Governments can do some pretty curious things, and today's tour is a great example of how.
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 are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. When you think of the nomadic conquerors of history, you probably first think of Genghis Khan, then perhaps Attila in the Huns. But the fierce, often brutal warrior mentality didn't end there. In seventy for example, a Turco Mongol warlord by the name of tamer Lane came into power, and unlike any other commander in the history of military might, tammer Lane was never defeated. However, he was the last of the great nomadic conquerors, as a new era began encroaching into the end of his reign with the expanse of civilization. He died in February of fourteen o five during an uncharacteristic winter campaign against the Chinese Ming dynasty, and was buried in Saint Marcan in a tomb that still stands today. And because he was such a big deal. It has its own name, Guri Amir. For most though, death is usually the end of the story. When Genghis Khan died, the Mongols splintered the same with Attila and his huns, and for the most part, that happened to Tamerlane as well. But that's not the story that we're here to talk about. We're here to discuss the fact that he may or may not have taken a curse with him to the grave, a curse that might well have changed the course of human history. By now, we've all heard of curses, of course, thanks to the supposed curses that came from Egyptian rulers like King tut as well as modern cinematic curses like those we see in Indiana Jones or the Mummy. Seeing excavation teams meet untimely demises isn't quite as extraordinary as it might have once been. But tammer Lane's curse hit on a much bigger scale, and it all started with an intrepid Soviet scientist named Mikhail Gerassimov, who was in the midst of pioneering the field of paleo anthropological facial reconstruction. Simply put, he dug up the dead and use the remains to give us spitting images of what the deceased might have looked like. You can probably guess what happened next. Tamer Lane was on Mikhal's list, and given the doctor's track record, Joseph Stalin himself was all for it. Although no one is quite sure why, Michael set off to sam Marcan to both verify that it was tamer Lane buried there and to give the world another conqueror's face. As soon as he arrived, though, the locals cried out against the expedition team, worried that they would unleash a legendary curse, and the local Muslim religious leaders tried to stop the exhimation for the same reason. After all, a tomb was inscribed with some pretty daunting words. When I rise from the dead, it said, the world shall tremble. Michail heard the words from the keeper of the tomb, notified Moscow just in case, and then promptly arrested the man for spreading false rumors and instigating the public outcry. On June nineteenth, though things went sideways. A beautiful slab of green jade was removed from atop the remains of tamer Lane, And there Michaal found another inscription with yet another threat, whomsoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I. Still unfhazed, the body was taken and carted off to Russia, where it underwent intensive study and led to an exact facial reconstruction of what the Great Conqueror had looked like. But at what cost. Three days later, in a seemingly unrelated event, Nazi Germany initiated Operation Barbarossa and attacked Russia. Perhaps tamer Lane had called his shot with this invader more terrible than him. Moscow was wise to the warnings of tamer Lane's tomb, but they had bigger fish to fry fending off the invasion by Germany. Still being of a superstitious sort, Stalin knew that he needed to undo the curse that Gerasimov had initiated, not just yet, though he had a war to fight. A little over a year later, in November of nineteen two, Stalin finally got a bright idea. If it was tamer Lane's curse that had instigated the conflict with Germany, maybe he could end it too. So the body was loaded into an aircraft and flown back to sam Marcan, where it was buried with full honors in traditional fashion. One month later, the Battle of Stalingrad turned the tide of war and gave Russia a victory on the Eastern Front, a victory that would push the Nazis into losing the war entirely. Whatever role tamer Lane did or didn't have in changing the outcome of World War Two, we'll never know for sure, because while the face that McHale reconstructed from the conqueror's remains is remarkably lifelike, it's sadly I can't answer our questions when it comes to unexplained phenomena. It's not uncommon for world leaders to be directly involved with their analysis or cover up. For example, the US government has been keeping Area fifty one in the Nevada Desert under wraps for decades. America's military continues to claim that the object that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in nineteen forty seven was part of a surveillance balloon, not an alien spacecraft, And in nineteen seventy nine, a certain English Prime Minister made it her mission to track down one of the most mysterious creatures ever documented. That Prime Minister was Margaret Thatcher, who held the position from nineteen seventy nine until November of nine. She was known for her staunch conservative views, which led to a rise in poverty and income in equality across the UK. She was tough too, earning her the nickname the Iron Lady, and for good reason. However, in one of her first acts as Prime Minister, Thatcher did not repeal financial regulations or privatized nationalized industries like gas and water. No, those came later. Instead, she set her sights on a menace stalking the waters of Scotland, a beast that had eluded hunters, scientists and tourists for centuries, and it was time to bring it to justice. I'm talking, of course, about the Luckness Monster, and surprisingly Thatcher had no interest in catching it or mounting it on her wall. Rather, she wanted to protect Nessie, and to do so she would use dolphins. That's right, dolphins, but not just any dolphins. She wrote a letter to the Scottish Home and Health Department requesting the import of trained dolphins provided by the United States Navy. They would be placed in Lochness with high tech gadgets affixed to them in order to sniff out the creature. This plot was believed to have been concocted by noted monster hunter doctor Robert Rynes from America in nineteen seventy two. Ryans had taken several underwater photographs of blurry flippers and torsos in Loch Ness that he claimed belonged to NeSSI herself. His obsession brought him back to Scotland countless times over the span of thirty five years, with each visit involving more equipment and technology. Unfortunately, his research never panned out, at least not according to the wider scientific community, but the Prime Minister was convinced, and so she pushed for a dolphin led investigation. When word got out about Thatcher's plans, though the public rose up in opposition. Animal rights activists didn't want her using dolphins for such a bizarre objective. NeSSI enthusiasts worried that Thatcher's plan would actually result in the monster being caught and killed. So what was her reason for using trained dolphins? Well, for one, Sweden had reached out to the UK to understand how they were planning to protect the Lockness monster. The Swedes were looking to secure the safety of their own lake monster, a serpent whose existence had dated back all the way to the mid sixteen hundreds. But the real reason tourism the UK's economy was suffering. Inflation was up, and Thatcher was trying to bring in money however she could. If she could track down Nessie and reveal it to the public, the discovery would bring in untold amounts from tourists all over the world, and that meant money flowing back into the banks of the UK. Margaret Thatcher was not known as a jokester, yet her plan to protect Nessie was done with her tongue planted, at least partly in her cheek. Whether she really believed in Nessie is unknown, but she believed in it enough to warrant a formal inquest into the use of US naval animals to find her. Thatcher had also pursued the lockness Monster as a lighthearted response to the Swedes, telling them that the Secretary of States could add NeSSI to the endangered species list for added protection. Her letters about the operation, as well as the responses she received, were classified for many years, then in two thousand six they were made public under the Freedom of Information Act. One letter in particular from the Stockholm Embassy had been addressed to the Scottish Office. It was in reference to Sweden's questions about Nessie's protection. If that's your responded, saying the inquiry is a serious one and we should like to give them at least a half serious reply. Well, that serious reply came in when Nessie was officially placed under the protection of the UK's Wildlife and Countryside Act and the best part of all, no dolphins required. 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 World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,