Mistaken Identity

American artist and poet Joe Brainerd once jokingly wrote, death has a very black reputation, but actually to die is a perfectly normal thing to do. And he was right. Death hands every day, and eventually it happens to every single person on earth. Yet we still fear it. Not Sarah Bernhardt, though she not only was unafraid of death,

it influenced how she lived her life. Henrietta Rosine Bernard was a French actress born in eighteen forty four, although she changed her name for the stage when she was around eighteen years old. Her mother was a courtisan with many powerful clients such as duke's politicians and other high powered individuals. Bernhardt took to the theatrical lifestyle from a young age. Her mother sent her to boarding school when

she was seven. It was there that she started In her first play, she took on the role of a fairy queen who dies, a chance for her to embrace her dramatic side. Three years later, she began attending a convent school in Versailles, again performing in theatrical productions. She even considered becoming a nun for a short time until her father's death in eighteen fifty nine. At the suggestion of one of her mother's clients, Bernhardt pursued acting more seriously.

This surprised her as she had never considered the theater as a career before. Over the years, she studied with talented actors of her time, building up her theatrical skills. One of her first acting coaches was recommended to her by one of her mother's clients. His name, by the way, was Alexander Duma, author of the Count of Monte Cristo. With enough training, Sarah was able to reach the theater Francois, with whom she performed for a year. Although it was

not meant to last. She had invited her sister Regina to join her in an important event. In attendance was the theater's leading actress, Zaire Natalie Martel, otherwise known as Madame Natalie. Regina accidentally stepped on Madame Natalie's gown, which infuriated her. Madame Natalie shoved Regina backwards into a stone column and caused her to cut her forehead, prompting Sarah to step in on her behalf. She screamed at the older actress, getting so heated that she slapped her in

the face. Sarah was told to apologize, and she refused. She had had enough of Madam Natalie and the theater Francois and left the company shortly thereafter. It didn't impact her opportunities, though Bernhardt spent two years at another theater, the Gymnays, after which she moved on to the Odeon. Her career had quite the upward trajectory, in fact, with the actress going from minor roles to understudy all the way to the leading lady. She earned rave reviews for

her dramatic performances, which extended beyond the stage. As it turns out, Bernhardt was pretty dramatic behind closed doors as well. For example, she slept in a satin lined coffin in her bedroom by her window. She often laid in it while studying a new role, and even slept in it overnight, sometimes despite there being a huge, unused bamboo bed right in the middle of the room. But no matter how high she climbed or how strange her behaviors got, Sarah

never forgot about her family. She and Regina remained quite close, so when Regina came down with tuberculosis, it was Sarah who took care of her. She had her sister come live with her, allowing her to rest in that big bamboo bed in her bedroom. Sarah chose to sleep in her coffin instead. One day, a manicurist had come to treat the actress's hands. Regina urged the woman to come in quietly as her sister was sleeping. The manicurists turned to the armchair where she believed Sarah to be resting,

but instead saw her unconscious body in the coffin. The woman ran out of the room screaming. After Regina passed away from her illness, Sarah had her sister's coffin placed in the bedroom beside her own until the undertaker could come and retrieve it. On the day he and his men arrived, they entered the room and found two coffins side by side. The Master of ceremonies immediately called for another hearse, believing that he was dealing with two dead

bodies and not just one. The men had just begun moving Sarah's coffin when she suddenly arrived home, much to their surprise. She had just been tending to her mother when she walked in on the undertaker's men and hauling her coffin away. The second hearse was dismissed and her sister's coffin was taken as intended. Unfortunately, the papers got wind of the incident, and Sarah was criticized for her

eccentric behavior in the press. To Sarah Bernhardt, death was a part of life rather than something to be afraid of. She embraced it and made it a part of who she was. To her, it was normal, as normal as sleeping in a satin lined coffin. And that, my friends. It's curious the ocean can be unpredictable. One moment it's calm, the waters gently lapping against the sides of your boat.

The next clouds overhead of darkened, and the wind is stirring the waves, tossing your vessel around like a rag doll. Countless ships in their crews have been lost at sea. In sept Member of nine, a commercial fishing boat called the Andrea Gale left Gloucester Harbor, Massachusetts. It's captain, Frank Tyne Jr. Had cast off for eastern Canada, but there were no fish to be had there. Instead, he traveled east to the Flemish Cap. He thought the fish situation

might be better. Unfortunately, a northeaster had moved into their position. It boasted fifty six mile an hour winds and gusts as highest seventy five. Due to the strange confluence of conditions that aided in its formation, it became known as the Perfect Storm. The Andrea Gale was last heard from on the evening of October twenty before the ship and its crew of six, including Captain Tyne, were lost forever.

The ocean is not something to underestimate. It can turn on you in an instant, just like it did for Nigerian cook Harrison O'Kenna in May of two thousand thirteen, O'Kenny was working on a tug boat off the coast of Nigeria with eleven other crewmates. They and several other boats had been contracted by Chevron to stabilize one of their oil tankers. O'kenna's tug boat was called the Jaskin four. It was painted bright red and white, easy to spot

among the blue expanse of the ocean. With its toe cable attached to the tanker, the Jaskin four, along with the rest of the boats, puttered along the Gulf of Guinea early in the morning of May before anyone else was awake. O'Kenna got his day started. How he'd been able to sleep at all was a mystery, as the Jaskin four had been bobbing along the rough waters of the Atlantic for some time. The waves were choppy, and the cook had settled into the la tree to take

care of his morning business. Meanwhile, the other eleven members of the crew were fast asleep, their doors bolted behind them. It had been part of their security protocols Pirates in the area had been known to board vessels and robbed them or kidnapped their crew for ransom. On this morning, however, pirates were the least of the Jaskin four's problems. The ocean churned, kicking up a massive wave that struck the tug boat on its side. It capsized and the hull

filled with water. Within minutes, the Jaskin four had slipped beneath the waves for good. Several crew members attempted to escape through a hatch leading to the deck, but the rush of water swept them out to sea instead. Harrison meanwhile struggled to get his bathroom door open. The pressure from the water on the other side was strong, but he finally did it, only to be carried down the hall to another bathroom. He had to hold on to one of the sinks to keep his head above water.

The boats eventually came to arrest upside down on the sea floor, one hundred feet below the surface back up top, A rescue mission was called immediately. Divers spent a whole day attempting to reach the wreck. They knocked on the hole and waited for a response, but nobody could hear o'kennay knocking back or yelling for help. He was trapped. Taking a bold risk, he swam out of the bathroom in pitch black water, into the engineer's office, where he

found another pocket of air. This was a bigger space with more room for him, but there was a new problem facing him, hypothermia. The water temperature was freezing and O'Kenna was only wearing a pair of boxer shorts. If he didn't think fast, he would lose consciousness and die before anyone found him. He was able to locate a mattress, which he fashioned into a floatation device with the help of some of the engineer's tools and the wall panels around him. He also found cans of Coca cola to

stave off thirst. Okay A sat there waiting, waiting for the oxygen to run out, for the water to fill up the room, for hunger or thirst to catch up with him, and then out of nowhere, he heard knocking outside again. He banged on the walls and shouted, but still no one was able to hear him. The Jaskin Forest parent company had sent a salvage team to recover the bodies of the lost crew. They spent an hour cutting their way through the interior of the boat, then

searched room by room for bodies. Okay A caught a flash of one of their head torches a a diver entered the engineer's office. The diver grabbed his outstretched hand, he didn't expect it to grab back. Frightened, the diver soon realized what he was dealing with. Someone had survived the sinking. O'kenn a thought that he'd been only down there for twelve hours, but he couldn't believe what he

was told. It took some careful planning to bring him home safely to the surface, but after sixty hours at the bottom of the ocean, Harrison O'Kenna was finally free. Once he returned home to his family in Nigeria, he found another job as a cook, this time, though he made sure that it was one that he could do on dry land. He was never going to step foot on a boat again, and I don't think any of us could blame him. 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,