4.8 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2020
⏱️ 34 minutes
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In 1932, Yorkshireman Maurice Wilson chose a startling way to promote his mystical beliefs: He would fly to Mount Everest and climb it alone. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow Wilson's misguided adventure, which one writer called "the most incredible story in all the eventful history of Mount Everest."
Well also explore an enigmatic musician and puzzle over a mighty cola.
Intro:
The Sanskrit epic poem Shishupala Vadha contains a palindrome that can be read in any of four directions.
Type designer Matthew Carter offered a typeface for public buildings that comes with its own graffiti.
Sources for our feature on Maurice Wilson:
Dennis Roberts, I'll Climb Mount Everest Alone: The Story of Maurice Wilson, 2013.
Scott Ellsworth, The World Beneath Their Feet: Mountaineering, Madness, and the Deadly Race to Summit the Himalayas, 2020.
Geoff Powter, Strange and Dangerous Dreams: The Fine Line Between Adventure and Madness, 2006.
Sherry B. Ortner, Life and Death on Mt. Everest: Sherpas and Himalayan Mountaineering, 2001.
Maurice Isserman, Stewart Angas Weaver, and Dee Molenaar, Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering From the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes, 2010.
Conrad Anker, The Call of Everest: The History, Science, and Future of the World's Tallest Peak, 2013.
Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air, 1998.
Eric Shipton, Upon That Mountain, 1943.
Martin Gutmann, "Wing and a Prayer," Climbing, Dec. 6, 2010.
Robert M. Kaplan, "Maurice Wilson’s Everest Quest," Quadrant, June 18, 2016.
T.S. Blakeney, "Maurice Wilson and Everest, 1934," Alpine Journal 70 (1965), 269-272.
John Cottrell, "The Madman of Everest," Sports Illustrated, April 30, 1973.
Audrey Salkeld, "The Struggle for Everest," Climbing 188 (Sept. 15, 1999), 108-116.
Colin Wells, "Everest the Mad Way," Climbing 224 (Sept. 15, 2003), 40-44.
Troy Lennon, "Deadly Lure of Being on Top of the World," [Surry Hills, N.S.W.] Daily Telegraph, May 26, 2006, 74.
Ed Douglas, "Rivals Race to Solve Everest Body Mystery," Guardian, May 15, 2004.
Graham Hoyland, "The Complete Guide to: Mount Everest," Independent, May 10, 2003.
Nick Ravo, "Charles Warren, 92; Introduced Top Sherpa to Everest Climbers," New York Times, May 3, 1999.
Eric E. Shipton, "Body of Climber Found on Everest," New York Times, March 23, 1936.
"Perishes in Effort to Scale Everest," [Hendersonville, N.C.] Times-News, July 27, 1934, 4.
"Briton Perishes High on Everest," New York Times, July 20, 1934.
"The Eccentric Everest Adventurer," Inside Out, BBC One, Sept. 24, 2014.
Listener mail:
Wikipedia, "Sixto Rodriguez" (accessed April 27, 2020).
David Malitz, "'Searching for Sugar Man' Documentary Rediscovers Musician Sixto Rodriguez," Washington Post, July 26, 2012.
Alexis Petridis, "The Singer Who Came Back From the Dead," Guardian, Oct. 6, 2005.
Greg Myre, "In Tragic Twist to Poignant Tale, Oscar-Winning Director Commits Suicide," Parallels, National Public Radio, May 14, 2014.
Geoffrey Macnab, "Searching for Sugar Man (12A)," Independent, July 27, 2012.
Wikipedia, "Franz von Werra" (accessed April 29, 2020).
Luis Rees-Hughes et al., "Multi-Disciplinary Investigations at PoW Camp 198, Bridgend, S. Wales: Site of a Mass Escape in March 1945," Journal of Conflict Archaeology 11:2-3 (2016), 166-191.
"Story of German POW to Escape Captivity in Britain Disclosed After 94 Years," Telegraph, Feb. 11, 2011.
David J. Carter, "Prisoner of War Camps in Canada," Canadian Encyclopedia, June 17, 2015.
Robin Quinn, Hitler's Last Army: German POWs in Britain, 2015.
This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Paul Heitkemper, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle).
You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Google Podcasts, on Apple Podcasts, or via the RSS feed at https://futilitycloset.libsyn.com/rss.
Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website.
Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode.
If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at podcast@futilitycloset.com. Thanks for listening!
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
0:00.0 | Welcome to the Futility Closet Podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. |
0:15.0 | Visit us online to sample more than 11,000 quirky curiosities from a Sanskrit palindrome to a self-vandalizing typeface. |
0:23.3 | This is episode 295. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1932, Yorkshireman Maurice Wilson |
0:30.8 | chose a startling way to promote his mystical beliefs. He would fly to Mount Everest and |
0:35.7 | climb it alone. In today's show, we'll follow Wilson's |
0:39.0 | misguided adventure, which one writer called the most incredible story in all the eventful history |
0:44.9 | of Mount Everest. We'll also explore an enigmatic musician and puzzle over a mighty cola. |
0:56.1 | Maurice Wilson was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1898, the third of four sons, and had a |
1:02.9 | happy childhood in a comfortable middle-class home. |
1:05.9 | His father was admired for his charity, and Maurice inherited his sympathy for the less |
1:10.3 | fortunate. |
1:11.7 | Plus, he was bright, physically strong, and adept at picking up languages. He was about to follow his father |
1:16.8 | into the textile industry when the first World War broke out, and he enlisted on the day |
1:21.3 | after his 18th birthday. The war affected him profoundly, as it did countless other young men. |
1:27.3 | Fighting for a remote French |
1:28.8 | village in early 1918, he was commanding a machine gun post when the positions to his right |
1:33.8 | and left were abandoned. All his men were killed or wounded, and he found himself single-handedly |
1:38.7 | defending the front of the British line until a counterattack could throw back the enemy. |
1:43.2 | He was awarded the military cross for |
1:45.0 | conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty, but he returned to Bradford shattered by his |
1:49.5 | experiences, unable to settle or to find meaning in the life that had been planned for him before |
1:54.2 | the war. He led an unsatisfied existence in a textile office, went to London for 18 months, and then |
... |
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