Walk the Walk

and to find it we need to look elsewhere. August Picard had dreams like those. He and his twin brother, Jean Felix Picard were born in Switzerland to a father who taught chemistry at the local university. Science was in their blood, so it was no surprise when they enrolled at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology to pursue complementary degrees. August got his degree in physics, while Jean Felix earned his degree in chemistry. August enjoyed college life and even

stayed at the university to teach for several years after graduation. Eventually, he took a job as a professor at the University of Brussels in their physics department. Now around, Piccard became fascinated with ballooning and exploring the heavens. Specifically, he wanted to prove some of Einstein's theories correct by analyzing cosmic radiation, so he designed a brand new mode of transportation. Its purpose was to carry him high enough to capture and

study the cosmic rays in the atmosphere. What he designed was a pressurized aluminum sphere or gondola, which would be lifted into the upper atmosphere by a hot air balloon filled with hydrogen. The gondola was big enough to carry Piccard and a fellow scientist, Paul Kipfer, high over Germany. They launched the vessel on May nineteen thirty one, and

almost immediately encountered a problem. The gondola had sprung a leak. Luckily, with a few items they had on hands, such as vassoline and cotton, the two men were able to plug the leak and continue their ascent. They reached an eye popping fifty one thousand, seven hundred and seventy five ft nearly ten miles high, and became the first people to ever reach the stratosphere. According to many They were also

the first to ever see the Earth's curvature. Their analysis of the cosmic radiation at that altitude yielded impressive results. Picard determined that the rays were stronger up there than they were back on land, and he scooped some of the air into vials to take back to his lab to study. With their field work just about done, Picard and kip Fur started their descent back to Earth, or at least they tried. Unable to lower the balloon they were tethered to, the men drifted over much of Europe,

wafting through Germany, Italy, and Austria. However, fortune again favored them, as the night air chilled and the balloon was forced to finally land. It deposited Piccarda and his partner on a glacier seventeen hours after they had first launched. Their oxygen tank only had an hour's worth of air left. After his successful, yet terrifying trip, Picard continued to explore the sky, setting another record the following year, but after two dozen flights, he decided he wanted to see somewhere else.

In fact, he wanted to visit the exact opposite of the stratosphere. Picard was determined to go deeper. He realized that with some modifications to his original design, he could make a version of his gondola that would take him to the deepest parts of the ocean, areas that had never been seen by human eyes before, and in seven he debuted his newest creation, the Bath Escape, Except it

wasn't actually built yet. Although he started construction soon after he finished the blueprints, Picard was forced to wait until after World War Two had ended before he could finish building it. The Bath Escape was finally completed in night. Rather than use aluminum for his design, Picard built a small spherical vessel out of steel. It had been designed to withstand thousands of pounds of external pressure at great depths.

It was also attached to a massive tank filled with gasoline, which was lighter than water and unable to be compressed. To get the whole apparatus to sink, heavy iron weights were attached that pulled both the capsule and the gas tank to a depth of four thousand, six hundred feet. There were also motors on board to assist in underwater propulsion and to bring it back to the surface. All he had to do was cut the weights loose and

let buoyancy do the rest. Picard himself couldn't actually ride in the first bath escape, he ran several unmanned attempts before handing it over to the French Navy two years later. He then built another with his son in nineteen fifty three, and together they reached a depth of almost two miles, deeper than anyone had ever gone before. August Picard lived to seventy eight years old, passing away in March of nineteen sixty two, but he left a lasting legacy, and

not just on the scientific community. He followed in the footsteps of another former member of the Cabinets of Curiosities, a man named Palais Hould, who, if you remember, navigated the globe at only fifteen years old. And more Hold had gone on to inspire Belgian cartoonist Her j to create the character Tintin. Picard influenced another of HER's characters, Tintin's friend, the scientist and inventor, Professor Cuthbert Calculus. Everyone

has a hidden talent. Somebody looking to break the ice might mention how they can sing or perform magic tricks, while another might be a skilled guitar player. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do for a living, you have something about you that makes you special. But in nineteenth century America, having a unique talent or looking a certain way did more than make you special, It

made you different, like Ella Harper. Ella was born in Hendersonville, Tennessee, in eighteen seventy two William Harper and Minerva and childress. She grew up in a farming family with four other siblings, one of whom sadly passed away at only three months old. Ella was born a little different from the others, but it wasn't because of her hair color or how tall

she was. It was because she was flexible. You see, Ella had been born with a rare condition called congenital genuine record bottom, which affected how her knee joints developed, allowing them to bend backward. Pretty quickly. She became a child star, touring nearby states like Missouri and Louisiana as part of the circus, demonstrating her ability to walk on all fours by bending her knees ninety degrees in the

opposite direction. Her performances even earned her the nickname the camel Girl, because camels also walk with their knees bent in such a fashion. In eighteen eighties six, when she was just sixteen years old, Ella met a man named W. H. Harris. He was the owner of the Nickel Plate Show, a traveling circus that was almost on par with P. T. Barnum's. Harris had a cadre of animals and sideshow performers, but Ella was something special. He offered her a job performing

for two hundred dollars a week. Adjusted for inflation, that comes out to a weekly salary of roughly five thousand dollars today, an unfathomable amount of money in eighteen eighty six, especially for a sixteen year old girl. Ella continued to be advertised as the Camel Girl and was often exhibited alongside a real camel for comparison. Spectators were beckoned forward to come and see the girl who walked on her

feet and hands just like an animal. Before she was unveiled, cards would be handed out to the public that described Ella and how she almost never walked on two legs. She preferred to get around on her hands and feet, shuffling forward like a camel without the humps. The cards also encouraged audiences to see her while they still could, as she had been touring for four years and was leaving the circus soon to go to school, and it

wasn't a marketing employee either. Ella really was planning on leaving the entertainment business entirely before the end of the year, and at the close of eighteen eighty six she took her earnings and went into retirement. She practically vanished until fourteen years later when her name popped up on census records for nineteen hundred. Ella had gone back to Tennessee

to live with her mother. Sadly, her father and one of her brothers had died in the interim, but eventually she fell in love with a teacher and shopkeeper named Robert Safeley. The two were married in nineteen o five and had one daughter, Mabel, as if the deaths of her siblings and father weren't enough, though Ella suddenly lost Mabel six months after her birth. She and Robert moved to another county in Tennessee, where they took in Ella's mother to live with them, and then in nineteen eighteen,

the couple adopted a baby girl named Jewel. Yet tragedy seemed to fall of them wherever they went, and Jewel passed away when she was only three months old. Ella and Roberts moved one last time to Nashville, where she finally succumbed to colon cancer in December of nine, at the age of fifty one. Her mother died three years later. It was believed that Ella was buried next to her children. She had been born with a condition that would have affected her in any number of ways. Many diagnosed with

genue ricravatum often experienced chronic pain and osteo arsthritis. Also, given the time period, she could have found herself unable to maintain a job or even find a partner as a result of her condition. But Ella Harper showed them all. She used her gifts to entertain crowds and earned a lot of money in the process, getting out of the circus and building a life for herself and her family.

She made the best of her situation, something we should all aspire to, and it's fair to say to the circus audiences in Tennessee at least, she was definitely the bee's knees. 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. Ye