Welcome to 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. Sleep can be elusive for a lot of us. It might be a busy job keeping us up at night or a new baby or even a noisy neighbor.

But on those rare occasions when we can sleep for more than a few hours, we wake up feeling fresh and ready to tackle whatever's ahead of us.

One man though didn't believe in a good night's sleep. For him

40 Winks was about 39 too many. His name was Albert Herpin and while he was

from Trenton, New Jersey he was born in France in 1862. Very little is known about his life

up until the turn of the 20th century, but that's when things began to get interesting.

In 1904, an article was published in the New York Times about Mr. Herpin.

It listed his occupation as hostile or someone who tends to the horses at an inn,

but that's not what made him newsworthy. The reason he was in the papers was because he did not sleep. This wasn't a

one-off occurrence either, like staying up all night to cram for a big test the next day.

Albert Herpin had not slept in 10 years.

Now, according to the National Institute of Health, we need sleep for a variety of reasons.

These include keeping our metabolism in check, fighting illness, and improving our brain health.

We're at risk of a number of diseases and complications if we don't get enough sleep each

night.

But Harpin didn't care.

In fact, he advocated against sleep.

Another article published in 1912 in New York's The Evening World newspaper

stated how he, quote, believes a nap of only five minutes duration would give him new life.

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