New Me

be contributing to the inhumane factory farming industry. The oil rig worker doesn't understand his role in climate change either. It's not their fault. They aren't to blame for these things. It's just the nature of the world in which we live. Every choice we make comes with sequences, no matter how big or small. The Cauldron Girls of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, couldn't begin to fathom what their work would eventually lead to. All they wanted to do was help the war effort.

When America entered World War Two, many men of fighting age were sent overseas. They left their homes and families behind to take on an immensely evil power, and that meant their partners were left to take care of themselves and make ends meet. And so in nineteen forty four, thousands of young women in need of work flocked to the city of oak Ridge, Tennessee. A new facility had recently opened up, called the Y twelve Electromagnetic Isotopes Separation Plant,

run by the Tennessee Eastman Company. The women were trained to do very specific tasks while working there. They would turn dials, monitor gauges, and keep tabs on mass spectrometers called cauldrons, which had been specifically developed for the separation of uranium two thirty five from uranium two thirty eight, which had been mined out of the ground. Cauldrons combined uranium and chlorine, creating a new compound called uranium tetrac chloride.

That compound was then ionized and placed inside a special vacuum chamber where it was surrounded by a magnetic field. In other words, the women employed at Y twelve were responsible for enriching uranium. None of them had any extensive education in physics or chemistry, and not a single one ever laid eyes on a mass spectrometer before they were there. For one reason and one reason, only because they were

not scientists. You see, these young women were better suited to the task of enriching uranium because of their lack of expertise. They had been trained only to watch the meters and adjust the dials accordingly. At the time, most of the men were off fighting, so scientists were scarce.

But also it was believed that if the male scientists had been put in charge of the cauldrons, they would have spent their time trouble shooting errors and messing with the dials, rather than focusing on the enrichment of the uranium itself. Of course, there was also quite a bit of misogyny behind this thinking. The women who were hired were often farm girls, chosen because they were believed to follow directions without question, and that was the most difficult

part of the whole operation. Separating uranium isotopes was easy. Keeping an inquisitive mind at bay that was hard. Many women wanted to know why they were adjusting the dials and watching the gauges, and those who asked too many questions were removed without hesitation. One woman who had tried to find out more about her role at oak Ridge was disappeared without hesitation. The Tennessee Eastman Company told the other girls in her dorm that she had and I

quote died from drinking some poisoned moonshine. And so the less they knew about their jobs, the better off they'd be. That was probably a good thing, too, because if the women had known why they were enriching uranium, they might have quit anyway. The uranium harvested from Y twelve was eventually inserted into a special kind of device, the kind

that reigned death and destruction on whatever it touched. This device was then loaded onto a Boeing B twenty nine super fortress named Enola Gay, which was flown over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August sixth, nineteen forty five. The Cauldron Girls had no idea their work was instrumental in creating the Little Boy atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima and killed over seventy thousand people. All they wanted to do was support the war efforts overseas. They just didn't

count on what that support would cost. It's something a few of us have probably thought about, the idea that we can start over, change who we are, and begin a new chapter in our lives. Or more accurately, begin our lives over again. It's happened before. In the sixt century, there lived a French peasant by the name of Martin Gere. He'd been married with a son when he suddenly vanished in fifteen forty eight. Eight years later, gare reappeared ready to be welcomed back by the family that he had

left behind. Except this wasn't actually gare It was an impostor, and he was eventually hanged for his deceit. The story of Martin Gere has inspired films, books, and even a musical, but his story was surprisingly not unique. Something similar happened again several hundred years later in Victorian England. It started with a family, a very wealthy and well known family

known as the Titchbourn's. They had been a part of Hampshire, England since at least the eleventh century, and for the most part had stayed loyal to the British Crown, although one family member did go rogue in the sixteenth century and plotted to assassinate the Queen. Despite that one hiccup, though, Benjamin Titchbourne was made a baronet in sixteen twenty one and the family enjoyed the perks of nobility from then on. In eighteen twenty nine, Benjamin's descendant, Roger Tichbourne, was born.

He was raised in Paris and enjoyed a childhood in the lap of luxury, studying at the finest schools across Europe and growing up with a French accent despite speaking fluent English. When he was twenty four years old, Roger embarked on a voyage to South America by himself. He landed in Valparaiso on the Chilean coast in eighteen fifty three. Several months after the start of his trip, he received a communication that his uncle had passed away, allowing his

father to succeed to the baronetcy. Following this news, Roger spent the next ten months traveling throughout South America, eventually crossing the Andes Mountains in eighteen fifty four. But his travels would soon be cut short because in April of that year, Roger was met with an unfortunate twist of fate. He had a book passage to Jamaica on a ship called the Bella. It set sail on the twentieth of April, but its capsized remains were discovered only four days later.

There was no one on board. It was presumed that Roger Tichbourne had died in the wreck. There was a possibility that survivors had been scooped out of the water by another ship, but that was nothing more than a rumor, a taste of hope in a hopeless situation. The family was told that Roger had perished. Several years later, his father, Sir James, also passed away. Roger was meant to take over the baronetcy, but the title went to his younger

brother Alfred instead. Alfred hemorrhaged the family's fortune, nearly bankrupting them in a handful of years. While their mother consulted with clairvoyance for a sign that Roger might still be alive. She took out newspaper ads all over the world, hoping that someone somewhere might know something. While in October of eighteen sixty five she got her answer, three years after Roger had been declared dead, an Australian man named Arthur

Cubitt informed her that her son was actually alive. He was a rotund butcher working down under going by the name of Thomas Castro. It didn't matter that his hair was different, that he couldn't speak French, and that his accent was gone. This man could be her son, so she arranged to have him sent to London in eighteen sixty six. Castro got to know the Titchborns and their associates quite well, many of whom vouched for his identity.

After spending some time with them. His mother, Lady Titchborne, was no different. She and the rest of the family welcomed him in with Oakland arms, and Castro made good use of his time with them. He asked them all kinds of questions about the family, Roger's upbringing, and other details that he could use to jog his memory, well, not really jog his memory, but rather pad his portfolio

of lies to feed the Titchborns. You see. Some of those in the family's inner circle weren't convinced by Castro's performance, so they did some digging, and they found out that Thomas Castro was actually London born Arthur Orton. Orton had been in Chile just like Roger, and knew enough to tell Lady Titchborne all about his adventures as though he

were her son. After the matriarch's death in eighteen sixty eight, Orton went to court to prove his identity and claimed the Titchborne Fortune, and despite all the evidence to convince them that he was not, in fact, Roger Tichborne, Orton managed to get nearly one hundred people to testify on his behalf. His story, though, fell apart when he was asked to speak French. The real Roger could speak it fluently,

this impostor could not. After a year long trial, Orton's case was tossed out and he was subsequently arrested for perjury, of which he was found guilty. The trial was so newsworthy Mark Twain himself came to court a few times to watch as well. Orton served ten years in prison

for his crimes and died penniless. But that wasn't the end of his story, because even though his tale of identity theft inspired films like The Titchborne Claimant, it also influenced one of the most notable episodes of television ever crafted. It aired in nineteen ninety seven and told the story of a stranger arriving at Springfield Elementary with a bold

claim that he was the real principal, Seymour Skinner. Over the course of the episode, it was revealed that the principal Skinner that audiences and his mother had come to love over the eight previous seasons was in fact a man named Arman Tamsarian, proving yet again that art often imitates life, even when that art is The Simpsons. 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 Mank 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.