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. The year was 1956 and the West African city of Accra was alive with music.

As the plane touched down on the tarmac,

jubilant crowds began to cheer and sing the name of the American ambassador.

This was no ordinary diplomat. He was Louis Armstrong the famous jazz musician. The US government had

recently recruited him to its Jazz Ambassador program which aimed to fight the

spread of communism through music. By sending famous American artists on tours around the world

they sought to spread America's values and hopefully the popularity of its politics.

Jazz had been chosen for two reasons.

First, the genre was incredibly popular, and second, many of the musicians were black.

The burgeoning civil rights movement was causing lots of bad press for America,

and the government hoped that promoting black artists

might help rehabilitate its image abroad.

Louis Armstrong wasn't particularly interested

in that second part, but he never been to Africa

before and saw the trip as an opportunity

to connect with his roots. While he didn't know which part of the continent his enslaved

ancestors came from, he hoped that visiting might spark some feeling of connection.

Meanwhile, Accra was experiencing a unique cultural moment of its own.

In 1956, it was the capital city of the British Gold Coast colony, which had been under imperialist rule since the 15th century.

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