Welcomed, airmen, keys cabinet of curiosity is a production. If I hurt radio and grim and mild our world is full of the unexplainable and of history 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 and often that art imitates life in his eighteen. Benign essay. The decay of line oscar wilde penned the phrase life imitates art, far more than art, imitates life to wild art had the power to alter our view of the world around us. Even our choices and behaviour can be informed intentionally or not,

by the art we consume, for example, when a criminal is placed under house arrest and his forced aware and ankle monitor, they can think spiderman. A judge, mexico got the idea, while reading a spider man comic strip in nineteen, seventy seven, he noticed the All crawler was wearing a tracking beacon on his arm. Thanks to one of his enemies. The judge took the idea an engineer who help develop the first ankle monitor for law enforcement. The british version of the show house of cards as well as the novel that inspired it took place in a world after Margaret Thatcher had resigned from office. The novel, was released in nineteen. Eighty nine, while thatcher was still in power. The teller

show came out a year later and thatcher herself resigned as prime minister only months after that. Some think it struck a bit too close to home. Alexander story was different. He was born in scotland in sixteen seventy six and from a young age he liked to fight. He got in trouble with the church on several occasions for miss behaving, but more than in alexander, had a passion for the open sea by seventeen o three. He had already put in quite a bit of time on board various ships, so when he, william damp here and explore headed to the south pacific alexander, join him is joblessness as the sailing master on board the sink ports, it sister ship, which was being led by captain thomas straddling they sailed from navigating through storms and battling other ships for their supplies. One particular fight left the sink ports badly damaged.

straddling no longer wanted to follow damp here and insisted that they sell south to an uninhabited island off the coast of chile. Once off the ship alexander assess the damage, it was so extensive that he didn't trust it to get them safely home without some repairs first, but straddling wouldn't have it so, rather than risk his life on a broken ship alexander stayed behind on the island. He took some supplies with him, though, including a muskets, a knife, a hatchets cooking pot, a bible, some blankets and the clothes on his back. At first he tried to live on the shore fishing for his food and keeping an eye out for passing ships who might save him, but it wasn't until he moved inland when he realized what he'd been missing. There were goats there for him to eat and milk left behind by previous visitors, as well as kalis fruits and vegetables growing under foot, alexander turn out to be surprisingly skilled at solo island life, rather than building

ramshackle home for himself out of twigs and leaves he constructed to huts using pepper trees. One became his kitchen where he prepared all of his meals and he slept inside the their one. The also made his own clothes out of goat hides, which he turned himself when the rat situation got out of control. He tamed wild cats to chase them and keep them away from his home for four years. alexander lived on an island by himself. He did much more than survive, though he hunted for his own food, made his own clothing and forged his own weapons. In early february, Seventeen o nine his salvation finally arrived in the form of the duke a ship captain by none other than william damp. Here, apparently alexander had made the smart choice by not getting back on the sink ports, because not long after leaving him on the island. It sank straddle and his remaining crew had surrendered to spanish troops passing by and then did up becoming imprisoned for years alex and, though, was finally rescued upon his return.

The civilised world, the story of how he survived on an island alone for four years, took england by storm one of the crew members that I worked with even wrote a book about their travels together in its he included a section about alexander's isolation and in a clear example of arts imitating life. Another book was written about a decade later in seventeen nineteen It was about a man clad in tanned goat skins, trying to survive on a deserted island. All on his own and its author had been inspired by alexander selkirk tale of survival, the book Daniel the foes classic the life and surprising adventures of robinson crusoe the biggest dreams often start as a series of small goals. Swimming lapse in the community pool

can eventually turn into an olympic gold medal. A piano research can one day become a sold out performance at carnegie hall and for David Hahn of royal a commission, a simple love of science turned into the scariest day of his life, It was born in nineteen, seventy six to an average middle class family and lived an average middle class life. It wasn't it. His grandfather gave him a book on chemistry experiments when his life changed course from then and he devoted every waking our to science devoured, any science related book. He could get his hands on, including his father's college textbooks ass. He got older his taste matured with him. He built himself a laboratory and started stocking his shells with books on handling hazardous materials. It didn't take him long to develop a recipe for nitroglycerin from there. He started thinking. Bigger David took various jobs at fastfood restaurants, a grocery stores to help fund his work, but none of them really stuck his primary focus.

was whatever was blowing up in his lab. Quite literally for example, one time he showed up to a meeting bright, eyed and orange faced he'd been trying out different forms of artificial. Tanning using a natural pigment, but it head on fortunately exploded in his face. He also most blinded himself after pounding red phosphorus with a screwdriver. It ignore did and blew up, causing shards or the plastic container. That he'd been keeping it in to embed themselves in his eye it took months of, miller sessions with enough the before all the pieces were removed. But these experiments were just the tip of the iceberg. David had a much larger plan to build his own breeder reactor. A breeder reactor used a fertile meant yeah, like uranium to thirty eight to create nuclear fuel. It was not something an average citizen should have been able to build, but there was nothing average about David. He lacked the resources of a government funded nuclear programme, but he was resourceful by

was seen as a high school physics teacher. He sent letters to every scientific organization he could find who might have information on creating nuclear material. They sent him books, pamphlets and detailed, outlines. How to isolate radioactive elements. They also sent him a list of places where he could, by those elements himself, One easily obtainable substance was amorous e m to forty one, which was readily available in all smoke detectors. He contacted a supplier who sold him hundred broken units for a dollar. Each no questions asked yes, managed to find radium to twenty six in anti clocks in three m to thirty two in gas powered lanterns, after welding. Although the amorous cm from the smoke detectors together with a blow torch, he dropped the whole thing into a how it out led black and poked a hole in the side to let the alpha raise out. Then he said piece of aluminum in front of the whole to absorb the alpha, raise animate neutrons David had built himself his own neutron gun. However, he said

needed uranium to complete his reactor accompany in former czechoslovakia that was known to sell to colleges so him black or with uranium traces in its after David, Wrote them a letter pretending to be a professor with a nuclear laboratory, purify his materials by pounding than with hammers passing them through coffee filters, then blasted them with his neutron gun by the time he was finished. He had created fissionable uranium to thirty three, which he combined with the radium he'd scraped off the anti clocks before he knew it. His lab started to glow. For weeks he washed, as the concoctions got stronger and more potent. He tried to offset the radiation with cobalt, which was supposed to absorb the neutrons, but it wasn't enough at a certain point. His geiger counter could detect the radiation coming from his lab up to two hundred feet way David quickly, realized he'd gone too far. It dismantle this reactor and separated the components into different boxes, but it was too late. Someone had tipped off the police

in the early morning, hours of august, thirty, first nineteen. Ninety four authorities searched his car and ask Bird, a bunch of random metals as well as a lock toolbox, wrapped in duct tape, David told them what it was than ours. The michigan police were on the phone with every federal organization that dealt with radioactive materials, including the epa and the department of energy around thinks no. That year, his makeshift lab was rated to make sure all other irradiated substances were properly removed and disposed of months later, a clean up, then the job by cutting up his lab in placing the pieces into barrels, the barrels And carted off to the desert, where they were buried with radioactive materials from other facilities, David's poor mother suffered, started the whole ordeal not only had her son nearly turned their town into a radioactive wasteland. He'd also lost her putting shed that's. Why David had used as his lab. His breeder ray Joe hadn't, been the failed experiment of a season scientist. It had been

misguided attempt by an eager seventeen year old, all David Han had wanted was to earn his atomic energy merit badge and eventually make eagle scout, which, thankfully, he did, I hope you enjoy. Today's guided tour of the cabinet of curiosity subscribe for free on apple pod or learn more about the show by visiting curiosities, podcast dont come the show was created by me, Erin monkey in partnership with how stuff works I make another award winning show called lore witches upon cast book theories and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the world of lore. Dont come until next time stay curious,.