Everyone wants to leave their mark on the world. How some folks have managed to do that, though, is more than curious.
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welcomed, Erin, monkeys, cabinet of curiosity, is a production of iheart radio and grim and mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable
history is an open book. All of these
his amazing tales are right there on display just waiting for
us to explore, welcome to the cabinet of curiosities
If you're afraid
a true crime documentaries. You know a lot of stories follow a similar pattern. A killer is caught, convicted and carted off the prison to serve a life sentence. Rare
They do. We hear stories about what happens after someone goes to jail, but there's one man whose famous for what he accomplished behind bars his
work, which was all done well. He lived in solitary confinement, cemented him as one of histories, most prolific self taught site
and had earned him the nickname, the bird man of alcatraz. His real name was robert Stroud. He was born in,
at a washington and eighteen ninety, but he dropped them.
School and ran away to alaska when he was just thirteen years old and while he did not walk the straight and narrow
the nineteen o nine eighteen year old robert killed a man in a bar fight. He put guilty demand slaughter and was sentenced to twelve years in prison. He
I spent three years at mcneil island before being transferred to leavenworth a facility notorious for it's poor living conditions and cruel treatment of inmates. Robert hated leavenworth. He was known amongst the staff as a problem, and he definitely was the nineteen sixteen when he was twenty six years old robert stabbed then kill the prison.
hard. As you might imagine, actions like this were generally frowned upon than in roberts case. They landed him on death row, but in a strange twist, then president woodrow Wilson commuted robert sentenced to life, which I'm sure seemed wonderful to roberts at first, but the problem was there was a huge catch. Robert would spend the rest of us
days in solitary confinement. He was only allowed to leave a cell once a day for exercise in a private prison yard. It was during one of these exercise breaks that Robert found a birds nest inside were three injured. Baby can
for whatever reason, maybe sympathy, maybe boredom robert smuggle the baby birds back to a cell. He gave them water,
food from his own meagre rations. Now these canaries didn't stay secret for long. The sound of their chirping filled the hall where Robert lived, but the warden thought. Maybe these feathered friends could be good company for the inmates, so he allowed robert to keep them with nothing to do except sit in his cell and care for his birds. Robber became really interested in ornithology, which is a fancy word for bird science,
Yes, the warden for some ornithology textbooks and the warden who noticed that roberts behaviour had become much better since he got these pets happily obliged. Now,
even though Robert only had a great school education. He read the books front to back and law
and everything he possibly could about birds, biology and behaviour. Over the next few years he bread his canaries, going from three birds to over three hundred solitary confinement
of a sudden. Wasn't so solitary any more. As you might imagine, these many canaries posed a logistical problem. Robert cell was cramped with homemade birdcages, not to mention the smell,
which permeated the entire hallway still the warden, continued to allow it. But then roberts encountered a problem. One of his birds fell ill using his text books. He diagnosed his pet with aid that cereal infection, known as avian hemorrhagic cept. To see me, it was a contagious disease and before long started spreading to his other boys
avian hemorrhagic, set to see me. I had no known cure, but Robert had been living in solitary confinement for years with no friends except his canaries wasn't going to sit by and let his beloved birds die. He asked the warden for laboratory equipment and various chemicals and again the warden said yes, Robert turn. His cell
into a science lab and after much trial and error and many canary funerals, he did it. He created a cure robert later published his findings and wrote to full length books on ornithology and in the process. He cemented himself as one of the world's foremost ornithological experts, all from inside his prison cell. Obviously, Robert Stroud wasn't perfect. He was later caught using that same lab equipment to distil alcohol. The warden could place so much trust in him felt betrayed as a punishment. Robert was trend
for two alcatraz, which is where he got his nickname. But, despite being called the bird man of alcatraz, he wasn't actually allowed to bring any of his canaries with him. Robert shroud passed away in nineteen sixty three. He spent a total of fifty four years incarcerated and forty two of those were spent in solitary confinement. The bird man of alcatraz left behind a complicated legacy, but still he's a testament to what you can accomplish
when you have determination, a dream and a whole lot of free time on your hands.
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everyone wants to leave their mark on the world, something that stays behind long,
after your gun. Most of us have seen cave paintings and
it being hunted and little handprints left by people who are deep in the ground. But there are other examples that really get
the heart of how weird and funny humanity is and how we have fundamentally always been the same. The tombs of ancient egyptian kings are littered with thousands of pieces of ancient graffiti from ye old tourists
lean one inscription from a disgruntled roman that red I visited, and I did not like anything except the sarcophagus in moments of stress boredom or maybe both people get fidgety and they tend to doodle in war zones. There are significantly fewer notebook margins available, but docks chunks of destroyed buildings and bark.
Her tops are still open for one or two little pieces scribbling for soldiers in the atlantic and pacific theatre stirring war war too. There was a shocking him on a time between pushes so they started to play a game
there's some debate over how and where it started, something that it was a shipyard in Massachusetts that was churning out ships for the war effort. According to that,
story. There was an inspector in the yard who had to check that the rivets were functioning properly, often climbing down into tight spaces and leaving check marks. As he went one day, the inspector realised that someone was tampering with his check marks. Workers knew that if inspectors had to come back a second time, their pay would be increased after thinking for a wild, he devised a new system, something a little more
personal and permanence. The inspector begin marking has completed checks with a spray. Can
you mean his own name behind soon kilroy was here, was stamped on hundreds of pieces of machinery soldiers across the atlantic and pacific where
being introduced to kilroy, then without knowing the original meaning decided to make it their own inside joke. Kilroy was here complete with the little due to them.
Began appearing anywhere and everywhere. This is only one version of kill, rice origins. Other accounts, though, point to a man named Francis J kilroy junior from florida
who was very sick. According to the story, he wrote kilroy,
be here next week on the wall of his barracks. But what's more interesting is that other countries
their own versions of kilroy australian soldiers had food during war war. One also a big knows: cartoon peeking. Over a wall. Mr Chad appeared in england with his own nose come
from the greek symbol for omega, where
ever, he really came from kilroy became an integral part of world war, two a meme that spread from soldier to soldier and country to country in moments of lonely isolation. A little joe
from home could go a long way. It's hard to believe such an innocent little drawing would draw the attention of hitler or stolen, and when I say kilroy was everywhere, I mean it's: the ruins of cities, the insides and outsides of tanks painted on airplanes; Andy ordinance fired. Yes, that's right. Some manufacturers with a sense of humor started slapping kilroy on air force, missiles that were being launched against the nazis. Now the rested a story might be more fiction, in fact, but I think you will agree that it's too good a story not to pass up over the course of the war. Kilroy became a sign of hope for allied forces, especially after they started, making breakthroughs further into access territory.
the more kilroy were there. The more americans were there for the nazis, however killer I became something more sinister, apparently hitler and several other high raking nazis wondered if kilroy was
kind of an american spy. Our James bond, his signature, seem to be everywhere discovered right before or right. After a massive alight attack
It seems reasonable to assume he was a super soldier or a master spy who had infiltrated access territory according to one story which
may or may not be exaggerated, hitler
Even ordered a contingent of soldiers to track down the american, but shockingly no one
found kilroy Stalin shared their paranoia. Two apparently at the
at the conference in germany, american forces had to use the bathroom and indeed time honoured tradition, dude old, on the wall of the stall, when the great man himself had to use them
he was on amused to discover. Kilroy had already made it their first, allegedly. He told his officials
fine, whoever it was responsible and do away with them. Kilroy is still everywhere. If you know where to look stories place him at the ark, the triumphant, paris, on MT everest at the great wall of china and even on the moon. Now those are all
confirm tall tales, of course, but there's one place I know you'll find him. If you look, you see if you visit
the war were to memorial in Washington dc you'll find monuments to those that served in the atlantic and pacific and in two different spots you can see a little bald head
peering over a wall remained.
everyone that kilroy was there,
I hope you enjoy today's guided tour of the cabinet of curiosities subscribe for free
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don't stay curious.
Transcript generated on 2023-11-11.