Noted

the Spanish conquistador. The promise of immortality is compelling. Life is so short already, and we don't have nearly enough time to see and experience all of what it has to offer. It's no wonder that the myth has persisted to this. But one woman lived a full and satisfying life unlike any other, and she didn't need a magical elixir to do it. Her name was Margaret and Nieve, born Marguerite and Harvey on the island of Guernsey in

seventeen ninety two. Her father had made a lot of money as a merchant shipman as well as a privateer during wartime, so the family was fairly well off. Margaret had six younger siblings, two of whom died when they were very young. She almost died herself when she was little after taking a nasty fall down a flight of stairs. Luckily, she survived, although the accident had left her with a

concussion that lasted for three days. Her father commanded Guernsey's militia during the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, the time that she remembered as being particularly tough for her and her family. Almost ten years later, in eighteen oh seven, a fifteen year old Margaret and her father set sail for the coastal town of Weymouth, Indorset, England, but a bad storm during the trip tossed and turned their boat around, forcing them to land on Chisel Beach

on the other side of Dorset. But Margaret made it out unscathed and went on to attend a school in Bristol. She developed a love for reading there, with a particular fondness for poetry and literature. She also learned how to speak fluent French and Italian while attending a finishing school in Brussels when she was in her early twenties, Margaret was something of an anomaly among girls of her age at the time. She loved to travel and study. Then

she wasn't in a rush to get married. In the years before her eighteen twenty three marriage to John Nive from Kent, Margaret went to Waterloo's battlefield after the dead had already been buried. She collected souvenirs and brought them to London, where she showed them to a Prussian field marshal named Gebhart von Blucher, who had been present at the battle. Waterloo was also her honeymoon destination with John.

Eight years after that first visit, Margaret even met General Charles du Maurier, who had fought during the French Revolutionary Wars, and referred to her as law spiritual, meaning the spiritual or the witty. Sadly, her happiness was cut shorts in a teen forty nine upon the death of her husband. She and John had never had any children together. Margaret ended up moving back to Guernsey to live with her

sister Elizabeth. There they resided in the home their father had bought back in eighteen o eight, named Showmier or the Thatched Cottage. The sisters didn't let their old age stop them, though, they spent much of their later years traveling all over Europe, including a trip to Poland in eighteen seventy two. It was there that an eighty year old Margaret got her first glimpse of Krakow, which was still under Austro Hungarian rule. She never slowed down, even

after Elizabeth died in eighteen eighty five. It was as though Margaret was living for both of them. If she wanted to snack on hern apple, she would climb a tree and pluck one right off the branch. If she craved marmalade, she would make it herself in her kitchen. To her, age was just a number. On May eighth,

her birthday, the whole town came out to celebrate. Two hundred and fifty residents, including town officials and neighbors, gathered along with her, surprised and elated that Margaret had made it to the age of one hundred and eight. That was also the same year she came down with bronchitis, although that didn't stop her. She continued to survive and thrive up until her death at one and ten. So what was her secret to such a long life? According

to a newspaper article, written about her. Margaret drank a glass and a half of sherry at every lunch and a little bit of whiskey and water at dinner time. She also woke up early every day and didn't snack between meals. She took her last breath on April four of nineteen oh three, a month shy of turning one eleven. She was not only the first female super centenarian, meaning that she had lived to be one d and ten, but she also was the only person to exist within

three centuries. Margaret and nev had survived the seventeen hundreds, lived through the eighteen hundreds, and had made it to the nineteen hundreds. She had seen the world change unlike anyone else, but she didn't just witness history. She was also a big part of it. It's every kid's least favorite time of the year when department stores put away their water guns and pool noodles and replaced them with crans and notebooks. That's right, it's time to go back

to school. But thanks to one man's efforts, the back to school season has become a little more fun because it isn't about a number two pencil or glue sticks. It's about how cool your notebook is. His name was Ernest Bryant crutch Field, and he was an executive at the Mead Corporation, founded in Dayton, Ohio in eighteen forty six by Daniel Meade. The company had started small as a paper manufacturer, then in the twentieth century, it began

producing other products such as cardboard shipping containers. As it continued to grow, meat acquired companies like Data Corporation, which had lucrative divisions for inkjet printing and electronic data management. But Ernest had no part in printing or data management. His department, called New Ventures, was focused on finding the

next big thing for the office supply market. He started by conducting research in nineteen seventy two with a fellow from Harvard, and their findings told them that classroom rosters were only going to get a little larger in the coming years, and not only that, but those students were going to have to deal with heavier course loads and smaller lockers on top of it all. Ernest looked at the numbers and saw that notebook and folder sales were

jumping by thirty percent each year. But that presented a new problem. Kids shouldn't have to lug half a dozen notebooks and folders around in their backpacks as they moved throughout their school day. So he started thinking about ways to lighten their loads, and he stumbled on a novel thought. He had changed the standard horizontal pockets and needs folders to vertical pockets instead. He called these new products peaches.

Unlike regular folders, which allowed the papers inside to fall out when turned upside down, peaches trapped the paper within. Thanks to their vertical pocket design, Students couldn't shake, drop, swing, or otherwise chuck their folders across the room and have everything fallout if it all stay within the two cardboard house. That was one problem solved, but another still remained that notebook.

Ernest settled on a three ring binder style which was made of plastic with a snap button to hold everything in. This way, kids didn't have to jam all their different notebooks into their backpacks at one time. It was groundbreaking. This binder system that Ernest had come up with collected the peaches, the paper and the notebooks all in one place, and the kids loved it. He knew that because he never stopped focus testing his creation, even his own teenage

kids at home offered their feedback. Through the development process, Ernest spoke to children and teachers. He toured schools, and he got to look at the lockers and the cubbies that kids were using to store their supplies between classes. After half a dozen prototypes, he finally settled on a version of his binder that would accommodate almost everyone. It was made of PVC and boasted plastic rings that didn't

snap closed on tiny fingers. Inside there was a place to store a pad and a pencil, while a flap on the outside held it all in one place with a button snap. Ernest wrote and filmed a commercial in New York in only three hours on a shoestring budget. It first aired in Wichita, Kansas in eight At the very same time, the first shipments of the product were arriving in stores. Surprisingly, even to Earnest, they sold out almost immediately. Wanting to understand why, he started including feedback

cards to see why kids like them. Those who filled them out and mail them in were promised a free binder for their troubles. Ernest got fift hundred cards back. The reasons ranged from I heard it was good, my girlfriend had one too, because they keep your papers where they belong. A few years later, the binders expanded from their test market into stores all over the country. They came in three colors and three unique designs like soccer,

a coastline, and a dog and a cat. Over time, licensing deals allow them to feature characters like Garfield or artwork from designers like Lisa Frank. For several generations, Ernest Bryant crutch Field's product transformed the school supply landscape. Kids everywhere had to have one stocked with folders otherwise known as trappers, along with paper stored within its three ring

keeper system. School was already hard enough, thanks to the trapper keeper, it was a little easier to hold everything together. 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. One