Welcome to AirNenky's Cabinet of Curiosity's, a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm

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 Curiosity's.

I want you to imagine something for me.

I think you can picture it if I give you a few key ideas.

The time is the day after Thanksgiving.

The setting is your local big box store.

And the context is massive, best of the year's sales on all sorts of hot items, like flat

screen TVs, Wi-Fi-enabled toasters, and the latest mobile devices.

Now you might be thinking that I'm describing Black Friday, and you'd be right.

But it's the image that comes with the name of massive crowds trampling each other in

the mad rush to acquire the items on their list at the best possible prices that I need

you to hold on to.

Because sure, that's a pretty recent American tradition.

But that sort of behavior is much, much older.

And one period in history that was filled with it was the 18th century.

That's because after about two and a half centuries of discovering and exploring and exploiting

the new world, there were a few European superpowers that couldn't seem to stop bumping into

each other as they did it.

...