I Feel the Earth Move

it can be the strongest. John Adams may have been one of the architects of the United States and the country's second president, but he always found time to write to his wife, Abigail, back in Massachusetts. The two corresponded often, and when he entered the presidency in Abigail wasn't just his first lady. She was also an adviser and a confidante,

as trusted to him as any cabinet member. Poet Robert Browning had to marry his true love, Elizabeth Barrett, in secrets because her father did not approve of their courtship. Barrett had been sick for a while, and the two wrote letters to each other for months before finally meeting in eighteen forty five. After their wedding, Barrett's health improved so much she gave birth to a son, Robert Wideman

Barrett Browning. She lived out the remainder of her life with her family in Italy, dying in her husband's arms at the age of fifty five. These were obviously couples who would go to great lengths for each other in sickness and in health, for richer or for poor, until parted by death. During a troublesome period in a Love and forty however, the love women had for their husbands was put to the ultimate test, and how they passed

has become the stuff of legend. Lothair the Third had served as King of Germany for years before becoming Holy Roman Emperor in eleven thirty three. Although many supported his rule, he found particular trouble in the Howen Steffen or Stealfer, a noble family that had ruled parts of Germany and Italy. For one thing, his father had died in battle against them in ten seventy five. They had also refused to

give up land Lothair believed fell under his rule. The Staufer weren't the only ones who rebelled against the new emperor, with the help of the Duchy of Austria. The Duchy of Swabia and other freelands. A anti king was elected. Conrad the Third of Germany. Lothair had launched a military campaign against the Stauffer and took control of two of their cities in eleven twenty nine. Several years later, as Emperor,

he defeated them in Sicily when their power had diminished. However, his follow up attack on the Normans of Italy did not fare well. He was able to lay claim to the city of Salerno, but he died on his return trip home in eleven thirty seven. As you might imagine, the Emperor's death caused upheaval among the Staufer and competing dynasties.

Conrad the Third was elected King of Germany within the Holy Roman Empire, but Henry the Proud, whose velf Dynasy he had helped loath there in his campaign against the Stelfer, believe that he should have been next in line. So these two sides competing for the crown, took up arms, their conflict coming to a head in eleven forty in the town of Weinsberg, Germany. Within Veinsburg was a castle, a fortress that had been under the control of Vilf forces.

Conrad laid siege to the castle as the Wealth soldiers inside waited for help to arrive. Unfortunately, that help had also been stopped by Conrad's armies. It didn't take long for those inside the castle to see only two options, fight or surrender. Realizing they were outmanned, they chose to surrender. Conrad, though, was not about to let those who had fought against

him go without punishment. He planned to reduce the town and its castle to rubble and take all the Wealth loyalists as prisoners, but he was not an unreasonable man. As part of the negotiations, he allowed the women to leave with whatever they could carry on their backs. The women of the castle began packing that which was most important to them, strapping everything to their backs and proceeding

out of the fortress. Conrad's men, including the Duke, implored the king to stop them, but he refused, saying a king could not go back on his word. After all, he was impressed by their quick thinking because, rather than pack up food or clothes or family heirlooms, the women of Vinzberg left with their husbands hung over their backs, earning the castle its new name Vibratrow, otherwise known as

women's faith or wifely loyalty. It said that true love bears all, and that's a beautiful sentiment, thankfully, though in this case, all these ladies had to bear were their husbands. The construction of a large building or skyscraper can take months or even years. A lot of planning goes into creating something as massive as the Empire State Building, or as run of the mill as your average office complex.

Permits must be secured, soil samples must be taken, environmental impact studies must be considered, and the land needs to be prepared to accept such a heavy structure. It takes hundreds of hard working people to complete such a project, but it also takes someone to draft the plan that will eventually become an office, or a hospital or a company headquarters. And sometimes that plan involves tearing down the old to make way for the new. But what happens

when you can't tear down the old. For an architect named Kurt, you had to find another way. Kurt was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, at the turn of the twentieth century. He went to college in Strasburg, France, before returning to the United States to complete his architectural degree at m I T in nineteen o eight. Kurt was quite the creative thinker. When he wasn't working as a partner at his architecture firm, he was teaching a lettering class at the Heron's Wool of Art and Design,

part of Indiana University. The stock market crash of ninety nine hit him and his company hard. The house he designed and built for his family had to be sold, and commercial construction came to a halt all over the state. His firm produced almost no work for quite a while. Then, in nineteen thirty, a unique opportunity was presented to him.

Despite the depression. Communications Company Indiana Bell had recently bought the Central Union Telephone Company, which provided Indiana with telephone service. To accommodate the influx of new employees and brought in their footprint within the states, Indiana Bell decided to demolish Central Union's headquarters to make room for a brand new building. They hired Kurt's firm to design the new construction. There was just one problem. Tearing down the old headquarters would

have wiped out phone service across the state. Instead, Indiana Bell, at Kurt's insistence, chose a less messy path, they decided to move the building instead. Today, houses, hotels, and even churches can be migrated from one location to another using hydraulic equipment and large trucks. Oftentimes, the structures are broken down into multiple pieces and then reassembled at the new site.

Back in nineteen thirty, though, the process was a little more involved, especially because telephone service could not be interrupted even for a minute. But Kurt's idea wasn't to move the eighth story eleven thousand ton Headquarters entirely, only to shift it out of the way in order to make room for an expansion. To facilitate the move, the building sat upon a concrete mat, which itself rested on timbers

made of oregon fur. Every day, with the help of a steam engine, six hundred workmen cranked hand powered jacks to pivot the structure. The concrete matt would move forward on massive hydraulic rollers. As it shifted off of one roller at the rear, another was slid in front to catch it and keep it upright. Every six turns of the jacks, the building would move three eighths of an inch. This meant that they were able to shift at fifteen

inches per hour. Incredibly, all major services flowing to and from the headquarters were not interrupted during the four week operation, including gas, water and sewage, and telephone service never dropped. Now had this been attempted today, the whole building would have been evacuated for safety reasons. In ninety though, employees of the telephone company needed to be on site to keep things running, so the project was completed with everyone

still working inside. Reports claimed that no one ever felt the building moving either. By the time it was all finished, the Indiana Bell Building had been rotated by ninety degrees and shifted nearly sixty feet south, leaving plenty of room for Kurt and his firm to begin work on the addition. The architect Kurt, by the way, was none other than Kurt Vonnegut, Sr. Father of the author of slaughter House Five, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 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 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,