Flight Risk

music forward. David Bowie, Eddie van Halen, Johnny Cash, Dave Grohl. Honestly, whatever your style, I'm sure a few names come to mind. And then there are the inventions, the gadgets that changed the way we experienced music, which all started with Thomas Edison and the phonograph and the first recorded song heard on the device, Mary had a little lamb. But there's another innovator, and while you've probably heard what he's written,

the chances are good you don't know his name. Meet Guido Aretinas, a Benedictine monk born in France over a thousand years ago, sometime in the mid nine nineties, and like most creators and masterminds throughout history, he had a problem to solve. The problem was chanting. You see, at the time, composers of sacred music had never written down their musical creations. Instead, the monks memorized music and taught

others through practice. As you might imagine, passing a song down from generation to generation, or even from one monastery to another, was like passing down a story in that old telephone game. Naturally, that led to a lot of changes. I can only imagine what that sounded like. Different monks with various voices and pitches. Is chanting sacred music in different ways. As the choir director, performances for holidays or

mass had to have been rather stressful. Sure, while the words had been written down in manuscripts, how to sing them had not, and that bothered Brother Guido so much so that he set out to change how music was taught, which got him kicked out of the monastery. He joined another, though, this time at the monastery and Pomposa near Ferrara, Italy. Their brother Guido was free to work on his new method and teach it to the other monks and it worked.

In five short months, his students learned what had taken years for others to comprehend before long. Word of the monk's accomplishments and success spread across Italy, and once again, after his brothers became jealous, he found himself kicked out on the proverbial streets. But along with teaching, the monk had also been writing too, and one piece on the discipline of musical art caught in one other than the Pope's attention, who requested a demo in straution. It clearly

went well. Guido was asked to stay in Rome and teach his new ideas about music while he was there, but sadly, the climate of Rome didn't agree with his health, and the monk returned to Pomposa for a while before moving to yet another monastery, where he eventually became the prior. Little is known of his fate after that, though, but what did survive were two things, the staff notations that

we use today and his clever melody teaching device. You see, Guido's educational tool had to do with the tonal scale. As he saw singers were more likely to learn and remember songs if they could associate the sound with scale notations. Each note had a corresponding tone. It's called palmization or sulphage if you're feeling particularly Italian. The way brother Guido built it is that each note starts higher than the

previous one. And if you've ever had piano or singing lessons, you've probably played and sang it until you could do it in your sleep. But rather than fade away over time, it has only grown in popularity. Centuries later, Rogers and Hammerstein created the stage play that went on to become the musical film The Sound of Music, where actress Julie Andrews teaches children to sing in the Austrian countryside, and Guido's teaching tool is right there. Eight seemingly nonsensical words

that have become the bedrock of musical education. Don't ray me bass so la t do. Everybody needs a little help every now and then, someone to guide them in the right direction, to give them a boost. Edward Joseph was the kind of guy to do exactly that, and even if it meant aiding unknown criminal. Edward was a lawyer from St. Louis, Missouri, in the nineties. In his spare time, he ran several dog racing tracks in these

around the country, and fancied himself an aviation enthusiast. He flew as often as he could, delivering airmail and allowing his teenage son Butch to act as his copilot from time to time. Now Butch was a smart boy, but he lacked ambition, so his father sent him to a military academy in Illinois, hoping to break all the bad, lazy habits Butch had begun to develop. Meanwhile, Edward was getting ready to begin a new chapter in his life.

In n he divorced Butch's mother, Selma, and moved to Chicago, and it was there that he met an up and coming entrepreneur named al Al Capone, who took the flying lawyer under his wing. The two men went into business together, with Edward earning himself the nickname Easy Eddie. He was skilled at keeping Capone out of jail, and in return for those services, the mobster made sure Eddie was well taken care of, setting him up in a big house

and making sure all his needs were met. And Eddie, who had been turning a blind eye to Capone's more violent activities, made sure his son Butch also reaped the rewards of his labor. He tried to be a good father to his son and kept him on a righteous path despite his own moral failings. After all, Butch was supposed to turn out better than his dad. Unfortunately, by nineteen thirty, the years of extortion and murder had finally

taken their toll on easy Eddie. He couldn't stand back and let such atrocities happen while preaching the difference between right and wrong to his son. Knowing the I R. S Was building a case against Capon for tax evasion, he reached out to the agents and put them in touch with his boss's bookkeeper. Together, they managed to put big Al away for almost eight years, but the gangster eventually got his revenge on the man who had betrayed him.

The week before Capone's release from prison, two men pulled up alongside Edward at a busy Chicago intersection. They fired shotgun blasts into his car, killing him on the spot. As his nineteen thirty nine Lincoln Zephyr rolled off and crashed, The gunman sped away, never to be seen again. In Butch, mourning the death of his father, took the man's lessons to heart. He had inherited his love of flying and

became a decorated Navy pilot. During World War Two. He earned a Medal of Honor for his actions in Papua New Guinea. Butch managed to shoot down three mitsubisheep bombers otherwise known as Betty's that had targeted the U. S. S. Lexington aircraft carrier. He had saved the Lexington from being

badly damaged and sinking into the Pacific. Upon returning home to St. Louis, Butch was thrown a parade in which he wore his Medal of Honor for everyone to see, and then he continued to fight lying dangerous missions against the Japanese until his death in nine He was killed during a nighttime combat run. He had been behind the controls of a hell Cat fighter plane when it was taken out by friendly crossfire. It fell into the sea, and neither the plane nor Butch were ever found again.

His service was recognized at the end of the war with a Navy US posthumously awarded to him by the President of the United States. In ninety five, a Navy destroyer was named after him as well, but it was Colonel Robert R. McCormick. Who ultimately solidified Butch's legacy for decades to come. You see, McCormick was the editor of the Chicago Tribune and believed that the late pilot should

be honored in a much larger way. Thanks to his influence, Chicago's Orchard Depot Airport was renamed in nineteen to honor Butch or should I say Edward Butch. O'Hare that's right. The son of a mobster turned decorated war hero is the name behind one of the busiest airports in the country, O'Hare International. 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,