Training Wheels

warm the body and the soul, melting away the day's problems. Today, tea is as accessible as the water you steep it in. But that wasn't always the case. In nineteenth century Ireland, the idea of regular people drinking tea nearly ruined society. That's what the rich nobility would have you believe, you see. Tea was mostly an Asian commodity until the Portuguese and the Dutch started bringing it to Europe in the mid

sixteen hundreds. In sixteen sixty two, Catherine of Braganza, daughter of John the fourth of Portugal, married King Charles the Second. Catherine traveled from Portugal to the United Kingdom for her nuptials and brought along her must have items, namely trunks and trunks of Chinese tea. Once her new husband got a taste, tea became a certified hit. In fact, Catherine of Braganza was credited as the person who made tea popular in Britain. Most people who experienced the beverage praised

it for its seemingly endless uses. They claimed that it could do everything from amplifying one's intelligence to giving a person more energy throughout the day, but not to everyone liked it. There were skeptics who believed that tea was harmful to European complexions and their sensitive digestive tracks, and many of their complaints had more to do with where the tea had come from than the drink itself. By the mid eighteenth century, anti tea rhetoric was rife with

racist innuendos about the beverages country of origin. That sentiment found its way into numerous writings of the time too. British traveler Jonas Hanway wrote in seventeen fifty seven that to what heights of folly must a nation be arrived when common people are not satisfied with wholesome food at home, but must go to the remotest regions to please a vicious palate. But as time went on, voices, like handways, fell away to the side. Eventually tea drinking took on

a life of its own. The eighteen hundreds saw Ireland adopt a new custom, a mid afternoon tea time. Wealthy Dublin women would host tea parties to show off their status as well as their etiquette to their equally posh peers. There were certain rules to be abided by during these parties, of course, lest you wanted to look uncivilized. For one, the tea had to be of an appropriate quality and

only one cup was to be consumed by each guest. Also, all stacks were required to be presented upon a silver tray. Oh and certain topics were forbidden from discussion to avoid those uncomfortable arguments or silences. Tea time was meant to be a light break in the day, but only for people of means. You see, even though the poor also had access to tea, their consumption of it was frowned upon. The upper class felt that those of lesser means could

not properly prepare it. The reason they thought that was because that poor folks often left tea brewing for hours on the flame, so that there was always a pot ready to pour for unexpected guests. Doctors, on the other hand, believed that steeping tea leaves for so long would remove all of their tannins, making the drink more toxic to the body and causing stomach aches as well as hallucinations. The rich, on the other hand, only steeped their tea for a short amount of time prior to consuming it.

But medical professionals and the wealthy weren't really concerned with the health of people on the bottom of the social ladder. They were worried about those people I mean that ladder. Members of the lower class wanted better lives for themselves, and one way they saw of achieving such a thing was in drinking what the upper class was drinking. It also allowed poor women to exert some control over their

own lives. The wealthy elite did not approve of how these poor women would get together regularly and enjoy a cup of tea rather than endlessly tend to the housework that was expected of them. What would happen next? Demanding the right to vote, and that was actually a great fear that poor women who congregated over tea would become politically active and discuss all the ways they were being mistreated by the upper class. Well, the rich couldn't allow that,

could they. Tea was their beverage and the poor needed to know their place. So the elites started spinning narratives warning young poor women that drinking tea would make them addicted to the point where they would steal from loved ones and throw their families into bankruptcy, anything to make them second guess their choice in a beverage. Fortunately, those tactics didn't really work. Tea time became a common practice across class lines, and just as the wealthy had feared,

it did help jumpstart the women's liberation movement. Today, we regularly enjoy tea and are even more aware now of its health benefits such as antioxidants boosting our immune systems. There's no need to worry about starting a revolution over a cup of tea every now and then, because, of course, that's what the Internet is for now. When it came to revolutionizing mass transit, the number one concern for inventors and innovators has always been speed. It's not enough to

have the biggest cabin or the most luxurious seats. What matters most is getting from point A to point B in the least amount of time. The Wright Brothers first airplane only reached a top speed of about seven miles per hour. Today's commercial airplanes and travel seventy times that, taking people thousands of miles in only a few hours.

And the same goes for trains. The first passenger steam locomotive took four hundred and fifty people a distance of twenty five miles, and it never broke fifteen miles an hour. Today's bullet trains can hit almost two hundred miles per hour. But around nineteen thirty one German engineer believed that faster speeds were possible. It's just a shame that he used a design that would come to symbolize tragedy six years later.

His name was Franz Krukenberg from Ottersen, Germany. He graduated with a degree in naval engineering from the Technical University of Berlin in nineteen oh seven and went on to design various aircraft before World War One. After the war, France opened his own consulting firm, where he designed a new kind of hanging monorail. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, he was never able to secure the money to build

a prototype. But that didn't stop the engineer from moving on to his next great project, high speed railway transportation. It's got to Work in nineteen twenty nine, designing a new kind of railcar, one that would be aerodynamic, just like an airplane. Despite certain modern rail vehicles being called bullet trains today, this pre World War II creation was actually shaped like a bullet. He carried out a series of wind tunnel tests in November of that year before

beginning construction. The final train measured almost eighty five feet long and just over ten feet high. Its lightweight aluminum frame sat on top of a steel chassis and two axles, and it was powered by a pair of BMWIV six cylinder airplane engines. But what set this train apart from the others of its time was the four bladed propeller

at its rear. France famously criticized zeppelins. He hated the hydrogen inside of them and its explosive nature, so it was funny that his new train car was shaped just like one. Even the workers noticed, which is why they started calling it the Sheenen Zeppelin or the rail Zeppelin. But despite its minimus design, France put a lot of thought into its construction. For example, each of the Sheen and Zeppelin's wheels had an inner flange that was taller

than on normal trains. This was meant to keep the car on the tracks at high speeds and reduce the possibility of derailments. The Sheen and Zeppelin was completed in the fall of nineteen thirty. It had been designed to shuttle a maximum of forty four passengers at one time. Upon its first test with the propeller, the train hit sixty two miles an hour in just over a minute,

traveling a distance of three thousand, two hundred feet. After three minutes, the rail Zeppelin reached the top speed of one hundred and thirteen miles per hour, at which point the test was stopped. Unfortunately, braking was a major issue for the train. The vehicle required just over a mile of track to stop due to its lightweight and a

problem with the rear axle. Still, despite its issues, the Sheen and Zeppelin was shown off to the press on October eighteenth of nineteen thirty, and it became quite a draw for crowds who wanted to see what it was capable of. The tests continued for another several months until June twenty first of nineteen thirty one. That was the day when the rail Zeppelin traveled from Karlstadt to Perleberg, Germany,

with a car full of passengers and crew. It went seven and a half miles, setting a new speed record by reaching a whopping one hundred and forty three miles per hour. The sheen and Zeppelin was then displayed at the Renbaannstadian railway station in Berlin for the next several days before its crew got to work upgrading its brakes in the hopes of sending it back out again. Sadly, the train's journey ended there. Its design just wasn't conducive

to transporting the masses. For one, it couldn't handle tight curves at high speed, and second, the rear propeller made coupling other cars to its a impossibility. Still, Franz Krukenberg had glimpsed the future of travel in more ways than one. His high speed train was shaped like a zeppelin and just as unfit for travel as one too, which reminds

me of another infamous vehicle, the Hindenburg. The only difference between the Sheen and Zepplin and the Hindenburg, though, was that the train didn't blow up in more ways than one. 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 Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.