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A
Welcome to Erin Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild.
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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.
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The majority of Americans will be pulled over by the police for speeding at least once in their lifetime. For some drivers, it happens every few weeks. These drivers do their best to stay calm in those situations, trying to figure out how they can get the officer to let them off with just a warning. Maybe they break down crying to garner sympathy. Maybe they pretend they had no idea they were speeding. Maybe they concoct an elaborate story as to why they need to get to where they're going in such a hurry. But one driver in Los Angeles in the early 1960s has all of them beat. Before, Los Angeles roads were as congested as they are now. Officers could still catch a speeder or two. And such was the case early one morning when an officer pulled a driver over for speeding and asked him to roll down his window. The driver complied, but he did not look happy. He seemed to be in a hurry. When the officer asked him where he was going, the man yelled, back to my spaceship. Honestly, it seemed like the man was out of his mind, but beyond that, the officer had no idea what to make of him. The driver was unusually handsome, with coiffed hair that allowed for a single strand to fall stylishly across his forehead, and his outfit was very strange. The driver wore a bright green cardigan of sorts, with gold rings on the cuffs and nothing underneath. On his lapel there was some kind of a pin shaped like a triangle. Not knowing what to make of it all, the officer asked for the man's id, and that's when it all came together. Somewhat flustered, he handed the ID back, went to his vehicle for a moment to use his radio, and when the officer returned to the driver's window, he apologized, and then he held up his hand and spread his fingers down the middle in a strange salute. Live long and prosper, he told the driver before sending him on his way. The driver, of course, was the actor William Shatner, already in costume as Captain James T. Kirk headed to shoot the final season of the television classic Star Trek. And this curious story from Shatner's time on Star Trek reveals just how ubiquitous the show had already become. Almost anyone could recognize him, and if they somehow didn't, then being told his name made the pieces fall into place. But why did Star Trek have such an impact? Well, TV was still in its infancy, so every new show left a mark to some degree. With only three channels and set hours of programming, Americans bonded over every little detail of every story. However, Star Trek was unique among its peers, and not just because it took place on a spaceship. The show, created by producer Gene Roddenberry, portrayed a utopian vision of the future, where humanity had put aside their differences, abandoned capitalism, and headed to the stars to seek out other civilizations. Honestly, it's little wonder that fans united so passionately around a show with that sort of message. Most people both then and now believe that our world could become something better. To see it portrayed that way on the screen was both empowering and encouraging. And that's what has made Star Trek such a powerful vision. Because nothing is more infectious than hope. And if that meant giving William Shatner a pass on a speeding ticket, well, I think that's the least we can do. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Here's a question for what do you want your 2025 story to be? Every January brings you 365 brand new blank pages waiting to be filled. And in 2025, maybe you're ready for a plot twist. Or maybe there's a part of your story you've been wanting to revise. You see, life isn't about resolutions that fade by February. It's about picking up the pen and becoming the author of your own life. Think of therapy as your editorial partner, helping you write new chapters and create the meaningful story you deserve to live. I know how important and helpful therapy can be, and it isn't just for folks who have experienced major trauma. Therapy can truly empower you to be the best version of yourself. BetterHelp is fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient. Serving over 5 million people worldwide, you can access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties and easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. Write your story with BetterHelp. Better visit betterhelp.com curiosities to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com curiosities to an outsider, Australia is a hostile place. Unforgiving desert heats with wildlife that can seem like something out of a nightmare that especially if you're afraid of spiders. It's no surprise that the British chose this place for a penal colony while expanding their empire. Anyone sentenced to transportation would be sent to the colonies there, never to see their home again. But even for the Englishmen, who saw Australia as a new vision of hell, there was some hope. People had lived in Australia for a very long time, long enough that the arrival of a global superpower would couldn't entirely extinguish them. To the Aboriginal people of this continent, the dry and inhospitable land wasn't hell. It was home. It was the British who brought hell with them. Transportation to penal colonies would fall out of fashion in the early 19th century, colony by colony, although it still had some strange ripple effects even years later. In 1842, for example, explorer Andrew Petrie was traveling through Wide Bay by boat. Petrie already had amassed quite the reputation as an architect, and for a long time now he'd been supervising prisoners until his fascination with the landscape of Australia pushed him to become an accomplished explorer. These two parts of his life would come together. As his boat traveled the Mary river, he encountered a tribe of Aboriginals, likely the Kabi Kabi people, and saw someone among them who looked familiar. This was a white man of about 30 years of age. He was named Durumboi and seemed perfectly at home with the Aboriginal people. He was clearly not a member of this tribe, but someone who traveled between tribes, speaking many different dialects. One dialect he did not know, however, was English. Petrie and his company had encountered a number of escaped convicts on their travels and saw it as their duty to bring Durham Boy back to the English society. The man was understandably quite reluctant to return. He had come to Australia in the most adverse of circumstances and did not want to hand himself over to imprisonment. Durham Boy's English name was James Davis. He was born in Scotland and at the age of 12 had been sentenced to transportation for stealing from a church box. He served two years in New South Wales, only to be convicted for theft again and relocated to Moreton Bay, which is today known as Brisbane. And it was there, still a teenager, in February of 1829, that Davis made his escape, vanishing without a trace. Durham boy lived for 13 years among various Aboriginal tribes. Ripped from his home in the British Isles, he'd found a welcoming community of his own out in the wilds. Petrie and company were persistent, though, and eventually they were able to convince Durham Boy to return to Brisbane, since its days as a penal colony had come to an end. Reintegration was difficult, though. Durham Boy was unable to read or write English, so he had to relearn his native language and essentially from scratch. The colonial Australian press was eager to write about this escaped convict who had gone through such an adventure, making Davis a minor celebrity. Although we have no way of knowing for sure, it seems like he did not relish the spotlight. He was tight lipped about his experiences from the ages of 17 to 30, becoming just another local in Brisbane. And then his life began to change. He worked first as a blacksmith and then with the opening of a crockery shop, he became a small business owner. His most profitable and perhaps controversial occupation was as a guide to settlers, showing colonists to desirable land out in Wide Bay. Now we have no way of knowing how his former companions among the Aboriginals felt about this, or if they had any opinion at all. His life seems in hindsight to be purely pragmatic, going from place to place in order to survive. There are hints that he didn't completely forsake his Aboriginal life. While working in Brisbane, he would occasionally serve as a court interpreter for legal cases involving Aboriginal issues. Perhaps in some small way he felt that he could protect the people who had given him a home all those years before. Or perhaps it was just another way to make money. We can never know for sure. Davis ultimately died a wealthy man, although much of his life remains a mystery to us today, Whether as an Australian Robinson Crusoe or a tenacious opportunist, he serves as an example of the boundaries that still exist between indigenous and colonial powers. He lived a curious life in a difficult world and for a brief moment showed us that everyone wants the same thing, a place to belong.
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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. The show was created by me, Aaron Manke, 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@theworldoflore.com and until next time, stay curious.