Welcome to Erin Mankie'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.

An idea is like a spark, a flash of light in our mind that illuminates our subconscious.

And those sparks have led to some brilliant discoveries, the traffic light, the telephone,

and even liquid paper all come from people who've been struck by the right idea at the

right time.

Soldiers during the late 1600s had also experienced their own light bulb moments, emphasis on the

light part.

Back then, soldiers carried muskets into battle.

They used flint and gunpowder to fire a little metal ball from a barrel of their rifle.

But they quickly realized that the spark created when the real struck flint could be used for

other things.

Broken muskets and pistols weren't of much use as weapons, but they could certainly

help the men see in the dark.

Early on, a soldier would fill the barrel of a malfunctioning gun with tinder, such as

dried out pieces of wood or brush, and then they'd fire the gun as usual.

The spark that resulted with light the tinder inside and created a kind of torch.

What they didn't realize at the time was that they had invented the world's first

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