Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the cabinet of curiosities. Our memories, not the memories themselves, but the act of remembering, are fragile. As we get older, it gets harder for us to hold onto our past. It starts simply, sometimes without us even noticing what's going on. We forget to pick up an item at the store, or it wasn't on the list.
We'll just at it next time, but we never do. Or we walk into a room and forget why we're there in the first place. We look around for clues as to what brought us there, only to leave empty handed until we can remember again. There is a fickle thing. However, that fickleness can go both ways. Just ask Daniel McCartney in the mid eighteen eighties. Daniel's brain was a bit of a celebrity. He began his life in Muscotine, Iowa, but moved to Morrow County, Ohio, where he spent most
of his life. And if you were to ask him about that life, he could tell you anything. You wanted to know the weather conditions of a particular day, or what he had for every meal, or how he occupied his time from the moment he woke up until he fell asleep. You see, Daniel McCartney had a special skill.
What used to be called hyper thymesia is now known today as h S a m highly superior autobiographical memory, and from the age of nine years old, it gave Daniel the ability to recall every detail from every day of his life. He could even tell you the day of the week certain events fell on. Ask him what he was doing on March six of eighteen eighty, and Daniel could recount his breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as who he spoke to, what they talked about, whether
it was raining, and more. Within Daniel's head resided a complete encyclopedia of his own life available to him within seconds. He was also known as a human calculator. Mildly challenging equations could be solved in seconds without need for pencil and paper, although the truly difficult ones would take him minutes. In eighteen seventy, mathematicians in Salem, Ohio, asked Daniel to calculate eighty nine to the sixth power, it took him
ten minutes to work out the correct answer. On another occasion, he was asked to find the cube root of four million seven Hunt one thousand, sixty two. Three minutes later, he rattled off the solution. If it sounds like Daniel was a kind of mental superhero, that's because he was. Only Twelve people in the world currently possess h s a M, including actress Mary Lew Henner and author Jill Price.
When a newspaper asked Jill in two thousand seventeen what she was doing on August twenty nine of nineteen eighty, she had no problem remembering that it was a Friday and that she was with her friends and their family on a Labor day trip to Palm Springs. Nor had she forgotten about the spa she and those girlfriends had gone to before they arrived at Palm Springs. She'd been just fourteen years old at the time. The third time she drove a car, she remembered that one too, January
tenth of nineteen eight one. It was a Saturday, and she just turned fifteen two weeks earlier. Surprisingly, all of the men who have been diagnosed with the condition have turned out to be left handed. And while all people with h S a M can recall personal memories and minute details, that doesn't mean they have photographic memories for the purpose of retaining information. For example, Daniel McCartney couldn't cram for an exam the night before and simply expect
to remember everything he'd read. Ask anyone with a condition, and they might tell you how hard their lives can be. Every conversation, every cringe, every misspoken sentiment that has ruined a relationship can never be forgotten. What some might look at as a blessing can sometimes also be a curse to the person living with it. But in the late
eighteen hundreds, Daniel McCartney made the best of it. He entertained crowds of people who had never seen someone with such insight into their own brain, who could perform mental calculations faster than most mathematicians. Daniel was a force of nature and the epitome of that age old adage Knowledge is power. Fate has a funny way of messing with people. For example, Gary Hoy was a well known Toronto lawyer who liked to demonstrate the unbreakable nature of his boardroom's windows.
He would throw himself into them and bounce off, landing safely on the boardroom's carpeted floor. Then, one day, while trying to impress a group of visitors, he tested the window one more time. Glass finally gave way, and Gary felt twenty four stories to his death. Pete Maravich also had an unconscious run in with fate. He was born in Ninete, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and knew from a very young age exactly what he wanted to do with his life.
He shared a close relationship with his father, who pushed him to excel at many things, but especially basketball. It was only natural, considering how Mr. Marovich played professionally before becoming a coach himself, Pete took to the game immediately. He practiced for hours with his dad, who had him working on controlling the ball, passing head fakes, and taking shots from half court. By the time he made it
to high school, he was ready for varsity. His family moved from Pennsylvania to South Carolina, where Pete played on the Daniel High School basketball team from nineteen sixty one to nineteen sixty three. For a senior year, his family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina for his father's new coaching job. That's where he earned the nickname Pistol Pete due to his tendency to pass the ball from his hip like
he was firing a six shooter. After Pete graduated high school, he attended the Edwards Military Institute, followed by L. S U. In only three years, his skills on the court earned him a record breaking three thousand, six hundred sixty seven points. In fact, most of his n C double A scoring records still stand forty years later. Pete's talents took him all the way to the NBA, where the Atlanta Hawks chose him as their third pick in the first round
of the nineteen seventy draft. He did well during the first several seasons he played for the Hawks, but another team was entering the fray down south and they were looking for a star. The New Orleans Jazz snatched him up and he gave them his all for another six years, but growing knee problems kept Pete on the bench from much of his last season with the Jazz. In nineteen eighty, he was traded to the Boston Celtics as a part time contributor who would jump in and substitute as necessary.
With his knee problems showing no sign of healing, Pete had to make a decision. Ten years and six hundred fifty eight games later, it was finally time for Pete to retire. After he left the NBA, Pete disappeared for a few years. He explored the spiritual side, practicing yoga and studying Hinduism. He became a vegetarian before accepting Evangelical Christianity into his life. The NBA inducted him into the
Naysmith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in nineteen seven. His jersey numbers were retired by all the teams he played for. Pete Maravich had become a basketball hero and too many a legend. Then, in one year after his induction into the Hall of Fame, a forty year old Pete died of an apparent heart attack. He'd been playing in a pickup game at a church in Pasadena, California, when an
undiagnosed congenital defect caused his heart to stop beating. According to those who had been playing with him at the time, his last words were, I feel great. I just feel great. It's eerie, I know, but that's not what makes pete story so odd? You see, back in nineteen seventy four, just before he was traded to the New Orleans Jazz, Pete gave an interview to the Beaver County Times, his
hometown newspaper. During the interview, he made a passing comment about his career and how he wanted to live his life once he'd stopped playing basketball. He told sportswriter Andy News, Oh, I don't want to play for ten years in the NBA and diet a heart attack at forty. Unfortunately, for Pete Maravich, NBA star from n seven D to night, that is exactly what he did. 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.