Tree Huggers

Big Holstein in Germany and Iceland. In addition, it commanded a formidable navy with three thousand members in its fleet, and that navy was preparing to defend itself against the French. The Danish army was already planning for a land attack from Napoleon's forces. The navy, however, was in a tougher spot. You see, the British needed access to the Baltic Sea.

They were using it as a trade route. The Baltic was also home to the resources needed for building English warships, and up to then the Danes had been allowing the British safe passage through the Baltic, especially since their presence also benefited allies like Sweden and Russia against the French. Unfortunately, there was a serious fear of France taking over Denmark

now that Prussia had finally fallen. English Foreign secretary Charles Gray had secretly tried to build an alliance between Denmark, Britain, and Sweden against France for several years, but had failed to make progress. Meanwhile, France was sending its own people into Denmark to secure the country's armies against the British.

There were even rumors that the Danish might go along with the French after all, fearing the loss of Denmark to Napoleon, who dozen English ships were sent in July of eighteen oh seven to Kantagat, a sea on the eastern Danish coast. Their mission was simply to watch for any aggression on the part of the Danish navy and intervene if necessary. Meanwhile, a British delegate had also slipped into Copenhagen to try and convince Denmark to hand over

its navy to English control. As discussions carried on, Napoleon got his own affairs in order. He tried to convince Alexander, the First of Russia to join Denmark and Portugal in fighting against Britain. In other words, both the British and the French were playing tug of war with a neutral Denmark, who wouldn't choose to fight with either side. Expecting the worst,

England chose to act first. By August of eighteen o seven, England had assembled around four hundred warships off the coast of Denmark, with roughly twenty five thousand troops awaiting orders. They attempted to negotiate a treaty with Denmark in return for its warships, and promised military support and even to return the ships once the war was over. The following day, Napoleon issued an ultimatum to Denmark go against England or

prepare for an invasion. The Danish refused to choose, so the British ordered them to hand over their ships, and predictably, Denmark said no. What resulted was the Battle of Copenhagen, a conflict lasting from mid August until the beginning of September in eighteen o seven between England and Denmark. The British fired Congreve rockets at the city, the same kinds of rockets whose red glare would inspire Francis Scott Key

to write The Star Spangled Banner seven years later. The rockets caused much of the city to burn, and countless buildings were reduced to ash and rubble. By the time the dust had settled, the British had lost several hundred men. Denmark, on the other hand, fared much worse. About two hundred civilians were killed, along with a few thousand Danish soldiers, and despite their best efforts, they were forced to surrender

the entire Danish navy to the British. Now, warships that were still being constructed were destroyed, while the existing vessels were commandeered by the British and sailed away. The defeat severely crippled Denmark and wound up forcing them to join forces with France anyway. Although now without a navy to fix the situation, Crown Prince Frederick the sixth did everything he could to secure the materials necessary to rebuild his fleet.

Every oak tree in Denmark was declared property of the Crown. He planted thousands of oak trees all over the country, knowing it took on average about two thousand oaks to make one ship. Although he knew the trees wouldn't be fully grown for some time. The Crown Prince probably didn't realize how much ship building would advance over the next two centuries. Navies went from using wood to steal, which meant that all those oak trees were no longer necessary. Still,

that didn't stop Denmark from tracking their growth. Around two thousand seven, two centuries after the battle, Queen margret To the second, received a call from her Royal Forestry Commissioner with an important message. Her oak trees. They told her, We're finally ready. A six ft six inch man wouldn't find the cockpit of a British World War Two fighter jet a comforting place, but in this instance, the pilot had no trouble with being taller than the average human,

let alone the average fighter pilots. He did, however, crash land in Libya, where he lived out his own action movie sequence, crawling away from a flaming jet with a fractured skull before the jets leaking fuel tank exploded, injuries that led the pilot to a new calling, espionage. It all began with a diplomatic post at the British Embassy in Washington, d C. In the after math of Pearl Harbor. There he took on the role of an assistant air

at Tache. And while James Bond has infused our mind with romantic notions of being a spy, including luxury cars with machine guns built into the headlights, our spy started out in something a little less glamorous public relations, but the James Bond life would follow. Being tall, handsome and remarkably persuasive, he found his way into the finer things in spy work, cocktail parties, finger foods, and well women.

Numerous friends noted that, like Double O seven himself, this spy like to socialize his way into the good graces of established women, from actresses and heiresses to powerful congress women. That isn't all he was doing, though. He also sweet talked himself into the inner circle of the most important Americans of the day, Harry Truman, for instance, and that powerhouse of an American family, the Roosevelt's. In fact, he spent at their family residence at Hyde Park, charming the

socks off anyone he engaged in conversation. All the while he was sending notes and telegrams back to England detailing what the political climates in America looked like. And how that would affect British interests. Yes, in politics, friends spy on friends as much as they spy on their enemies. It's safe to say that working as a spy was a better fit for our hero than the pilot seat, although it took a crash to set him in a new direction. But in the end, even spying wasn't quite

the right fit. Now he still had one more path yet to walk. If his time as a pilot was act one and Act two was his time as a spy, then we now have to turn our attention to Act three, since the life of this particular person fits nicely into that classic three act structure, and this final act was the one that would set him apart from all the rest, moving him from a notable historical figure to practically a household name. You see, our pilot turned spy eventually became

a writer. Even as he danced his way through civilized American society, there was still time to scribble down his stories,

and he began to publish articles. He would also all too appropriately write the screenplay for a film that had many parallels from his own life, an actual James Bond movie, But none of that cemented what would become the lasting legacy of this larger than life man because his big break as a writer came in nineteen sixty one, over a decade after his service in World War Two, and that big break was a children's book about a boy

and an enormous piece of fruit. The success of this adventure story eventually turned into many more successes in the publishing world. Soon to follow were other now classics, like the story about a boy who earns a trip to the local chocolate factory, or another child's adventure with giants. Then all of them cemented this pilot turned spy turned writer as perhaps one of the greatest children's authors to

have ever lived. In the end, he may have embodied the title of his James Bond screenplay You Only Live Twice, But if you ask me, he may have miscounted, because his was a life that was certainly lived thrice and his name rowled doll. 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.