November 21, 2023 • 10 mins
Many of the curious things in history are only curious when compared to world around them, as these two stories suggest.
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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 right there on display, just waiting
for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
Everyone believes that their kids are special, but in August
of eighteen forty six, a couple in Nova Scotia, Canada,
had a truly extraordinary baby. Her name was Anna Heining Swan,
and she was born weighing sixteen pounds. To put that
in perspective, the average newborn weighs about seven pounds. Anna
Swan was huge, and it seems like she would never
(00:58):
stop growing. By the time when she was six years old,
Anna was taller than her mom. At eleven, she towered
over her dad too. She finally topped out at seventeen
years old, by which point she stood at a whopping
seven feet eleven inches tall and weighed over four hundred pounds.
As you might imagine being nearly eight feet tall, post
some logistical problems, especially in the eighteen hundreds, the world
(01:22):
just wasn't built to accommodate a person of Anna's size.
It was hard for her to get around, hard to
make friends, and practically impossible to get a job. That
is until she crossed paths with the famous circus master P. T. Barnum.
When Barnum saw Anna, he saw dollar signs. She was
exactly the kind of curiosity that people would pay money
(01:42):
to see. And if that sounds a little dehumanizing, well
it was, but it was also an opportunity that Anna
couldn't pass up. At seventeen years old, she moved from
Canada to New York, where she became a side show
at Barnum and Bailey's Museum. Five years later, P. T.
Barnum invited Anna on a nation War circus tour. Anna
probably had an inkling that traveling in the United States
(02:04):
would change her life, but she didn't realize just how much.
While performing in Kentucky in eighteen sixty eight, twenty two
year old Anna met a man. His name was Martin
Van Buren Bates, a Southerner through and through. He'd been
a Confederate captain in the Civil War, and he prided
himself on his chivalry, and Anna was smitten. It didn't
hurt that Martin was seven feet nine inches tall. The
(02:27):
towering pair hit it off. Before long, they were both
traveling with the circus, making a good living, and seeing
the nation together. Less than a year after they met,
they took a trip to London where they got married,
officially earning them the Guinness World Record for the tallest
married couple in history. Their nuptials made the news, of course,
and the couple skyrocketed to international fame. Queen Victoria herself
(02:50):
sent Anna and Martin a pair of watches made out
of diamonds and gold. In eighteen seventy one, the newly
minted Bates couple moved to the small town of Seville, Ohio,
where Martin set to work building a house. Everything had
to be scaled up from the average right. Their ceilings
were fourteen feet tall and each doorway measured at least
eight feet high. Their countertops had to be raised, their
(03:13):
chairs had to be extra large and extra strong. It
was a massive amount of work, but when it was
all said and done, Anna, who had never really fit anywhere,
finally had a place that fit her. But as beautiful
as their love story was, the Baits faced more than
their fair share of tragedy. Anna soon became pregnant and
gave birth to a girl who weighed eighteen pounds. That's
(03:35):
two more than Anna herself weighed as a newborn. Sadly,
the baby died almost immediately. The following year, Anna gave
birth to a second child, a boy they called Babe.
Babe was twenty eight inches long and weighed twenty two pounds.
In Martin's own words, he looked at birth like an
ordinary child of six months. This made Babe baits the
(03:56):
largest newborn in recorded history, but just like his he
didn't live long. Babe died just eleven hours after he
was born. Anna and Martin never had any more children
after that. They continued to tour with the circus until
eighteen eighty eight, when Anna passed away at forty one
years old. She left behind a legacy of truly gargantuan proportions,
(04:17):
with world records for both her marriage and her son
that haven't been surpassed in one hundred and fifty years. Martin,
of course, was devastated to lose the woman who had
taken up such a big space in his heart and
his life. He had a statue custom made to put
atop Anna's grave, It showed his wife as he saw her,
a fifteen foot tall Greek goddess. These days, life sized
(04:40):
replicas of Anna and Martin are on display at the Seville,
Ohio Historical Society. You can stand right next to the
curious couple, although if you want to see their faces,
you're gonna have to look up pretty far. In the
(05:06):
course of human history, the line between science and magic
has almost always been blurred. Take alchemy, for example, Aristotle
wanted to turn lead into gold. Nicholas Flamel, who was
a real person, by the way, sought the Philosopher's Stone.
These were learned men who indulged what we might consider
to be silly fantasies. But ancient alchemy wasn't a total wash.
(05:27):
In fact, the idea that one element can be transmuted
into another is central to our understanding of modern chemistry.
You see, things are usually only ever considered magical until
we understand how they work. That's why history is full
of scientists turned spiritualists who explore both the physical and
the metaphysical world. Among them are Marie Currie and her
(05:47):
husband Pierre. In nineteen oh three of the Curies were
awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their work researching radioactivity.
They were a scientific power couple. Marie was the first
woman to earn a doctorate degree in France and Pierre
was a professor of a prestigious university. But despite their achievements,
they were quick to admit how much they did not know.
(06:07):
In a joint statement from nineteen oh two, they said,
and I quote, we know little about the medium that
surrounds us, since our knowledge is limited to phenomena which
can affect our senses directly or indirectly. In other words,
Marie and Pierre left open the possibility that there were
forces in the world beyond human perception, and for much
(06:28):
of history, radioactivity was one of those forces. It was invisible,
it was powerful, It was in a word, magical. But
Marie and Pierre had harnessed that radioactive magic and begun
to understand it. They wanted to learn even more about
the world's unseen dimensions, which is why in nineteen oh
five they attended a seance with a renowned Italian medium
(06:50):
named Eusapia Palladino. Palladino's reputation preceded her. She was known
as one of the best psychics in Europe, and she
held seances with a number of scientists, including the French
physicist and astronomer Camille Flammarion. Palladino claimed that she could
summon spirits, make objects move without touching them, and directly
(07:11):
communicate with the dead. Now, not everyone believed in Palladino's power.
She'd actually been caught using her hands, feet, and even
hidden strings to move supposedly haunted objects in the past.
But nevertheless, when the self proclaimed psychic came to Paris,
the curies were curious and true to form, they approached
(07:31):
the seance scientifically. It wasn't the shadowy candlelight affair that
you might expect. Instead, the lights were bright. That way,
if Palladino tried to play any tricks, it would be
easy to see. People held down her hands and feet,
so she wouldn't be able to pull any secret strings.
And even with these precautions, things inside the seance room
got spooky. In a letter written to a friend, Pierre
(07:54):
said that he saw and I quote, tables raised from
all four legs, movement of object from a distance, hands
that pinch or caress you, and luminous apparitions. The curies
were so impressed by Palladino's abilities that they kept attending
her seances. Despite their initial skepticism, they couldn't find any
proof that the medium was faking it then, so Marie
(08:17):
and Pierre became some of her biggest supporters. The following year,
in nineteen oh six, Pierre wrote, these phenomena really exist,
and it is no longer possible for me to doubt it.
There is here, in my opinion, a whole domain of
entirely new facts and physical states in space of which
we have no conception. Thanks to Eusapia Palladino, the Nobel
(08:38):
Prize winning physicists became entirely convinced that magic in some
form was real. Just a few months after that, though,
Pierre suffered a sudden and heartbreaking death. He was walking
down a busy street in Paris when he slipped and fell,
and a horse drawn carriage rolled over him, killing him instantly.
In the wake of this horrible loss, Marie's grief seemed
(08:59):
to amplify her spiritual beliefs. Shortly after Pierre's death, she
wrote in her journal, then I quote, I put my
head against the coffin and I spoke to you. I
told you that I loved you, and that I had
always loved you with all my heart. It seemed to
me that from this cold contact of my forehead with
the casket, something came to me, something like a calm
and an intuition that I would yet find the courage
(09:22):
to live. Maybe, Marie continued, this feeling of calm was
energy coming from her late husband. She could feel his
love emanating even from beyond the grave. It was the
most beautiful kind of radiation, almost like magic. I hope
you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(09:45):
Subscribe for 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 so called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
you can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore dot com.
(10:08):
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 right there on display, just waiting
for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
Everyone believes that their kids are special, but in August
of eighteen forty six, a couple in Nova Scotia, Canada,
had a truly extraordinary baby. Her name was Anna Heining Swan,
and she was born weighing sixteen pounds. To put that
in perspective, the average newborn weighs about seven pounds. Anna
Swan was huge, and it seems like she would never
(00:58):
stop growing. By the time when she was six years old,
Anna was taller than her mom. At eleven, she towered
over her dad too. She finally topped out at seventeen
years old, by which point she stood at a whopping
seven feet eleven inches tall and weighed over four hundred pounds.
As you might imagine being nearly eight feet tall, post
some logistical problems, especially in the eighteen hundreds, the world
(01:22):
just wasn't built to accommodate a person of Anna's size.
It was hard for her to get around, hard to
make friends, and practically impossible to get a job. That
is until she crossed paths with the famous circus master P. T. Barnum.
When Barnum saw Anna, he saw dollar signs. She was
exactly the kind of curiosity that people would pay money
(01:42):
to see. And if that sounds a little dehumanizing, well
it was, but it was also an opportunity that Anna
couldn't pass up. At seventeen years old, she moved from
Canada to New York, where she became a side show
at Barnum and Bailey's Museum. Five years later, P. T.
Barnum invited Anna on a nation War circus tour. Anna
probably had an inkling that traveling in the United States
(02:04):
would change her life, but she didn't realize just how much.
While performing in Kentucky in eighteen sixty eight, twenty two
year old Anna met a man. His name was Martin
Van Buren Bates, a Southerner through and through. He'd been
a Confederate captain in the Civil War, and he prided
himself on his chivalry, and Anna was smitten. It didn't
hurt that Martin was seven feet nine inches tall. The
(02:27):
towering pair hit it off. Before long, they were both
traveling with the circus, making a good living, and seeing
the nation together. Less than a year after they met,
they took a trip to London where they got married,
officially earning them the Guinness World Record for the tallest
married couple in history. Their nuptials made the news, of course,
and the couple skyrocketed to international fame. Queen Victoria herself
(02:50):
sent Anna and Martin a pair of watches made out
of diamonds and gold. In eighteen seventy one, the newly
minted Bates couple moved to the small town of Seville, Ohio,
where Martin set to work building a house. Everything had
to be scaled up from the average right. Their ceilings
were fourteen feet tall and each doorway measured at least
eight feet high. Their countertops had to be raised, their
(03:13):
chairs had to be extra large and extra strong. It
was a massive amount of work, but when it was
all said and done, Anna, who had never really fit anywhere,
finally had a place that fit her. But as beautiful
as their love story was, the Baits faced more than
their fair share of tragedy. Anna soon became pregnant and
gave birth to a girl who weighed eighteen pounds. That's
(03:35):
two more than Anna herself weighed as a newborn. Sadly,
the baby died almost immediately. The following year, Anna gave
birth to a second child, a boy they called Babe.
Babe was twenty eight inches long and weighed twenty two pounds.
In Martin's own words, he looked at birth like an
ordinary child of six months. This made Babe baits the
(03:56):
largest newborn in recorded history, but just like his he
didn't live long. Babe died just eleven hours after he
was born. Anna and Martin never had any more children
after that. They continued to tour with the circus until
eighteen eighty eight, when Anna passed away at forty one
years old. She left behind a legacy of truly gargantuan proportions,
(04:17):
with world records for both her marriage and her son
that haven't been surpassed in one hundred and fifty years. Martin,
of course, was devastated to lose the woman who had
taken up such a big space in his heart and
his life. He had a statue custom made to put
atop Anna's grave, It showed his wife as he saw her,
a fifteen foot tall Greek goddess. These days, life sized
(04:40):
replicas of Anna and Martin are on display at the Seville,
Ohio Historical Society. You can stand right next to the
curious couple, although if you want to see their faces,
you're gonna have to look up pretty far. In the
(05:06):
course of human history, the line between science and magic
has almost always been blurred. Take alchemy, for example, Aristotle
wanted to turn lead into gold. Nicholas Flamel, who was
a real person, by the way, sought the Philosopher's Stone.
These were learned men who indulged what we might consider
to be silly fantasies. But ancient alchemy wasn't a total wash.
(05:27):
In fact, the idea that one element can be transmuted
into another is central to our understanding of modern chemistry.
You see, things are usually only ever considered magical until
we understand how they work. That's why history is full
of scientists turned spiritualists who explore both the physical and
the metaphysical world. Among them are Marie Currie and her
(05:47):
husband Pierre. In nineteen oh three of the Curies were
awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their work researching radioactivity.
They were a scientific power couple. Marie was the first
woman to earn a doctorate degree in France and Pierre
was a professor of a prestigious university. But despite their achievements,
they were quick to admit how much they did not know.
(06:07):
In a joint statement from nineteen oh two, they said,
and I quote, we know little about the medium that
surrounds us, since our knowledge is limited to phenomena which
can affect our senses directly or indirectly. In other words,
Marie and Pierre left open the possibility that there were
forces in the world beyond human perception, and for much
(06:28):
of history, radioactivity was one of those forces. It was invisible,
it was powerful, It was in a word, magical. But
Marie and Pierre had harnessed that radioactive magic and begun
to understand it. They wanted to learn even more about
the world's unseen dimensions, which is why in nineteen oh
five they attended a seance with a renowned Italian medium
(06:50):
named Eusapia Palladino. Palladino's reputation preceded her. She was known
as one of the best psychics in Europe, and she
held seances with a number of scientists, including the French
physicist and astronomer Camille Flammarion. Palladino claimed that she could
summon spirits, make objects move without touching them, and directly
(07:11):
communicate with the dead. Now, not everyone believed in Palladino's power.
She'd actually been caught using her hands, feet, and even
hidden strings to move supposedly haunted objects in the past.
But nevertheless, when the self proclaimed psychic came to Paris,
the curies were curious and true to form, they approached
(07:31):
the seance scientifically. It wasn't the shadowy candlelight affair that
you might expect. Instead, the lights were bright. That way,
if Palladino tried to play any tricks, it would be
easy to see. People held down her hands and feet,
so she wouldn't be able to pull any secret strings.
And even with these precautions, things inside the seance room
got spooky. In a letter written to a friend, Pierre
(07:54):
said that he saw and I quote, tables raised from
all four legs, movement of object from a distance, hands
that pinch or caress you, and luminous apparitions. The curies
were so impressed by Palladino's abilities that they kept attending
her seances. Despite their initial skepticism, they couldn't find any
proof that the medium was faking it then, so Marie
(08:17):
and Pierre became some of her biggest supporters. The following year,
in nineteen oh six, Pierre wrote, these phenomena really exist,
and it is no longer possible for me to doubt it.
There is here, in my opinion, a whole domain of
entirely new facts and physical states in space of which
we have no conception. Thanks to Eusapia Palladino, the Nobel
(08:38):
Prize winning physicists became entirely convinced that magic in some
form was real. Just a few months after that, though,
Pierre suffered a sudden and heartbreaking death. He was walking
down a busy street in Paris when he slipped and fell,
and a horse drawn carriage rolled over him, killing him instantly.
In the wake of this horrible loss, Marie's grief seemed
(08:59):
to amplify her spiritual beliefs. Shortly after Pierre's death, she
wrote in her journal, then I quote, I put my
head against the coffin and I spoke to you. I
told you that I loved you, and that I had
always loved you with all my heart. It seemed to
me that from this cold contact of my forehead with
the casket, something came to me, something like a calm
and an intuition that I would yet find the courage
(09:22):
to live. Maybe, Marie continued, this feeling of calm was
energy coming from her late husband. She could feel his
love emanating even from beyond the grave. It was the
most beautiful kind of radiation, almost like magic. I hope
you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(09:45):
Subscribe for 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 so called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
you can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore dot com.
(10:08):
And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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