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in our hands today. But another man had caught a glimpse of the telegraph system long before Marconi, about three thousand years before him. In fact, James Campbell Besley was in shorts and explorer. However, one look at his accomplishments and he starts to sound more like a myth than a man. And yet he and his exploits seemed to have faded into obscure rity. Bestley was born in London in eighteen seventy four. At least that's what he liked to tell people. He actually had been born in Australia.

But that was the thing about James Bestley. He enjoyed a good story. He traveled to London later in life to receive an Ivy League education, in metallurgy, but he didn't finish, opting instead to travel the world and make a little money along the way. By nineteen or three, however, the only thing he'd seen was the inside of a cell. He was arrested twice in the Yukon on several charges of money fraud. He didn't let that keep him down, though.

He soon ventured to South Africa and Australia, where he tried and failed to start several small businesses. Eventually, Bestly made his fortune in mining for gold down Under before packing up for Alaska and joining the military. After serving in the Boer War in Africa, Bestly headed to Mexico to mine for silver and copper when polo tournaments, and

run a massive cattle ranch. For anyone else, that would have been quite a life, but Bestley still felt that there was much more to do and more places to see,

so he booked a trip to Peru. He and eleven other scientists and photographers fought disease and deadly wildlife, only to uncover three Incan cities once thought lust and while doing so, they used a relatively new technology called motion pictures to capture the first footage of Machu Picchu After his jaunt through the Amazon, Bestley and his team traveled to New York, where the footage they shot was stolen. Apparently someone had broken into the trunk where five thousand

feet of film was being stored for later review. He couldn't rest knowing that all he'd worked for had suddenly been ripped away from him, so Bestley took another trip down south to reshoot his films and do something more. That was when he realized something strange about his trip through the Amazon. No matter how far or how quickly he traveled, the native people in the next location always knew that he'd be coming. Over the course of five months,

Bestley traveled from Lima to the Amazon River Delta. Every time he came to a village, he realized that he had been expected. When he asked how they knew about his impending arrival, they pointed to a contraption made for the purpose of letting neighboring villages know of incoming threats or visitors. The transmitter was comprised of a hollow tree

trunk hung just above the ground. According to Besley, inside the trunk had been arranged very much like our violins, presumably with strings fashioned out of the innards from a jungle cat. When someone hit the trunk with a small mallet, the vibration would carry for miles to a receiver in a neighboring village. That receiver was also made of a hollowed out tree trunk, but instead of being suspended in

the air, it was mounted on a wooden platform. The vibrations from the transmitter would result in a mild ringing sound in the receiver. Vibrations of varying lengths would let others know all sorts of news, similar to the dots and dashes of Marconi's telegraph system. It was ancient and revolutionary all at the same time. Besley's expedition proves something

that we're not always willing to admit. When a new invention is unleashed on the world, that rarely are those of us from so called civilized countries first to do anything. Cultures of all kinds have been finding new and inventive ways of communicating for millennia. Our communication devices are telegraphs and telephones, and even our online chat applications have all been based, whether consciously or not, on systems that existed for thousands of years. We just hadn't heard about them yet.

Now that's what I call a bad connection. Everyone handles faith in their own way. Some refuse to believe in a higher power, while others embraced the notion that our lives are on a path set in motion something or someone we cannot see. Catherine Labour seemed drawn to religion from the moment she and her striking blue eyes came into the world. Born a Roman Catholic, she took her baptismal name Zoe from St. Zoe, who was coincidentally celebrated

on Catherine's birthday each year. In eighteen fifteen, when she was only nine years old, her mother passed away. However, the young Labour quickly found a replacement when she picked up a nearby statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and said, now you will be my mother. Catherine and her sister Antoinette eventually moved out of their father's home and went to live with his sister their aunt several miles away. Her faith only grew stronger after a dream about St.

Vincent de Paul. For example, she joined the nursing order that he'd founded in the sixteen hundreds. Her brushes with the supernatural didn't stop there though. There was something special about Catherine Labour, how the spirit of St. Vincent de Paul seemed to always find its way to her, almost as though it had chosen her for something special. When St. Vincent de Paul's remains were moved to the Vatican Church in Paris, Catherine experienced another vision, three in fact, all

within the convent chapel. She saw St. Vincent's heart poised above the bone of his right arm. With each encounter, the heart's color would change for white, to red, and finally to black. To Catherine, these colors were messages about the future of her community, but the chaplain wasn't convinced. A few months later, Catherine was drawn to the chapel again by the sound of a child, despite there not

being any children there at the time. She claimed to have heard the Virgin Mary speak to her upon her arrival, telling her that God had a plan for her and that she needed to see it through, even though she would be met with opposition. But that wouldn't be the only time the Virgin Mary would speak with her. One night, Catherine witnessed her appear within an oval picture frame, standing upon the earth with light shooting out of her hands.

Twelve stars appeared, along with the letter M imposed over the cross. Beneath it all, she saw the phrases Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary before she departed. Mary then told Catherine to place these images and words on medallions so that people could wear them and receive great graces. She said, with the help of her superiors, the medallions were commissioned and distributed to the congregation. They

are still popular and still worn today. Catherine Labour continued to work within the church, helping those who needed it the most. She died on December thirty one of eighteen seventy six, at the age of seventy. Whether she had actually spoken to the Virgin Mary isn't for any one of us to say. She'd believed when others had not, and she had cared for the most vulnerable among us

and had lived a light of life. Catherine was interred in the chapel's tomb until nineteen thirty three, when Paris Cardinal Verdier decided to take a look inside one day, and he was astounded. Fifty seven years had passed and Catherine Labour still looked as pristine as the day she had died. Even the blue of her eyes hadn't faded after all that time. That very same year, Pope Pious

the eleventh beified her. Fourteen years later, she was canonized by Pope Pious the twelfth, officially making her a saint. Catherine's undecomposed body was moved into a glass coffin that now sits at the altar of the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Metal in Paris. Saint Catherine's incorruptibility is said to have been a product of divine intervention, where other supposedly incorruptible bodies were mummified or had decomposed beyond recognition. This two d year old saint looks like

she might wake up at any moment. When she was alive, she demonstrated the power of her faith by caring for the elderly and the infirm. Today, she's still inspiring believers, only this time from behind glass, herself a vision of beauty and grace. 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, Ye