Full Steam Ahead

January fifteenth of two thousand and nine seemed like a normal day to everyone flying out of New York's LaGuardia Airport, except that their flights were actually leaving on time, and one of those flights was US Airways Flight fifteen forty nine. It was headed towards Seattle, Washington, with a stopover in Charlotte, North Carolina. Its captain was a former Air Force pilot

with almost twenty thousand flight hours under his belt. This was going to be a cakewalk, and then, only minutes after it had taken off, the plane struck a flock of geese, which took out its engines. The pilot radioed the control tower with details of the incident and said he was going back to La Guardia, but realized that he would never make it in time. With no other choice, he landed the massive airbus in the middle of the

Hudson River. Chesley Sully. Sullenberger and his co pilot, Jeffrey Skiles had saved everyone on board in what came to be known as the Miracle on the Hudson. But this was not the only dangerous episode to take place on the Hudson River. In fact, in eighteen fifty two, the Hudson was the venue of one of the deadliest maritime disasters ever reported. But it wasn't a war or a bombing or anything like that. It was a race between steamboats.

The advent of the steam engine revolutionized travel and shipping. Before we had steam power, which could push a boat against a river's current without breaking a sweat, sailors would use disposable flatboats to train support people in goods downriver. They would send them along the current to their destination, where they'd be torn apart so that the wood could be used for something else. Steamboats could also be bigger and carry more cargo than non powered vessels. That meant

more passengers and more goods crammed onto each ship. But these boats and ships all had the same basic flaw. They're boilers. The boilers which created the steam used to power the boats were notorious for blowing up, and since much of the non human cargo packed on these vessels was flammable, such as cotton and gunpowder, explosions caused a

lot of damage. The early to mid eighteen hundred saw thousands of deaths and injuries caused by boiler explosions, so it was only a matter of time until people came up with ways to push these volatile engines to their limits for the public's entertainment, because what could possibly go wrong with that? The first official race kicked off on New York's Hudson River in July of eighteen eleven. It ended in a draw when both boats crashed into each other at the breakneck speed of five miles an hour.

Nobody was hurts and the accident did nothing to curtails people's interest in the sport. It soon spread out to places like Mississippi, Kentucky, and even the Great Lakes. Despite the snail like speeds achieved by these steamboats, their captains didn't seem to care about the war and tear the races would put on them. The wooden decks would buckle, and the boilers would overheat to the point of failure loud explosive failure, which leads us to what is perhaps

the worst steamboat race in recorded history. It was between the Henry Clay, captain by James Isaac Smith, and the Armenia, captain by John Tollman. Both vessels had been constructed by famed steamship builder Thomas Collier. The fact that they had come from the same shop meant that the loser couldn't blame the quality of the ship on their luss. They were both of equal prestige and provedance. On the morning of July twenty eighth of eighteen fifty two, the Henry

Clay and the Armenia took off down the Hudson. As they raised, the Henry Clay built up a healthy lead of several miles, which it maintained for a number of hours. There was no way the Armenia could catch it in time, especially as each ship bounded toward the finish line in New York City. But just as the Henry Clay's crew thought that they had victory in the bag, someone noticed something. The engine was on fire, and no matter how hard they tried, the crew couldn't contain the blaze, which soon

took over the entire ship. The captain steered her toward the shoreline, hoping to get close enough for people to abandon ship and swim to safety, and the crew and passengers who had been close to the bow at the time of the fire did just that. But there were also wealthy first class passengers toward the stern who were blocked from the front of the ship by towering flames before them. Many jumped into the churning waters below, while

others were consumed by the fire. Architect Andrew Jackson Downing, for example, was burned alive. Others drowned as the ship's spinning paddle blades pushed them away from the shore. Those who were too close to the vessel and hadn't drowned wound up dying from an enormous steam blast that erupted after the boilers finally gave out. In total, roughly eighty of the Henry Clay's passengers died that day, a tragedy

that led to widespread change in the steamship industry. Laws were passed in New York to prevent these races from ever occurring again, and steamships once again became safe for travel and transport. For the next several decades, of course, that is, until another famed vessel was pushed a bit too hard by one Captain Smith in nineteen twelve. Many of its first class passengers died as well. But you

don't need me to tell you about the Titanic. Walk through the streets of any major city and you're likely to hear a cacophony of sounds. Horns, honking engines, sputtering, people shouting at each other. No wonder so many of us put in earphones before we step outside each day. But things weren't much quieter one hundred and fifty years ago either. We may not have had automobiles or jackhammers, but we certainly had the clumping of horse hoofs on

cobblestone streets. Shop Owners yelled from their storefronts as crowds of people hustled and bustled while carrying on conversations. Noise has been a part of a city's DNA since the beginning of time, but one particular noise seemed to plague an Englishman named Thomas James Rawlins so much that he practically spent his whole life trying to sue it out of existence. Rawlins was born in Lambeth, England, in eighteen

oh two. Before settling north in Bloomsbury, he did a bit of traveling on behalf of his employer, the East India Company, working as an artist in Calcutta. Eventually he returned to England, where he became a professor of drawing at a few local universities, as well as an illustrator. But despite his passion for art, he didn't exactly love of all arts, specifically music. Well, that's not entirely true.

He hated one particular kind of music, street organs. A street organ is a box or barrel filled with pneumatic pipes that's when cranked plays music. The operator is called an organ grinder, and oftentimes the music is accompanied by a dancing animal, like a small monkey. Rollins didn't much care for street organ music. In fact, he downright loathed it, going so far as to take one street musician to

courts in eighteen fifty seven. His name was Felice Onzie, and Rawins had told him to take his organ elsewhere, but a neighbor welcomed the performer inside to entertain them, and they left the door ajar too. Rollins still able to hear the pipes playing, had Onzie arrested. The neighbors then testified in court on the musician's behalf, claiming that Rollins was known around town for shoeing organ grinders away

and depriving everyone else of their pleasant tunes. Onzie was released and threatened with a fine of forty shillings or prison if he was ever arrested again for playing music. Two years later, another organ grinder named Giovanni Fastinelli was harassed by Rollins's maid, who had been ordered by her employer to make him leave somebody's sick. She told him. Fastinelli, undeterred by her pleas told her to go away as well, which angered Rollins enough to come to her aid. Fascinelli

didn't hesitate. He charged the ornery homeowner and called him a series of names before he was also arrested. According to Rollins, the music disacerbated a brain condition that he had received while abroad in India. It was also unpleasant enough to render one of his housemates both speechless and senseless as well. For his troubles, Fastinelli was ordered to pay twenty shillings. Then, in December of eighteen sixty, Rollins went after another organ grinder. This man's name was Giuseppe

Marciani and he had come from Italy. He'd been visiting London when he suddenly found himself in the custody of the local police. Rollins let him know that he was the thirteenth street musician to face his wrath, and that all he wanted was to be left in peace. Instead, up to twenty organ grinders a day were dispatched to Rollin's home to annoy him until he would finally pay them a tip to leave him alone, and surprisingly enough,

almost all of his neighbors agreed with his complaints. These street musicians had become a nuisance and a bother, and it continued like that for the next few years, with one grinder after another being dragged to court by a man who simply wanted to live a peaceful life away from the noise. An act was even passed in eighteen sixty four meant to restrict street performers to some degree,

but it didn't do much to alleviate rollins headache. Then, in eighteen sixty five, after having dozens of street musicians taken to court for a noise complaints, he met his match, except it wasn't an organ grinder. It was a horse one that had been pulling a cab or carriage through tone. The accident left Rawlins with a number of injuries, including

leaking abscesses and a ruptured bladder. He was forced to live out the rest of his life bedridden, and fate soon arrived at his door to rub salt in all of his wounds. Guilloum du Boy and his son had come to Rollins Street to perform. The pair were musicians, with the father grinding a barrel organ while his twelve year old boy banged a drum. Their show was a hit with the crowd. Everyone in town seemed to enjoy

the music, well, everyone except Thomas Rollins. He died in eighteen seventy three, finally getting the peace in quiet that he'd always wanted. 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 Mankey

in partnership with How Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called 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.