Politics often seem pretty boring, but if you look deep enough, there are always curious notes to them.
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Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm 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. The year was nineteen fifty six, and the West African city of Accras was alive with music. As the plane touched down on the tarmac, jubilant crowds began to cheer and sing the name of the American ambassador. This was no ordinary diplomat. He was Louis Armstrong, the famous jazz musician. The US government had recently recruited him to its Jazz Ambassador program, which aimed to fight the spread out of communism through music. By sending famous American artists on tours around the world. They sought to spread America's values and hopefully, the popularity of its politics. Jazz had been chosen for two reasons. First, the genre was incredibly popular, and second, many of the musicians were black. The burgeoning civil rights movement was causing lots of bad press for America and the government hoped that promoting black artists might help rehabilitate its image abroad. Louis Armstrong wasn't particularly interested in that second part, but he'd never been to Africa before and saw the trip as an opportunity to connect with his roots. While he didn't know which part of the continent his enslaved ancestors came from, he hoped that visiting might spark some feeling of connection. Meanwhile, Acron was experiencing a unique cultural moment of its own. In nineteen fifty six. It was the capital city of the British Gold Coast Colony, which had been under imperialist rules since the fifteenth century. Now the country seemed to be on the brink of independence. The peace could sense change on the horizon, and there was a strange, jubilant excitement in the air. A visit from an American musician as popular as Louis Armstrong offered a much needed opportunity to celebrate, so the moment he stepped off the plane, the crowd exploded. Thirteen bands played on trucks around the tarmac. The mood was so raucous that Louis picked up his own trumpet and joined in with them. Over the next forty eight hours, he played a number of shows around the city, one at the old Polo Grounds in front of one hundred thousand celebratory spectators, another at the Opera, and a third at the Paramount Club, where he was joined on stage by some of the country's most famous musicians. With all the excitement, it certainly felt like a homecoming. But for Louis Armstrong, the connection he'd been looking for came during a quiet moment backstage. He met a dancer who bore a striking resemblance to his mother, who had just died a few years earlier, and according to Louis, seeing this woman convinced him that his ancestors came from that area. He stated, and I quote, I came from here way back. At least my people did. Now I know this is my country too. By the time he left Acra two days later, it seemed that everyone was a little different. Just a year later, the Gold Coast achieved its independence, becoming the nation of Ghana. Today, the country has a vibrant, stable democracy, and its most popular music genre is called highlife, a fusion of African Caribbean music and traditional jazz. In a sense Louis Armstrong's visit to Acra was a homecoming for his music as much as it was for him. After all, jazz was heavily influenced by traditional West African songs, which enslave peoples brought with them to the United States. That music had now come full circle, inspiring a fresh generation of West African artists. It seems that the Jazz Ambassador program had been a success, subtly steering a fledgling country toward democracy, but it had also changed Louis Armstrong, making him more convinced than ever that the American government had their own work to do back home. Soon after returning home, he dropped out of the program as an act of protest. When questioned on the matter, he gave reporters a simple explanation, the way they're treating my people down south, the government can go to hell. Nestled in the Alleghany Mountain County of Greenbrier, West Virginia, is the Greenbrier Resort. Since opening in the seventeen hundreds, the resort has attracted high profile clientele, including politicians, celebrities, and even royalty. The palatial resort sits on eleven hundred acres and offers its visitors five hundred rooms to choose from. It's got plenty of space for long held secrets, and it's loaded with wartime history. For one, this expansive property served as a hospital and enemy prison during w World War Two. For this reason, it has long been a source of local pride, but it wasn't until after the war that the Greenbrier became a source of mystery. In nineteen fifty eight, the iconic venue gave locals some much needed zeal. At the time, the country was in the midst of the Cold War, and people all across the US sought distraction from fear and uncertainty. So when ground broke on a new wing at the Greenbrier, residents felt a sense of hopefulness. The expansion symbolized optimism for the future, but the excitement soon turned to confusion. You see, locals looked on as construction workers dug the hole for the foundation, and it was massive, probably a few stories deep. People were familiar with the resort's layout, after all, many of them had worked there, but no one knew of any other part of the building that reached so far underground. Confusion devolved into fear when cement trucks began parading to and from the construction site, and this went on for days before giant steel doors were installed and guards were stationed out front. It was unlike anything people had ever seen before, and it felt ominous inside the building. The wing was closed off to anyone except top personnel and curiously, a continuous stream of TV repairmen. One administrative employee stuck up a friendship with the repairman's manager, and there was something the employee couldn't shake. All of the other resort workers were Greenbrier employees, but the TV repairman worked for a contracting company. None of the Greenbrier's top personnel provided any explanation for this, so people started forming their own theories. By the time the Cuban missile crisis occurred in the early sixties, many believed the expansion served as a nuclear hideout for President John F. Kennedy. It wasn't an outlandish thought, considering a lot of residents had built bomb shelters in their own backyards, and yet few people who supported this theory would openly admit to it. People still remembered the World War II posters that had the phrase loose lips sink ships. So while gossip and speculation circled among friends, most people rarely discussed the mystery underneath their own town. But in nineteen ninety two, one person in Greenbrier opened up to someone who would turn the tides forever. They anonymously contacted a Washington Post reporter and laid out the full truth. As it turned out, the people of the town had been right almost You see, the wing wasn't a nuclear shelter for JFK, but for every single member of Congress. It was a bunker fitted with a congressional floor and podium, a fully stocked pharmacy, and eleven hundred pre assigned bunk beds. The people of Greenbrier weren't surprised when they heard the news. If anything, they were satisfied to be proven right. There were a few other people who weren't surprised either, the Forsyth TV repairman. They were some of the only people allowed in the bunker before nineteen ninety two, and they weren't there to repair TVs. They were actually technicians who performed routine safety checks. They made sure that all the protective features worked, like the blastproof doors and the decontamination showers. Since it was constructed. Congress has never used the bunker, and hopefully they never have to, but that doesn't change the fact that it was simultaneously both the most necessary use of funds and the most wasteful. 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.