Flying Colors

You need your own micronation. A micronation is a piece of territory whose residence demand that they be recognized as an independent nation. However, they're usually tiny and rarely considered self governing because they don't technically exist under international lot. Most micro nations never get the approval they need from the other countries. That doesn't mean people stop trying, though. Plenty of people have attempted to form their own micronations

in the past hundred years, people like Lester. Lester was born on April first of nineteen fifteen and was the baby of the family. He already had an older brother far away fighting in the Great War, and four older sisters who didn't have much time for a toddler, with his sisters outmost of the day and his doctor father making house calls. Little Lester was largely raised by his

mother and his grandparents. He became fascinated with his absent brother, always playing with his old toys, going through his books, and trying on his clothes. To Lester, there was no one better in the world than his big brother, Ernie. Ernie didn't always feel the same, as anyone with little siblings knows, they get on your nerves better than anyone else. Ernie called him Lester de Pester, which was later lovingly

shortened to the Pest. Still, Lester watched everything his big brother did and even dreamed of being an ambulance driver and a writer when he grew up, just like Ernie. That would certainly come to pass. In nineteen forty one, when the United States entered World War Two, Lester served in both France and Germany, and those experiences would make up the bulk of his first novel, The Sound of

the Trumpet, published in nineteen fifty three. He wrote six other books, but couldn't quite catch up to his brother. Of all his books, The Biography of his brother, published in nineteen sixty two was the most successful. You see, his brother Ernest Miller Hemingway had more influence on Lester than anyone, which made his untimely death in July of

nineteen sixty one all the more heartbreaking. There was a hole in Leicester Depestor's life, and he decided to fill it with the money from the sale of his book My Brother Ernest Hemingway. Lester resolved to get away from

it all. He would start his own country. He relied heavily on something called the Guano Islands Act of eighteen fifty six, which basically said any US citizen could claim and mine any unclaimed island that contained soil enriching guano deposits, guano being accumulated bird droppings, which certainly wouldn't make my top ten of beach destinations. But to each their own. Now, were there a large number of bird poop islands waiting to be claimed? No? But did that stop Lester from

creating his own micronation also No. On July fourth of nineteen sixty four, Lester wrote a good sized homemade raft a few miles off the coast of Jamaica. Once he'd found his perfect destination. He tied his raft to an old car engine and dropped anchor. This, he declared, was the micronation of New Atlantis. Well, at least half of it was. The half of his raft was New Atlantis.

The rest belonged to the United States, in keeping with the Guano Act, which said that any claimed island had to be claimed on behalf of the US of A. Couldn't just have American citizens creating new countries, willy nilly, could we? Lester took his new country extremely seriously. He wrote an institution, or he borrowed one anyway. Really it was just the United States Constitution, with New Atlantis replacing

United States in the text. His wife Doris, created a flag, and Lester even created a national currency of carabeans and shark teeth, which he called scruples. Oh yeah, Lester wasn't Alane out there. Sure, the raft was small, but he had plans to expand. For the permanent residence. His wife and two daughters lived there with him, as well as his assistant and a PR specialist named Edward K. Moss. Lester was elected president amazing right, though the idea seemed ridiculous.

Most described Lester as decent and well meaning. He even received a letter from the White House calling him acting President of New Atlantis allegedly, but his term as president didn't last. Lester had trouble securing investments and new residents, and money disappeared quickly. Unfortunately, the mainland didn't accept scruples. New Atlantis was trying to raise money for marine research

by producing and selling their own st amps. However, despite some lovely designs, the Universal Postal Union didn't recognize their legitimacy and the stamps were void. Disaster struck in nineteen sixty six when a storm blew in and the tether snapped. High winds and waves dragged New Atlantis out to see. Luckily, no one was injured, but New Atlantis was no more. A few pieces of the micronations still survived, though, including its stamps, thanks to the attention of a dedicated librarian.

Lester never lost hope in New Atlantis and tried to track her supposed trajectory around the Caribbean, but it was never discovered. Maybe it's floating out there somewhere, waiting, like all good micronations, to be recognized. Music, arts, and literature are important components of the human experience. All three our avenues to our emotions and help us better understand the

world we live in. A song has the ability to let us process heartbreak or grief, while a good book may open our eyes to perspectives we never would have considered before. But one thing we don't often think about is actually something we interact with every day, even when we don't realize it. It's on our walls and ceilings, our phones, our purses, and our cars. It's literally everywhere.

What is it color? We tend to only notice color during certain activities, such as picking an outfit out or painting a room, but color plays a greater part in our lives than we know. Certain colors like red can evoke love and romance, while blues and greens can make a person feel calm and relaxed. And when he expanded his Mount Vernon home, George Washington chose bold colors for the rooms inside to show off his status. But during the nineteenth century, one woman believed that color could do

more than convey wealth or alter moods. She believed that emotions and mental states themselves could be charted along a color scale. In other words, that feelings and colors were connected spiritually. Her name was Annie Bessant. Born in London, England in eighteen forty seven. Bessant was a socialist and women's rights activist for much of her life before joining the Theosophical Society around eighteen ninety three. Theosophy was a religion founded in New York City in eighteen seventy five.

Those who followed its teachings believed in a secret cabal of spiritual experts who called themselves the Masters, who were based in Tibet. Bessant, along with fellow theosophist C. W. Ledbetter, compiled a series of Theosophist teachings into a book called Thought Forms, A Record of Clairvoyant Investigations, published in nineteen oh five. One of the book's core concepts centered around

color and its meaning. It taught that thoughts are things, and that the quality of the thought determined the color attributed to it. For example, a certain shade of light blue might signify a devotion to a noble ideal, while black was equated with malicious thoughts. Soon enough, this juxtaposition of colors and thoughts bled out from Theosophy into the mainstream. Artists jumped on board and came up with a new

movement called synchromism, which tied colors to music. In shorts, a painter could create a painting using a specific arrangement of pigments, similar to how a composer would arrange notes in a symphony. The synchromism movement didn't gain a large following, but the idea that colors affected moods certainly did. Eventually, other industries found ways to make color a putter of their marketing strategies. Art Deco buildings were suddenly being adorned

with dyed concrete and terra cotta in different hues. DuPont invented a new kind of lacquer they called Duco, meant to give automobiles a vibrant boost. To brighten up the road, Magazines began printing ads in color rather than black and white, allowing readers to get a good look at the new products, all in their technicolor glory, and the paint company Sherman Williams started pitching the idea of painting one's house multiple

times a year, using different colors depending on the season. Suddenly, color wasn't something to be disregarded or ignored. Henry Ford even walked back his famous line about the Model T being available in any color the customer wanted, as long as it was black. He started selling his Model A in a variety of hues to keep up with the new color forward movement sweeping the nation. Many companies also

looked in nature for inspiration. According to a nineteen twenty eight issue of The Saturday Evening Post, motor cars and I quote are borrowing their hues from the waters of the Nile and the sands of Arabia, the plumage of birds, and the fire of gems, and nothing has changed ever since. During the nineteen fifties, typewriters, which had been instruments of productivity found in the office, came in colors like those

used on automobiles. Color became an important part of the equation for a large swath of consumer goods, and for many people it's still the most important opponent. Even now. When we go to the hardware store to buy paint, we're not buying red or yellow or green. We're buying eggshell, vermilion or dead salmon. That last one is a real paint color, by the way. And we have Annie Bessant

and the Theosophist movement to thank for it. 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 Mank 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 Loore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.