Fruit Punch

Those that weren't planning to stay gathered by the station or at the beach. There was a steamship, the John L. Stevens, to take these people to San Francisco that it was currently aground until the tide rolled in that evening. The situation left many Americans with nothing to do but sweat and wait. It was April fifteenth of eighteen fifty nine.

The California gold Rush was at its peak, and in the aftermath of the Mexican American War, plenty of American colonists were eager to grab California land while it was cheap, and traveling through Central America was a faster and often less perilous way of going west compared to the Oregon Trail. However, at this point, the Panama Canal didn't exist, so it was still a haphazard route passing through the Republic of New Grenada, and as a result, Panama City got extremely congested.

Jack Oliver, an American man, stepped out of the Golden Eagles Saloon at around five thirty PM. He was one of many foreigners who were passing through Panama City far slower than he would like. It was already very drunk, trailed by several friends in similar states of intoxication the way. He grabbed a slice of watermelon from a street vendor, which he ate as he walked along. The vendor, understandably annoyed that the American had stolen the watermelon without pain,

pursued him. That man's name was Jose Luna. He insisted that Oliver pay him ten cents for that slice. Oliver brushed him off, telling him to get lost. Luna insisted, following Oliver further and further down main street. Oliver in a fit of rage, drew a pistol and pointed it at Luna's face. Luna defensively drew a knife, but before either of them could do anything, a local grabbed Oliver's pistol and attempted to wrestle it from his hands. The

gun went off, fortunately hitting no one. Knowing better than to press his luck, Luna quietly vanished into the crowd.

the area. Locals, primed and angry toward the arrogant Americans, took to American run businesses with clubs and other improvised weapons. Both hotels, The Ocean and the Pacific were trashed in the ensuing riot. The main group of Americans, including the ones who had incited it all to begin with, fled

to the train station, where they barricaded themselves inside. The Panama police arrived shortly after and attempted to control the scene, but when a stray bullet from the station struck a policeman, any attempts to calm things down died a quick death. Police and locals stormed the train station, breaking down the doors and forcing their way inside. The riots lasted hours well into the night. By the end, the train station was destroyed, the telegraph lines had been severed, and even

sections of train track had been torn up. There were over sixty injuries and seventeen people died, fifteen Americans and two Panamanians. And what about Jack Oliver, the arrogant American who thought stealing fruit from a poor vendor was a good idea Well. Retellings of the riot tend to lose track of his story, but at least one account claims

that he just sat the riot out. The tide came in, so he boarded the ship along with the other tourists, and while the violence raged on, he slept in steerage, waiting to be taken back to America. To some a riot like this was inevitable, though the governments of America and Panama might have had an agreement, but intense racial

and economic disparities between the populations were very well documented. Predictably, the business owners who lost money in the riot blamed the locals like Miguel Abrahan, rather than Jack Oliver, who had drawn his gun in the first place. The conflicts between nations, individuals, and businesses became inextricably tied up together in the riot, leaving everyone frustrated. Traveling from one end of a continent to another is always going to provoke

some sort of stress. Even as technology improves, we accept a certain amount of discomfort if it gets us where we're going. Only when your plane has a layover, it rarely ends with the airport burning to the ground. They say that you can't outrun fate, but as this story proves, you may be able to outswim it. On the morning of November twenty one of nineteen sixteen, a young stewardess

walk through the dining room of the HMHS Britannic. The Britannic was originally built as a passenger liner, but when World War One broke out, it was requisitioned for use as a hospital ship. On this particular November morning, it was sailing through the Kia Channel on its way to pick up sick and wounded British sailors from the Greek island of Lemnos. Our young stewardess, a woman named Violet, squeeze past the dining tables where doctors and nurses were

chatting over breakfast. She made her way to the kitchen to pick up breakfast for a sick nurse that she was caring for. But just as she picked up a teapot from the pantry, a deafening roar shook the Britannic. Instantly, the men in the kitchen dropped their pans and spoons and sprinted toward the deck, but Violet stayed calm. She was no stranger to chaos at sea. She'd been a stewardess on the supposedly unsinkable Titanic when it hit an

iceberg four years earlier. A year before that, she'd been working on another luxury liner, the RMS Olympic, when it collided with a British warship. Whatever was happening on the Britannic that morning, it wouldn't rattle Violet jessup, so she took the pot of tea to her patient in sick Bay and calmly helped her get dressed and ready, and then Violet strolled down the deserted hallways to her own cabin, gathered up her toothbrush and her prayer book, and made

her way up to the deck. As she did, a startled officer ran up to Violet and told her that there had been an explosion and the ship was sinking fast. All of the other women had already been evacuated, and so she was hurried into a lifeboat, and as it was lowered into the water, something caught Violet's eye. Another lifeboat that had already set sail was drifting along the side of the ship and being pulled into the churning water by the ship's propellers. She watched in horror as

the other lifeboat was sucked into the propellers. One by one, its occupants jumped overboard into the water, barely making it out before the lifeboat was shredded. Violet realized that if she was going to survive, she was going to have to jump overboard as well. There was only one problem, Violet couldn't swim. Pushing down her first pangs of fear, she held her breath and plunged into the icy water. She was tossed around by the waves, sinking further and further,

and then bobbing back to the surface. She smacked her head on something hard, and as she choked and saltwater filled her lungs, she felt a hand clutch her arm. Mere moments before she would have drowned, she was pulled to safety. All told, twenty eight lives were lost in the sinking of the Britannic, but Violet Jessup survived and made a full recovery, and the news got out that the stewardess had lived through a third major disaster on

the ocean. She earned the new nickname Miss Unsinkable. After taking a short break to reevaluate her life choices, she decided to go back to work as a stewardess, and she worked at sea for another three decades, thankfully without another accident, before finally taking her well deserved retirement at the age of sixty one. Fates can be a curiously powerful force, but for Violet Jessup, it couldn't match the pull of the ocean. 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 Mankie 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 Theworldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.