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 Icarus represents the dangers of overconfidence, also known as Hubris.

As the legend goes, Icarus and his father were imprisoned on the island of Crete,

in an attempt to escape they built two sets of wax wings,

which would allow them to fly off the island towards freedom.

At first their journey was going smoothly, but Icarus got cocky.

He rose higher and higher into the sky, flying so close to the sun that his wings melted, he fell into the ocean and

drown a victim of his own hubris. The lesson is clear. Overconfidence can lead to

disaster. Unfortunately it seems that Alexander Bogdanov, sometimes called the

Icarus of hematology, did not get the memo. Alexander was born in Russia in

1873. He was prolific at, well almost everything actually, he was an ardent

socialist who rose through Russia's political ranks. He was a science fiction writer who

penned tales about utopian societies. He was a poet, a philosopher, and a teacher.

As if all of that wasn't enough, he was also a physician.

During World War I, Alexander served as a doctor in the Russian army.

Much of his job involved giving blood transfusions to wounded soldiers.

Now it's important to point out that at this point in history,

hematology or the science of blood was fairly new.

Scientists had just recently figured out about blood types.

You've probably heard of these before, but to put it simply, every human's blood falls into certain categories. We label these with letters A, B, and

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