This is an IHeart podcast.

Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosity's, A production of IHeart 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 Curiosity's.

What we call a group of animals says a lot about how we see them.

We call a group of crows a murder because of the bird's ominous appearance.

We call ants a colony or an army of ants because of how they move in formation, like a small society.

And when you see a plague of locusts on the horizon, well, that collective noun comes from the Book of Exodus in the Bible.

But what makes a locust unique among these creatures is that there really isn't such a thing

as a solitary locust.

When they're on their own, we call them

grasshoppers. Taxonomically, they're identical. The only real difference is how they socialize.

A grasshopper is solitary. Locusts, however, swarm. In other words, not all grasshoppers are

locusts, but all locusts are grasshoppers. They are a creature with a surprisingly rich

cultural history. They're mentioned in a number of religious texts from around the world in different

cultures. As far as swarming animals go, they are the most famous. And with that in mind,

let me take you back to the 1870s in America. Immediately post-Civil War, post-Westward expansion. Farmers in the

Great Plains of North America were working hard to keep up with a rapidly changing country,

making a home for themselves in a land that was settled but not fully developed. Late in 1873 to early

1874 was a tough time for people in particular, an economic recession that

led to a harsh winter and a dry summer. And while the panic in the economy was the main thing

on people's minds in late 1873, conditions would be just right for a new sort of panic to begin

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