Not everything in the Cabinet of Curiosities is what it appears to be, as both stories today will illustrate.
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Welcome to Aaron Menkey'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. It pays to get along with your coworkers. If you're the person who microwaves fish in the office kitchen or clips your nails at your desk, you might find your work life a little more unpleasant than usual. And if you're Johann Beranger, you might find your whole life the worse for wear. Johan was a professor in Germany around and an arrogant one. At that a year old, he was put in charge of his university's botanical gardens, which was a very important job. Much of modern medicine during the seventeenth century was based around plants and herbs, but Johan wasn't just fascinated with new medical discoveries and techniques. He was obsessed with the history of ancient plants and animals. He would often explore the nearby Mount Eibelstadt to hunt for what he referred to as petrofactions. We call them fossils today. On many occasions he'd take his students along with him. Whatever he'd bring back he would put on display for his peers and other students to study. On one excursion to the mountain, Johan came across some new specimens. They were butterflies, frogs, and spiders, a generous hall for the day. However, these fossils, or stones as he called them, were different. They've been inscribed with the word Jehovah, the Hebrew name of God, as well as words written in Syrian and Babylonian. Johan was amazed. Among all the fossilized shells and animals he normally found, these were entirely new ones with what he believed to be a more supernatural origin. He packed them up and returned to the school to add them to his collection, which he enthusiastically showed off to anyone who would give him the time. To Johan, the fossils were there for a reason. In his mind, God himself had put them there to be found, maybe for fun, or perhaps to inspire faith in the faithless. Not everyone saw the divinity in these stones. However, whenever he encountered a nonbeliever, he would escort them out to the mountain and have them dig around for themselves. Often, when they pulled out their own inscribed fossils, they'd be converted into believers, just like Johan. Emboldened by his discoveries, he published a book about the stones. But when word about it made it to two of Johan's colleagues, ja Ignates Roderick and Georg von Eckhart, they tried to discredit him. They started whispering around campus that the fossils in his collection were fake, and that they had even sold their own stones directly to him. Naturally, Johan was livid these men were trying to ruin his discovery out of pure jealousy. They envied his success and how quickly he'd risen within the university at such a young age. He published his book anyway, then sued Rodrick and Eckhart for defamation. The problem was they hadn't defamed Johan at all. You see, Roderick and Eckhart weren't jealous of the twenty seven year old professor. They simply hated him. They thought he was an arrogant jerk who needed to be taken down a few notches, so, with the help of a seventeen year old students, the two men had carved over a hundred animal fossils out of limestone inscribing words and drawings on many of them in different languages as part of an elaborate hoax. It's just that they had never counted on Johan publishing his findings. By the time they realized how far their joke had gone, it was too late. His career and reputation had been irrevocably harmed by the stones. Rumor had it that he even spent his entire fortune buying up all the copies of his published book in an effort to hide his embarrassment. However, when Johan's book was translated into English hundreds of years later, scholars discovered the truth. Roderick and Eckhart the real hoaxers were the ones who had been ruined by their prank. Rodrick himself was banished from the university entirely, while Eckharts lost many of his privileges at a famous archival library. Johan went on published two more books after his first, but the incident with the stones followed him as a footnote for the rest of his life. Despite his poor judgment and unbridled arrogance, Johann Berenger still holds a place in our hearts. Why because you see, he had a particular name for the place where he stored his stones and fossils, and whenever he invited someone to take a peek at his collection, he would invite them to look inside his cabinet of curiosities. We are often judged by the company we keep. Hang out with criminals, and no matter what we say or do, we will be considered a criminal. To spend time in scholarly circles and will be thought of as intellectuals even if we never crack a book. The painter Elizabeth Vilma Laffe Parley kept unique company as well. Born in Hungary in eighteen sixty three, she studied arts all over Europe. She was talented, and one of her portraits was so good it was displayed by German Emperor William the Second himself. Her portraits of European royalty put her on the map. Between eighteen ninety six and nineteen o eight, she traveled the world, married a Russian prince and had a child with a man who was not that Russian. Prince. But finally, in nineteen o eight, the newly divorced Princess settled down in New York City. She didn't have to live in a house, though, or a fancy brownstone. Instead, she opted it to live in an elegant and expensive hotel, the Plaza Hotel, where she occupied a fourteen room suite on the third floor. Attending to her every need was her personal staff, including a guard, a surgeon, two secretaries, three butlers, and gold Fleck. Gold Fleck had been an entertainer from a young age, but was reluctant to leave his troop of performers to join the princess at the Plaza. It wasn't until General Daniel E. Sickles, a Civil War veteran and former subject of one of Vilma's portraits, stepped in. He encouraged the young gold Fleck to join the princesses entourage. He even gave the troop two hundred fifty dollars in good faith. The Princess's newest edition accompanied her on her return to Berlin and assisted with her portraits. They didn't spend long there, though, however, and in October of nineteen eleven, Princess and gold Fleck came back to the Plaza to stay. Upon returning, rather than occupy one of her fourteen rooms, gold Fleck took over the hotel director's room. He was loved by many of the guests and never really bothered anyone. He did have a mild panic attack when a photographer took a flash photo of him, sending the poor gold Fleck fleeing through the hotel. It caused quite a stir until he finally calmed down. Sadly, his life with the princess did not agree with him. Gold Fleck passed away from gout in nineteen twelve. After his wake, which she held in her suite, he was taken to the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery for burial. Yes, Pet Cemetery. Gold Flek had been more than a performer, you see, he was a lion cub born at Madison Square Garden as part of Barnum and Bailey's menagerie. When the Princess was unable to purchase him herself, she asked General Sickles to use his clout to persuade them. Gold Fleck was then presented to her as a gift from the General. She treated him as a pet, taking the cub with her wherever she went. He was part of her collection of exotic animals that lived with her in the Plaza hotel. She had a dog, of course, of Pomera Indian. There was also a cat's and a guinea pig. Nothing out of the ordinary there but peek inside her sweets and you might have also seen a bear, cub, an owl, a couple of alligators, and then ibis, the large waiting bird often found near wetlands. You see, the Plaza was the only hotel in New York that would accommodate the princess's lavish lifestyle and her wild companions. She spent twenty five thousand dollars a year to live there, plus the cost of feeding her animals. Unfortunately, the onset of World War One reduced her portrait business to almost nothing, and without a steady income, she was forced to find new lodging elsewhere for both herself and her animals. She held onto her dog and cats and even added a few more to make up for the exotic creatures that she had to give up. But things only got worse for the princess as time war on. She had to change homes several times and fell into serious debt. She also suffered from diabetes, which kept her bedridden later in life. By the time she died in ninety three, the former artist was broke and out hundreds of thousands of dollars in mortgages, but she never gave up the lifestyle which she had grown accustomed to. Even in death, she insisted on the finest things in life. In fact, her final moments were spent on a golden bed once owned by another royal personality, Marie Antoinette. 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