February 27, 2025 • 9 mins
Two pairs of men on two very different journeys. Both, however, feature curious endings.
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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):
History is full of stories about aviation. It seems there's
no industry that quite inspires the imagination like that of flight.
More than ever since the days of commercial aviation in
the early twentieth century, air travel has unlocked parts of
the world that would have seemed impossibly distant in the
days of ships and trains. The average person was now
(00:56):
a global citizen, rather than being trapped on their home
come continent, which is one reason why airplanes are a marvel.
But they can also be an escape. On July tenth
of nineteen seventy seven, a plane took off from the
city of Petrozovodsk, at the time part of the Soviet Union.
It was bound for Leningrad with around seventy passengers on board,
(01:16):
a perfectly ordinary flight. However, two of the passengers aboard
had other plans. Once the plane was in the air,
they revealed themselves to be armed and took the entire
plane hostage. They demanded that the plane take them to Stockholm,
out of the Soviet territory. The pilots, concerned for the
safety of themselves and the passengers, did what they could,
diverting the plane west on top of their guns. It
(01:39):
seemed that the two young men also had a grenade,
which put everyone at serious risk even if they could
overwhelm the hijackers. The two men responsible were named Alexander
and Ganadi. One was nineteen years old and the other
was twenty two. They were convinced that their plan was
going to go off without a hitch and no one
was going to be hurt, that is until the pilots
(02:00):
informed them about the plane's fuel levels. It seems that
the plane had been fueled for their original trip, but
the distance to Stockholm was much longer than the distance
to their original destination. Their plane just didn't have enough
fuel to make the trip full stop, so the hijackers
agreed to a compromise. The plane diverted to another Scandinavian airport, Helsinki, Finland.
(02:23):
There they would refuel replace the Soviet crew and complete
the rest of the journey. They both assumed that they
would serve time for hijacking when they arrived in Sweden,
but wouldn't be extradited, which was good enough for both
of them, a worthy price to pay for escaping the
Soviet Union. The plane landed and in a gesture of goodwill,
Alexander and Gennady allowed almost all of the passengers to deplane,
(02:47):
holding back only a handful of people to serve as hostages.
They issued their demands using the airplane's radio, and then
they would wait, and wait and wait. Surely there were
conversations happening on the other end. The Finnish government must
be preparing to negotiate or provide the hijackers what they wanted.
But in the cold confines of the plane, minutes stretched
(03:08):
into hours, and after hours of waiting, the two men
fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. The hostages on board, realizing
what had happened, quickly left. When Alexander and Gnnedy woke up,
they realized that they had been left alone on an
empty plane. Worse this, playing was trapped in a country
that still had an extradition treaty with the Soviet Union.
(03:30):
Having no bargaining chips left, both men turned themselves in
and were subsequently sent back to Russia. Their plans for
their grand escape all amounted to nothing, and both men
were eventually given relatively brief prison sentences fifteen years for one,
seven for the other. In the aftermath of the hijacking,
the Finnish authorities realized that the two hijackers were not
(03:51):
nearly as dangerous as they had made themselves out to be.
The grenade they had brandished was not even a real explosive,
but a dummy grenade bade for training purposes. But the
cherry on top of this story is the global impact
of the hijacking. There was none. Although it was a
shocking and dramatic event in the lives of the airplane passengers,
(04:11):
it barely warranted mention in the international news. There were
two other plane hijackings that week, and this incident was
the most benign of them all. Nobody was hurt, and
the hostages weren't trying to shock the world with a
political message. They were just trying to relocate from one
country to another. And if they hadn't been so tired,
maybe they could have done it. It just goes to
(04:32):
show it's always possible to sleep on an airplane, even
in the most stressful of conditions. Unless you are one,
(04:54):
it can be difficult to wrap your head around the
unique connection that twins share. After all, when you're literally
born as half of a set, it's almost inevitable that
that relationship will come to define who you are. That
was definitely the case for the Colorado Brothers, a pair
of seventeenth century twins whose unique bond saved both their lives.
(05:15):
Their names were Lazarus and John Baptista, and they were
born in Genoa, Italy, in sixteen seventeen. From the moment
they took their first breaths, the pair were inseparable. Unfortunately,
while Lazarus was healthy, John Baptista suffered from medical complications
from birth. His body never fully developed and his head
grew to an abnormally large size due to a condition
(05:37):
that prevented his skull from draining cerebral spinal fluid. He
also struggled to open his eyes or eat without assistance,
making it impossible for John Baptista to live on his own.
The good news was he had Lazarus, the healthier twin,
was always by his side. Caring for him, feeding him,
and cleaning his little brother. By working together, they managed
(05:58):
to live a mostly normal life, although John Baptista's condition
brought on a mountain of medical bills. Eventually money became
so tight the brothers had to get creative. While they
were in their early twenties, the pair embarked on a
tour of Europe and Turkey. They traveled from town to town,
supporting themselves by performing as a sort of circus act.
(06:19):
Lazarus was the showman and John Baptista was the show Now.
As you would probably expect, this career choice forced the
brothers to swallow a lot of pride. Their advertisements depicted
John Baptista as a malformed monster, playing up the visual
contrast between the two twins. They even leaned into this
by having John Baptiste to grow a haggard, grizzly beard. Lazarus,
(06:43):
on the other hand, appeared as a well dressed gentleman.
The show kept them afloat for several years, while the
constant travel brought opportunities for John Baptista to see medical
experts from all across Europe. In sixteen thirty eight, they
were making their way through France when their trip was
brought to an abrupt halt. One night after the show,
(07:03):
the brothers were drinking at a local tavern when a
barfly noticed John Baptista. The drunk man laughed at his
unusual appearance and began to taunt him with crude insults.
Lazarus flew to his brother's aid, hurling insults of his own.
The situation escalated rapidly, and a brawl broke out. In
the chaos, Lazarus grabbed a bottle of wine from behind
(07:25):
the counter and brought it crashing down on the other
man's head. The bottle shattered, and the drunk collapsed, with
blood seeping from the gash in his skull. He was
immediately rushed to the hospital, but soon died. After arriving,
Lazarus was arrested, charged with murder, and hauled before the
local judge. Realizing that he would face the death penalty,
(07:46):
Lazarus made a desperate plea. He begged the judge not
to separate him from his twin brother, explaining just how
much John Baptista depended on him. They had been together
since birth and separating them would be more than simply cruel,
it would be a death sentence not just for him,
but for his brother, who relied on him for virtually everything.
(08:06):
He insisted that executing him would also be a death
sentence for his brother, and this was literally true, since
the twins shared several vital organs. The Colorados you see
weren't just brothers. They were conjoined twins, with John's lower
body attached to Lazarus's torso. The state of medicine during
the seventeenth century meant that surgically separating the twins had
(08:28):
never been a realistic option, and while that fact made
life in pre enlightenment Europe extremely difficult, it now became
their saving grace. The judge relented and ordered their release,
since there was no way to punish Lazarus without also
harming his brother. Lazarus walked out of the courtroom a
free man, and as always, his brother, John Baptista was
(08:52):
right at his side. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
tour of the Cabin of Curiosities. 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
(09:14):
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):
History is full of stories about aviation. It seems there's
no industry that quite inspires the imagination like that of flight.
More than ever since the days of commercial aviation in
the early twentieth century, air travel has unlocked parts of
the world that would have seemed impossibly distant in the
days of ships and trains. The average person was now
(00:56):
a global citizen, rather than being trapped on their home
come continent, which is one reason why airplanes are a marvel.
But they can also be an escape. On July tenth
of nineteen seventy seven, a plane took off from the
city of Petrozovodsk, at the time part of the Soviet Union.
It was bound for Leningrad with around seventy passengers on board,
(01:16):
a perfectly ordinary flight. However, two of the passengers aboard
had other plans. Once the plane was in the air,
they revealed themselves to be armed and took the entire
plane hostage. They demanded that the plane take them to Stockholm,
out of the Soviet territory. The pilots, concerned for the
safety of themselves and the passengers, did what they could,
diverting the plane west on top of their guns. It
(01:39):
seemed that the two young men also had a grenade,
which put everyone at serious risk even if they could
overwhelm the hijackers. The two men responsible were named Alexander
and Ganadi. One was nineteen years old and the other
was twenty two. They were convinced that their plan was
going to go off without a hitch and no one
was going to be hurt, that is until the pilots
(02:00):
informed them about the plane's fuel levels. It seems that
the plane had been fueled for their original trip, but
the distance to Stockholm was much longer than the distance
to their original destination. Their plane just didn't have enough
fuel to make the trip full stop, so the hijackers
agreed to a compromise. The plane diverted to another Scandinavian airport, Helsinki, Finland.
(02:23):
There they would refuel replace the Soviet crew and complete
the rest of the journey. They both assumed that they
would serve time for hijacking when they arrived in Sweden,
but wouldn't be extradited, which was good enough for both
of them, a worthy price to pay for escaping the
Soviet Union. The plane landed and in a gesture of goodwill,
Alexander and Gennady allowed almost all of the passengers to deplane,
(02:47):
holding back only a handful of people to serve as hostages.
They issued their demands using the airplane's radio, and then
they would wait, and wait and wait. Surely there were
conversations happening on the other end. The Finnish government must
be preparing to negotiate or provide the hijackers what they wanted.
But in the cold confines of the plane, minutes stretched
(03:08):
into hours, and after hours of waiting, the two men
fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. The hostages on board, realizing
what had happened, quickly left. When Alexander and Gnnedy woke up,
they realized that they had been left alone on an
empty plane. Worse this, playing was trapped in a country
that still had an extradition treaty with the Soviet Union.
(03:30):
Having no bargaining chips left, both men turned themselves in
and were subsequently sent back to Russia. Their plans for
their grand escape all amounted to nothing, and both men
were eventually given relatively brief prison sentences fifteen years for one,
seven for the other. In the aftermath of the hijacking,
the Finnish authorities realized that the two hijackers were not
(03:51):
nearly as dangerous as they had made themselves out to be.
The grenade they had brandished was not even a real explosive,
but a dummy grenade bade for training purposes. But the
cherry on top of this story is the global impact
of the hijacking. There was none. Although it was a
shocking and dramatic event in the lives of the airplane passengers,
(04:11):
it barely warranted mention in the international news. There were
two other plane hijackings that week, and this incident was
the most benign of them all. Nobody was hurt, and
the hostages weren't trying to shock the world with a
political message. They were just trying to relocate from one
country to another. And if they hadn't been so tired,
maybe they could have done it. It just goes to
(04:32):
show it's always possible to sleep on an airplane, even
in the most stressful of conditions. Unless you are one,
(04:54):
it can be difficult to wrap your head around the
unique connection that twins share. After all, when you're literally
born as half of a set, it's almost inevitable that
that relationship will come to define who you are. That
was definitely the case for the Colorado Brothers, a pair
of seventeenth century twins whose unique bond saved both their lives.
(05:15):
Their names were Lazarus and John Baptista, and they were
born in Genoa, Italy, in sixteen seventeen. From the moment
they took their first breaths, the pair were inseparable. Unfortunately,
while Lazarus was healthy, John Baptista suffered from medical complications
from birth. His body never fully developed and his head
grew to an abnormally large size due to a condition
(05:37):
that prevented his skull from draining cerebral spinal fluid. He
also struggled to open his eyes or eat without assistance,
making it impossible for John Baptista to live on his own.
The good news was he had Lazarus, the healthier twin,
was always by his side. Caring for him, feeding him,
and cleaning his little brother. By working together, they managed
(05:58):
to live a mostly normal life, although John Baptista's condition
brought on a mountain of medical bills. Eventually money became
so tight the brothers had to get creative. While they
were in their early twenties, the pair embarked on a
tour of Europe and Turkey. They traveled from town to town,
supporting themselves by performing as a sort of circus act.
(06:19):
Lazarus was the showman and John Baptista was the show Now.
As you would probably expect, this career choice forced the
brothers to swallow a lot of pride. Their advertisements depicted
John Baptista as a malformed monster, playing up the visual
contrast between the two twins. They even leaned into this
by having John Baptiste to grow a haggard, grizzly beard. Lazarus,
(06:43):
on the other hand, appeared as a well dressed gentleman.
The show kept them afloat for several years, while the
constant travel brought opportunities for John Baptista to see medical
experts from all across Europe. In sixteen thirty eight, they
were making their way through France when their trip was
brought to an abrupt halt. One night after the show,
(07:03):
the brothers were drinking at a local tavern when a
barfly noticed John Baptista. The drunk man laughed at his
unusual appearance and began to taunt him with crude insults.
Lazarus flew to his brother's aid, hurling insults of his own.
The situation escalated rapidly, and a brawl broke out. In
the chaos, Lazarus grabbed a bottle of wine from behind
(07:25):
the counter and brought it crashing down on the other
man's head. The bottle shattered, and the drunk collapsed, with
blood seeping from the gash in his skull. He was
immediately rushed to the hospital, but soon died. After arriving,
Lazarus was arrested, charged with murder, and hauled before the
local judge. Realizing that he would face the death penalty,
(07:46):
Lazarus made a desperate plea. He begged the judge not
to separate him from his twin brother, explaining just how
much John Baptista depended on him. They had been together
since birth and separating them would be more than simply cruel,
it would be a death sentence not just for him,
but for his brother, who relied on him for virtually everything.
(08:06):
He insisted that executing him would also be a death
sentence for his brother, and this was literally true, since
the twins shared several vital organs. The Colorados you see
weren't just brothers. They were conjoined twins, with John's lower
body attached to Lazarus's torso. The state of medicine during
the seventeenth century meant that surgically separating the twins had
(08:28):
never been a realistic option, and while that fact made
life in pre enlightenment Europe extremely difficult, it now became
their saving grace. The judge relented and ordered their release,
since there was no way to punish Lazarus without also
harming his brother. Lazarus walked out of the courtroom a
free man, and as always, his brother, John Baptista was
(08:52):
right at his side. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
tour of the Cabin of Curiosities. 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
(09:14):
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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