Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. It's a common fear, one so pervasive that it changed the funeral industry hundreds of years ago. It's called tafa phobia,
otherwise known as the fear of being buried alive. Back in the fourteenth century, accidentally burying someone who was still living happened more often than you think. John Dunce Scotus, a philosopher, was once believed to have been interred prematurely in third Tino Wait. When the vault his body was residing in was open. He was found laying dead on the floor beside his sarcophagus, with his hands all cut up.
He had tried to fight his way out. It was this fear that eventually led to the invention of the safety coffin, which involved some kind of mechanism to alert the living up above that the person below them had been prematurely buried, They often used a bell tied to a string that ran underground to the coffin, where it could be pulled. S C. Dunbar didn't have a bell or a string, but she certainly let everyone know what had happened to her. She was born in Barnwell County,
South Carolina in the late eighteen hundreds. She seemingly lived there all her life, becoming a beloved member of her community in nineteen fifteen, though her fame would extend far beyond the borders of Barnwell County. S c. Was roughly thirty when it happened. She had suffered from an epileptic seizure that sent her falling to the floor. A local doctor by the name of D. K. Briggs was called to attend to her, and when he got there, it was clear that it was too late. Sie was no
longer breathing. After checking her pulse and other vital signs, Dr Briggs declared her dead. Her family stepped in to handle the final arrangements. They dressed her in nice clothing, made a wooden coffin for her to be buried in, and prepared everything for her funeral. Three ministers were asked to officiate the service that day after her death. The only person who hadn't been part of the planning was her sister, who lived in Allendale, about twenty five miles
south of where SI lived. She had apparently not been told about her sister's sudden passing until well after it had happened, and caught a last minute train home, but it was scheduled to arrive just before the funeral started. Friends, family, and mourners all gathered together at eleven o'clock the next day to pay their final respects to Si. Each minister gave their remarks, and at the end of the service, the coffin was opened so everyone in attendants could say
goodbye one last time. The only person not there s sister. Her train hadn't arrived yet. Not wanting to wait any longer to put Si to rest, the other family members pushed forward with the burial. They carted her coffin up the hill to the cemetery, where a final prayer was said. Si was then lowered into her grave. Tearful mourners looked out into the distance, hoping to see her sister arriving. Before the coffin was covered and she was gone for good.
But there was no sign. Finally, from a short distance away, the sister's voice was heard calling she had finally arrived. Workers had already dumped several feet of dirt on top of the coffin, but the ministers asked them to dig s c out so her sister could say goodbye. They did as they were instructed, unearthing SI's casket and raising
it back out of the ground. Everyone stood around the casket as the lid was unfastened and removed, and without warning, Si Dunbar, who had been pronounced dead by a doctor only a day before, sat straight up and greeted her sister with a smile. According to the reports, her recovery caused all hell to break loose. The ministers fell into the grave. One of them suffered from three broken ribs, but not from the fall. The other two men had stepped on him trying to get out of the grave.
Everyone else ran away, including SI's sister. Meanwhile, Sie herself didn't understand what the commotion was about, only that all of her loved ones were fleeing in terror. Not realizing that she was the reason for their fear, she ran after them, chasing them down the hill, which I'm sure
only added to their fright. See lived another forty seven years following her premature burial, finally passing away for real this time in nineteen sixty two at the age of seventy, and she got the last lap as well, outliving the doctor who had declared her dead the first time back in nineteen fifteen, and from what I've heard, his funeral wasn't nearly as exciting. Before the dot com bubble burst in two thousand, the nineties saw explosive growth across the
realm of consumer technology. We saw the proliferation of the MP three. Steve Jobs returned to Apple and steered it back towards success, and the cell phone was gaining steam as a permanent fixture in our hands. And before we had text messages, snapchats, Facebook, and even a o LL instant messenger, there was email. An electronic letter could be sent anywhere in the world from any computer connected to
the Internet. Email changed the way we communicated literally and changed how we wrote, how we spoke, and the words we use on a daily basis. But in one company wanted to change the way people sent and received email, and they did it in a fun and whimsical way not seen since it started when Indiana native James Robert Davis launched his own syndication company, Pause, Inc. Back in
nineteen one. Now the time, Pause Inc. Was responsible for managing a popular media entity, and in the mid nineteen nineties, the company built a whole new website around its most popular property. This website arrived during an era when several platforms offered comprehensive all in one services. They provided email, news, chat, forums, and more. America Online was perhaps the most popular, but there was also Prodigy, Apple's e World, and compy Sir,
just to name a few. In the late nineties, however, James's fledgling web service became an unexpected competitor to those bigger Internet names. Those who navigated to its orange and yellow themed website were greeted with ten unique menu options. There was a gazette section filled with important news of the day, as well as a booknook where users could learn more about specific titles related to his intellectual property.
People could also find comic strips, games, puzzles, and even a fan club where they could unlock top secret content only for registered members. But perhaps the most important feature of all was its email service. Users had the option to send and receive email from James's website for free, breaking them off the bonds imposed on them by their Internet service providers. The name of this breakthrough email service Gmail,
except this wasn't the Gmail you're probably thinking of. That Gmail had been developed under the code name Harribou and kept secret for several years until it was finally revealed to the public on April Fool's Day of all Days in two thousand four by internet search giant Google. James's Gmail, on the other hand, started its life at the turn of the century and continued on for several more years.
It was not the product of a giant tech conglomerate, but in fact part of the official website of everyone's favorite Orange Monday hating lasagna eating Tabbycat Garfield. Users who signed up for Garfield Mail, or Gmail, as it was referred to on the Garfield website were given address at Cat's Rule dot Garfield dot com. You could log in and email all your fellow fans from your very own
Garfield email accounts. Jim Davis's Fat Orange Tabby is still popular today, just as he always has been, but that old website is long gone, and with it the original Gmail, but I'll hope is not lost. Several years ago, it was revealed that Garfield's email service might still be alive. A technology blog contacted a known address at Cat's Rule dot Garfield dot com and did not receive a bounce back confirmation in return, which meant that their email went through.
So it's possible that somewhere out there someone still has and uses their Garfield email address for everyone else. Though their days of eating digital lasagna are over, they can still enjoy Garfield comic strips, watching his cartoons, movies, and even a few avant garde alternatives, including one version of a comic where Garfield never existed and his owner, John R.
Buckle simply talks to himself. Garfield the character shows no signs of going away anytime soon, but his ill fated email service of the nineteen nineties and early two thousand's that has sadly ended up in the junk folder. 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.