Bear With Me

simply typing the word first. But there's a smaller club of people who found themselves in the right place at the right time, giving them a chance to be the very first to experience something foundational, something most people take for granted. And George was one of those people. Now, I could tell you that George was born in eighteen sixty five in Michigan. I could tell you that he graduated from the United States Military Academy and received a

pH d from JOHNS. Hopkins in eighteen ninety three. I could tell you all sorts of biographical details, but honestly, none of those will be as exciting to you as what happened to him in nineteen o eight, a year Earlier, in nineteen o seven, George was part of a small group of military officials who established the Aeronautical Division of the U. S. Signal Corps. It was a branch of

the military that focused entirely on heavier than air flight. Naturally, they were very interested in the work of the Wright Brothers, who had managed to succeed at powered flight back in nineteen o three. After their victory at Kitty Hawk, the Wright Brothers toiled away on newer and better versions of their planes Think iron Man, constantly tinkering with improvements and additions,

and never fully satisfied with the status quo. But by nineteen o eight they had something they were willing to sell, and George's group in the U. S. Military wanted to buy it. On September twelfth of nineteen o eight, George found himself inside one of those planes, the Right Flyer, as it flew over the Earth, and in doing so he became one of the first passengers to ever ride in an airplane, and certainly the first member of the

military to do so. After that, he worked hard to seal the deal buying the first airplanes for the U. S. Army. Not bad for a bragworthy first, right Today, someone like George would roll that experience into a popular Instagram account and become an influencer. Back in the early nineteen hundreds, though, it was just part of his job and there was plenty more to do, because, you see, George was more than a military officer. He was an inventor as well.

Years earlier, he had helped invent a device called the Magneto optical street camera. It was used to measure the speed of projectiles. He also dabbled in studies of electricity, radio waves, and the telegraph system, and in nineteen ten he developed a new technology for the telephone, allowing a single telephone cable to carry multiple phone calls at once, rather than just one at a time. But his biggest legacy is probably one you've never noticed, even if it's

always been there. You see, back in nineteen eleven, he took that idea about multiple calls on a single telephone line and adapted it for radio signals. Basically, he figured out how to send multiple signals over a single electrical line, and he called it wired wireless. It was revolutionary. When most people think of radio today, they think of radio waves passing invisibly through the air, and to switch stations you needed to tune your receiver to a different frequency.

But back in the nineteen twenties that was expensive and it required a lot of complicated equipment. George's invention promised to get around all that though, using a customer's own electrical line, a whole range of stations could be hyped directly into their location, and by the early nineteen thirties, the ideal customer for his product was the thousands of businesses all around America. It was music uninterrupted by flakey radio waves for an inexpensive monthly charge. It was cable TV,

but for radio. Long before cable TV was ever a thing. Of course, the typical radio world grew and expanded quickly, making George's invention less and less necessary. But despite that, there always seemed to be a need for reliable, consistent, always on music in certain types of businesses, namely restaurants and hotels. After all, elevators weren't very friendly to radio waves,

but George's wired radio worked perfectly. Today, his invention is giving way to internet radio, still sold by subscription and transmitted over cables like George envisioned a century ago. But despite the product itself fading into the past, George Owen squares name War, it seemed to have embedded itself into popular culture as the epitome of boring instrumental music you might encounter in an elevator his company music. There is a great, big world out there with wonders just waiting

to be discovered. For European men of wealth in the seventeenth and eighteen centuries, those wonders were often seen during a trip known as the Grand Tour. The Grand Tour was a rite of passage for young men coming of age. They would travel throughout Europe and even into Asia, learning about art and music, studying new language, and doing braggworthy things like climbing the Alps. But it wasn't all academic. In fact, as the practice wore on, it became more

of a shopping trip than an educational expedition. Rich men from England and Ireland would purchase our works and objects from far away and bring them home to show off to their peers. This was how other cultures worked their way into European architectural styles and art movements. But the trips weren't just about material possessions. They were also about

seeing things you could only read about in books. Of course, all good things must come to an end, and grand tours usually lasted just a few months to a couple of years at the most. But there was a path for those who wanted to extend their grand tours and spend their lives traveling the world, taking in new sites. They went into the priesthood. That was the path Arthur O'Leary took during the seventeen hundreds. O'Leary was born in

seventeen twenty nine in County Cork, Ireland. He came into the world during a difficult time for his country, a time when penal laws had been enacted against Irish Catholics and Protestants. The goal had been to push them towards the Church of Ireland. These laws made living in the country difficult for a lot of people. O'Leary took his leave as soon as he was able and moved to France. He became a priest, not only preaching but writing on the topics of religion and politics as well, for which

he became well known. He also gained notoriety for walking everywhere. He didn't take carriages or travel on horseback. O'Leary traveled on foot. As one writer put it, he used to walk from the convent of St. Malow to the feet of the Pyrenees. It was during this one particular stroll in the north of France when his lifelong grand tour took a strange turn. He'd been visiting the Bologna so Mere and walking along the water when he came across an impromptu performance. A brown bear on a leash had

captivated a group of spectators. With prodding from its handler, the bear performed all kinds of tricks. It would count with its paw and indicate the hour of the day when shown a clock. If a member of the audience waved to it, the bear would nod in their direction, or even bow in reverence. Father O'Leary returned a few more times to see the bear perform, but something struck him as odd. On his final day in town, the bear seemed tired, resting between tricks, despite its owner poking

it with a stick. The crowd was insatiable. They kept throwing money at the handler, demanding more from the bear. At one point, the creature seemed to have had enough, and when its owner poked it yet again, it stood up and let out a guttural roar, But it wasn't the roar a bear would make. It sounded like words, words that nobody but Father O'Leary could understand. The bear was speaking the Irish language of Gilga. This was the most amazing trick anyone had seen yet, a bear that

could talk. So Father O'Leary called out to it and the two had a short conversation in their native tongue. O'Leary soon left to track down the mayor of the town, who he insisted should have a chat with the bear as well. It was at that point that the handler abandoned the animal and ran off. As it turns out, the bear hadn't been a bear at all. He had started out as a man just trying to survive. He had come by boat from the town of Waterford in Ireland,

where food had been in short supply. On its way to Spain, the boat had capsized and the man was rescued by fisherman. Once on land, though, they sewed him into a bear costume and took him to France, where they forced him to perform for people on the street. Rather than pay him money, they gave him food the one thing he had wanted more than anything else, and it was the promise that he'd be fed after each performance that had kept him in the costume for so long.

I know, performing for strangers in a bear costume might seem intolerable to most, but for one man at least, it was worth it because the thought of going hungry it was much more unbearable. 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 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. Yeah,