Tilly's Wave

This is an iHeart podcast.

This show is sponsored by American Public University.

Balancing work, family, and education isn't easy, but American Public University makes it possible.

With online courses, monthly start dates, and flexible schedules, APU is designed for busy professionals who need education that fits their lives.

And affordability matters too.

APU offers the Opportunity Grant, giving students 10% off undergraduate and master's level tuition, helping you reach your goals without breaking the bank.

Plus, they provide career services and 24-7 mental health support at no extra cost.

Visit apu.apus.edu to learn more.

That's apu.apus.edu.

Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio 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.

Growing up, everyone got bored in school from time to time.

One of the things that can make for an especially uninteresting class is learning seemingly useless information.

When in life will we ever use long division or understand tectonic plate subduction or need to recall all 50 state capitals?

Well, there was one young girl in 2004 who paid attention to seemingly useless information in her school, and it ended up saving dozens of lives.

Tilly Smith's parents saved all they could to take her and her sister away on a Christmas holiday to Thailand.

They thought that it would be a nice break from the cold winter in England, and they had never been able to take the girls on a holiday before.

Little did they know, they picked an extremely fateful time to go to Southeast Asia.

The family enjoyed their time in Thailand.

At first, the jungle was beautiful, the hotels were very accommodating, and the weather was warm.

That was until the morning of December 26th, when they were walking along the beach near their hotel.

The sky was gray, and the water seemed strange.

Tilly looked around and was surprised how far the water had receded.

The waves weren't gently coming and going as usual, but had instead retreated all the way back to the horizon.

There were swimmers and whole boats left in the sand, wondering where the water had gone.

It confused everyone around Tilly, but the phenomenon intrigued her.

It seemed familiar somehow.

And that's when she remembered, back to just a few weeks earlier when she was bored in class.

Her science teacher had been talking about something called a tsunami and showed a video of one in Hawaii where beforehand, all the water was sucked away from the beach.

Tilly's heart started to pound and she knew what she needed to do.

She told her parents that this was a sign of a tsunami and they needed to get off the beach.

Her parents had never heard the word before.

They barely knew what she was saying.

She kept screaming at them that they had to go back.

Her younger sister started to cry, but her parents were just annoyed.

Her father took her sister back to the hotel to try and calm her down, but her mother insisted on continuing their walk.

She thought Tilly was just acting out.

It was agonizing.

Tilly wanted to save herself, but she didn't want to leave her mom behind.

Ultimately, she felt she had no choice.

If her mom wouldn't listen, she would have to leave her.

She ran back to the hotel, where she found her father and her sister in the lobby.

They were talking with a security guard who happened to be Japanese, and when Tilly's father repeated the word that she had used, tsunami, he knew exactly what it meant.

He ran to the beach and saw the water receding.

By then, the giant wave could already be seen on the edge of the horizon.

Hotel staff worked quickly to evacuate the entire beach, including Tilly's mom.

The wave was hot on their heels, and it crashed down onto the beach just as they made it to the lobby.

They screamed and ran farther inside as the wave blew through the doors and windows and flooded the building.

It was terrifying, but the walls were enough to protect them from the worst of it.

They had survived.

In the hours that followed, They learned that this had been just one of many deadly waves that had emanated from an underwater earthquake off the coast of Indonesia.

230,000 people died throughout Southeast Asia, locals and tourists alike.

Tilly and her family had to witness as hotel staff and fellow tourists cope with the loss of loved ones over the next few days.

It wasn't uncommon to see people sobbing on the plane ride back home.

Today, the word tsunami is one that many people know, in part because of this disaster, which was one of the deadliest in modern history.

Curiously, it's believed that about 100 more people would have died that day if Tilly hadn't remembered a seemingly useless bit of trivia that she learned in school and warned the security guard.

It's a reminder that no knowledge is useless.

Okay, except maybe for long division.

This show is sponsored by American Public University.

American Public University is the number one provider of education to our military and veterans in the country.

They offer something truly unique, special rates and grants for the entire family, making education affordable not just for those who serve, but also for their loved ones.

If you have a military or veteran family member and are looking for affordable high-quality education, APU is the place for you.

Visit apu.apus.edu slash military to learn more.

That's apu.apus.edu slash military.

Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees.

Just ask the Capital One Bank guy.

It's pretty much all he talks about.

In a good way, he'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast, too.

Oh, really?

Thanks, Capital One Bank Guy.

What's in your wallet?

Terms apply.

See capital1.com/slash bank.

Capital One NA member FDIC.

All Gustave ever wanted was to work in the family business, but his family wanted no business with him.

It hadn't started out that way.

When Gustave was born in 1832 near Dijon, France, his tight-knit family was essential to raising him.

His parents spent nearly all their time at their charcoal business, leaving young Gustave to be raised by his grandmother.

As he grew older, his uncle Jean-Baptiste took a special interest in his education.

Jean-Baptiste had a business distilling vinegar and owned a chemical plant in Dijon.

While Gustave was an okay student, he gladly spent hours listening to his uncle talk about chemistry, mining, theology, and philosophy.

His uncle's teaching set Gustave on the path to school, where he studied chemistry at one of France's most prestigious universities.

And it was during this time that something drew Gustave to engineering as well as chemistry.

It's possible that it was the 1855 World's Fair in Paris, which his mother bought him a ticket to.

Wandering the Champs-Élysées and gazing up at the magnificent structures newly built for the fair, young Gustav found himself inspired.

This shift in interest proved to be lucky for him, because when Gustav returned home later that year after school, things had irrevocably changed.

His whole life, Gustav had had a plan.

He would get an education, then go to work for his beloved uncle distilling vinegar and working with chemicals.

But this wasn't to be.

We don't entirely know what happened, but somehow the family began to feud, and Gustav's uncle refused to take him on as an assistant.

With his well-laid plans in complete disarray, Gustav had to figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

He started assisting a brother-in-law who ran a foundry and then worked as a secretary to a railroad engineer.

And when that fell through, a stroke of good luck finally befell him.

The railroad engineer got Gustav a job designing a bridge for the railway.

For the first time, Gustav was designing and engineering something real, an elegant bridge made of iron, and he found that not only did it suit him, but he was brilliant at it.

He had a special talent for creating graceful yet sturdy iron structures that revolutionized railway travel in France.

His bridges weren't just functional, they were breathtakingly beautiful, proving that engineering could be both practical and artistic.

This talent didn't go unnoticed, and soon enough, his work was in demand far beyond France.

His innovative designs reached Spain, Portugal, and even South America.

Gustav spent the next few decades leaving his mark on the architectural world.

He built railway stations in Hungary and churches in Peru.

Fulfilling his childhood dreams, he designed several pavilions for the Paris World's Fairs in 1867 and 1878.

And in 1881, he was even asked for help by a sculptor creating a gift from Paris to the United States.

And so Gustav created the solid internal structure for the 150-foot-tall Statue of Liberty.

But Gustave's most famous work had not yet been conceived.

That would come in 1889 at the grandest Paris World's Fair ever.

For the fair, a public competition was announced for the exposition's centerpiece.

Gustave and two other engineers had been working on an idea for a colossal metal tower, 1,000 feet tall, meant to evoke strength and grace.

They entered the competition and won.

They had convinced the judges, now to convince the rest of France.

There were critics who simply believed the tower could not be built.

They claimed the design was too shoddy and the materials wouldn't hold up.

Others simply said that it would be an eyesore, a tall, modern metal tower against the beautiful neoclassical architecture of Paris.

It was unthinkable.

One person even called it a giant ugly street lamp.

Undeterred, Gustav set to work.

Using more than 18,000 iron parts and over 2.5 million rivets, his team erected a tower unlike anything the world had ever seen.

It stood as the tallest man-made structure in the world and held that record for over 40 years.

At first, many Parisians hated it.

Writers, artists, and intellectuals signed petitions calling it a monstrosity.

But as the years passed by, the tower became not just an accepted, but the city's most beloved landmark.

Today, millions of visitors flock to it every year.

proving that great design often takes time to be appreciated.

And over 135 years after his masterpiece first graced the city skyline, Gustav's name is still one of the most recognized in Paris.

When it came to making marvels, Alexandre Gustav Eiffel is one engineer who towered above the rest.

I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.

Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts or learn more about the show by visiting CuriositiesPodcast.com.

The show was created by me, Aaron Mankey, in partnership with How Stuff Works.

I make another award-winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show.

And you can learn all about it over at theworldoflore.com.

And until next time, stay curious.

This show is sponsored by American Public University.

Balancing work, family, and education isn't easy, but American Public University makes it possible.

With With online courses, monthly start dates, and flexible schedules, APU is designed for busy professionals who need education that fits their lives.

And affordability matters too.

APU offers the Opportunity Grant, giving students 10% off undergraduate and master's level tuition, helping you reach your goals without breaking the bank.

Plus, they provide career services and 24/7 mental health support at no extra cost.

Visit apu.apus.edu to learn more.

That's apu.apus.edu.

This is an iHeart Podcast.