Failure To Launch

didn't work while developing the first practical incandescent lightbulb. Colonel Harlan Sanders had a long history of failed businesses throughout his life. After working on railroads in his younger days, he set out on his own, starting a ferryboat company, cafe, and a motel, all of which failed. Then, in nine with only his savings, a one five dollar Social Security check, and a secret chicken recipe to his name, he franchised his fried Chicken restaurant at the age of sixty five.

But there are those who never get past their failure. Not only do they embrace their aversion to success, they celebrate it. Author Stephen Pyle wrote an entire book about humanity's inability to get out of its own way. In his nineteen seventy nine compendium The Book of Heroic Failures, one entry discussed a museum exhibit in northern England where an ancient Roman coin had been on display. The plaque beside the coin stated that it had been minted between a D one and a D one, and a big

letter R had been stamped onto it. It would have been an impressive peace, but only if you worked for the Robinson's Soft drink company. The coin hadn't come from ancient Rome. It had been a plastic giveaway from a soda company to anyone who had collected enough bottle labels to earn one. Another ent re told the story of Desert Island Discs, a popular radio show in Britain during the nineteen seventies. The concept was simple and I bet

you can guess what it was. The host would ask us celebrity guests about the eight albums that they would take with them if they somehow found themselves trapped on a deserted island. Roy Plomley, the show's host, had been trying to get the novelist Alistair McLean to be a guest on the show. McLean had been the author of the bestselling novels, The Guns of the Navarone and Where the Eagles Dare, both of which had been turned into

hit films. McLean wasn't one to do interviews, though, but in this case he agreed and met Plomley for lunch at the Civil Club, a private member's club in London. Their conversation started off with small talk and the two seemed to be having a good time. Then Plumly asked McLean about his writing process. McLean had no idea what he was talking about. Palmley then asked about one of his most famous novels, The Guns of the Navarone, but

McLean had nothing to say. It's turns out that the man Plumbly had been talking to wasn't Alister McLean, the author. He was Alister McLean, the head of the Ontario Tourist Bureau. But Plomily, undeterred and unwilling to admit his mistake, invited Mr McLean back to the studio to record the interview anyway, which was never aired, of course, But perhaps the most egregious failure in the book came from the form of a special club started by the author himself. It was

called the not Terribly Good Club. Of Great Britain and its members were some of the worst the country had to offer. According to his book, the club had been formed three years prior to publication, and its membership had skyrocketed from twenty to two hundred in that short time. In fact, the book itself arose out of the stories

he heard during those early meetings. Their mission was simple to honor and celebrate people who had never found success and who demonstrated rank incompetence in their lives, and they were committed to this too. During an early meeting, one clumsy member knocked over a bowl of soup, but club president and author of the book, Stephen Pile, managed to catch the bowl as it toppled off the table, saving the soup and the meal. For his success, they forced him to resign as per the by laws that he

himself helped. Right after his book was published, interest in the group grew and Pyle was forced to disband it for good. You see, he had included an application for membership in the not Terribly Good Club of Great Britain

in the back of the book. Despite tossing it in as a joke, many who purchased the Book of Heroic Failures actually did fill it out and mail it in twenty thousand readers in fact, and by that measure, the club itself had become a success, and the book's rapid rise to the best seller status meant that Pyle had become successful as well. He wrote all about that in

his second book, The Return of Heroic Failures. Even though he'd been unsuccessful at remaining unsuccessful, he'd succeeded in finding more stories of unsuccessful folks who had failed to succeed. And if you diagram all that out, connect the dots and be sure to carry the one. I think it means this plan was a big success or a failure. I'm not entirely sure. The Earth is essentially a living organism.

Not only does it team with life on and below its surface, but the planet itself is constantly changing to either accommodate or to eradicate that which it needs to survive. As pressure builds up inside it, the Earth uses roughly nineteen active vents on its surface to relieve that pressure into the atmosphere. We know these events better as volcanoes, and they could be quite destructive. When a volcano erupts, it spews molten lava and ash, which can decimate the

environment around it for miles. For example, there's a seven crack near yellow Stone National Park that was discovered in two thousand fifteen. It could indicate that a supervolcano is located beneath the park. Should it's erupt, it could devastate most of the United States. And that's the problem with many volcanoes. There are hundreds beneath the surface of the Earth that we can't see, yet we continue to build right on top of them, unaware of the danger that

lurks below. Mexican farmer Dionysio Polido didn't know that there were any volcanoes in his village of part of Coutine, Mexico. Back in he'd begun his day by clearing out his corn fields on the morning of February. Spring was only a few months away, and it would soon be time to sow the next round of crops. During the previous week, he and others in the village had been experiencing mild underground tremors. The tiny earthquakes startled them at first, but

people quickly grew used to them. He kept working hauleen shrubs from his corn fields to a safe location where they could be burned and disposed of. As the sun moved across the sky and the more learning faded into the afternoon. Polido also moved from one field to another, clearing brush and preparing the soil for spring. Then he noticed something that he hadn't before. A hill, small but definitely out of place, like something had whacked the earth

on the head and caused a lump to form. Polido climbed to the top of the hill and looked down. A crack roughly one fifty feet long and six ft wide, ran along its top. The crack wasn't too deep, and Polido figured it was the result of the small quakes that had been happening in the area. Unfazed, he returned to his field. Later, he felt a loud rumble suddenly churned underneath him. Polido thought it was thunder, but there

wasn't a cloud in the sky. Unbeknownst to him, a river of magma flowed beneath his feet, kicking up sulfur smell like rotten eggs. The fisher hissed and smoke arose from the gap. Polido finally ran to find his family, but found his farm empty. He jumped on his horse and out into town, where everyone had been waiting for him. Hours later, the small hill on Dionysio Polido's farm had

grown even larger. In fact, one witness described flames that shot twenty six hundred feet into the air before raining down like fireworks from above. The next day, his farm had been taken over by a volcano over one hundred sixty feet tall. After a week, the cone was over three hundred feet tall. Ash clouded the sky and lava

flowed from its opening. Over the course of eight months, the crack and Polido's farm had become a towering volcano twelve hundred feet tall, with a lava flow that threatened to engulf the entire village. But that wasn't all. The ash killed crops for miles around and resulted in dunes that spread with the wind. The village was evacuated as the lava took over and eventually swallowed the town of San Juan. All that remained was the church bell tower

among the jagged landscape of volcanic rock. After about a year, the volcano seemed to calm down, though it it occasionally erupt every now and then. Scientists took its formation as an opportunity to study how Scoria cone volcanoes came into the world, which might say future towns and citizens from losing their homes or their lives. As for the poor farmer who lost his fields, well, he did manage to

find the silver lining. He returned to the area that had once been his farmland, and he planted a sign in the rocky ground. It read this volcano is owned and operated by Dionysio Polido. 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 Lor dot Come and until next time, stay curious. H