called Macaronis, which
had nothing to do with Italian pasta. Macaronis were part
(02:39):
of the British subculture who wore the tiniest of hats
upon the largest of wigs, loud and flashy waistcoats, bright hosiery,
and dainty shoes. In Britain, these men's suspected orientation was
nothing shorts of scandalous. In the song the bumbling American
road to Town on a pony instead of a real horse.
(02:59):
Lacking social grace or status, he placed a feather in
his hat and declared himself as fashionable as the Macaronies.
The innuendo was that the inept Americans couldn't even manage
to be a proper member of the gay community. In
April of seventeen seventy five, the British play the tune
from Boston to Lexington and Conquered. The battle with the
(03:21):
Americans didn't go in their favor, though, and as the
Red Coats hastily retreated, the drums, fife and singing played
back the perky tune once more, not from the British,
though the Americans now mocked them with their own rendition.
One officer condemned the act, claiming the Rebels had made
them dance until they were tired, and it wouldn't be
(03:42):
the last time either. After defeating the British at Saratoga
in seventeen seventy seven, the Americans repeatedly serenaded the Red
Coats with the song, causing an English officer to say
hearing the once degrading words sung back at them in
their moment of defeat was pure agony. The America Prikins
had turned the insult around, making the tune their victory song,
(04:04):
minimizing the mockery and disparaging the words meant as weapons.
As schoolyard insults went, the Rebels did a pretty good
job with that old I'm rubber and your glue technique.
The Americans sang it again at Yorktown, much to the
Red coats chagrin. The catchy Diddy became the state anthem
for Connecticut. Before long, the British came to loathe the
(04:25):
song they had written. It haunted them on every battlefield.
The Rebels even sang the song at Fort McHenry, while
Francis Scott Key wrote America's second national anthem, yes I
said second, because Yankee dood old Andy was America's first.
(04:55):
It was seen as the ugliest structure in Paris when
Gustav Eiffel's ought iron structure began construction in July of
eighteen eighties seven, over three hundred artists, sculptures, and fellow
architects petition the World's Fair Commission against the plan. It
looked like a giant black smokestack. They protested. The tower
would be a monstrosity so hideous and loathed that even
(05:17):
the commercially minded Americans wouldn't want it. Their complaints were ignored,
though that same commissioner helped choose Eiffel's design from over
one other entries in a contest for the chance to
build the centerpiece for the eighteen eighty nine Paris World's Fair,
and while the tower bears Gustav's name, it actually was
one of his employees who drew the original design. Guzdav
(05:40):
rejected the engineer's first submission, asking him to go back
and add more flourishes. At a thousand feet tall, the
Eiffel Tower became the world's tallest building. Over eighteen thousand
pieces of iron were used, each of the four corners
oriented with the four points of the compass, and for
opening day, the tower had been painted a reddish brown color.
(06:00):
While visitors from around the world marveled at the structure
during the fair, most Parisians considered it an isore. Novelist
guy du Mampasan reportedly ate his lunch at the tower's base,
the only place he could find where he could look
at the skyline and not see the tower. Since Eiffel
had paid eighty percent of the construction costs himself, the
city granted him twenty years to recoup his money before
(06:23):
tearing the tower down for scrap metal. For a small fee,
people could take an elevator to the third floor to
enjoy a view of the city. In the past, only
the wealthy could see Paris from such heights, and only
from a hot air balloon. Ten years after the World's Fair,
the tower was painted yellow to match the ever popular
style trends of the city. While the tower brought in
(06:44):
modest funds from visitors looking to view the world's most
romantic city, it wasn't enough to make the tower more useful,
Eiffel had a meteorology lab installed on the third floor,
buying the tower a little more time. In nineteen ten,
during World War One, the government granted Eiffel an extension.
The French found that the structure was useful to transmit
(07:05):
telegraphs to ships in the Atlantic Ocean. The tower was
also used to relay zeppelin alerts to dispatch troops reinforcements.
They found other uses for it too. In nineteen o nine,
Eiffel installed a wind tunnel at the tower's base. Companies
and inventors have run thousands of tests in that tunnel,
including the Wright Brothers airplanes. In nineteen eleven, a German
(07:25):
scientist used the tower to detect radiation levels known today
as cosmic rays. In fact, seventy two of the country's
most acclaimed scientists have their names engraved on the first
floor gallery. Daredevils have also taken to the tower, the
first in nineteen twelve, where a tailor attempted to fly
from the first floor tower using a spring loaded parachute.
(07:47):
He crashed, though he luckily survived. Fourteen years later, another
pilot attempted to fly between the four corners and died
when his plane became entangled in the aerial wire station
and burst into flames between nineteen twenty five. At nineteen
thirty six, the French automobile company Citron paid to use
the tower as a giant billboard. The lights on the
(08:09):
one hundred foot tall letters burned so bright that Charles
Lindbergh used the Eiffel Tower as a beacon to land
in Paris during his transatlantic solo flight of nineteen twenty seven.
In nineteen forty, the French cut the elevator cables to
the tower. The Germans who occupied Paris were forced to
climb the stairs to fly the Nazi flag from the top.
(08:29):
Hitler later ordered the tower destroyed, but his own general
disobeyed him. By nineteen fifty seven, television transmitters were attached
to the tower, and at last the tower was declared
a national treasure in nineteen sixty four. But it was
an event fifty years earlier in nineteen fourteen that helped
solidify the tower as a permanent structure, and it all
(08:52):
had to do with capturing a spy. That year, a
radio message was intercepted from the tower between Germany and Spain.
The details not only allowed the French to counter organize
an attack. They also captured and executed the notorious spy
Mata Harri. It's ironic, really, and more than a little curious.
Although millions visit the famous landmark every year for what
(09:15):
they can see, it was something invisible that ultimately saved
the Eiffel Tower from becoming scrap metal radio waves. 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 dot com. The show
(09:38):
was created by me Aaron Manky 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 World
of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.