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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.

Everyone loves a little celebrity gossip, and the 17th century French court was no different.

At the time, the talk of Paris was an opera singer named Julie Dobigny.

What was so scandalous about Julie, you might ask?

Well, in all honesty, you'd have an easier time answering what wasn't scandalous.

And far from being over in 15 minutes, Julie's fame is something that people are still talking about today.

She was born around 1670 in Paris and was the daughter of a master swordsman.

Her father taught her about all his favorite passions ⁇ drinking, gambling, and of course, fencing.

Rounding out her schooling was a formal education he insisted that she receive, despite that type of learning being reserved for boys at the time.

As Julie grew into a teenager, it became clear that she wasn't content to act like a lady of the court.

She began dressing in men's clothes, challenging men to duels, and quickly grew comfortable being on the wrong side of the law.

By 1687, Julie had already been married to a tax collector named Jean de Maupin.

However, Julie, like many French aristocrats at the time, wasn't one to let a little thing like matrimony get in her way.

She struck up one of her many relationships with a fencing master.

and when he killed a man in a duel, she fled to the countryside with him.

Julie toured rural France with her lover, providing fencing demonstrations and even singing to the crowds.

Although she had no formal training, her strong voice soon attracted the fans and she began performing at the Marseille Opera.

At the age of 17, Julie was already a swordswoman on the run and a singer in the opera.

But when she met a beautiful young noble girl, she moved on to her next role, escape artist.

While Julie and her lover were smitten with each other, the girl's parents were less pleased.

They sent their daughter to a convent in Avignon to keep her away from Julie.

But as you'd imagine, the convent walls weren't strong enough for someone with her willpower.

Julie joined the convent herself, pretending to be a young novice to get closer to her girlfriend.

When one of the sisters passed away, the two stole the nun's body, put it in the young girl's bed, and set it and the entire room on fire.

They fled the convent, hoping that the nuns would believe that the burned body was Julie's lover.

However, a convent full of nuns usually have a bit more wisdom than two impulsive teenagers, and the scheme was quickly discovered.

The local government sentenced Julie to death in absentia, and the two fugitives were officially running for their lives.

Julie and her companion spent several months wandering around the countryside before Julie's lover decided to return to her plush life at home.

Heartbroken and on the run from the law, Julie decided to make the very logical next step of taking singing lessons.

Her time at the Marseille Opera made her realize that people loved her voice, and perhaps if they loved it enough, it could pave her way back to society.

When Julie was around 20, her hard work paid off.

King Louis XIV pardoned Julie so she could sing at the Paris Opera.

Opera was new to France at the time, and the Paris Opera was just 21 years old, so here, like in her personal life, Julie broke new ground.

With a low range and a powerful character to her voice, She often made goddesses and warrior women the stars of the show rather than gentle romantic soprano roles.

Today, she would probably be considered a contralto, which is the lowest range for a female singer.

Of course, Julie's behavior offstage attracted just as much attention.

In 1697, when Julie was about 27 years old, she attended a society ball in men's clothing.

While this was already enough to cause scandal, she upped the ante by kissing a woman on the dance floor.

What Julie didn't know was that three noblemen had been vying for that woman's attention.

All three of them challenged Julie to a duel, and she, of course, defeated them all.

What she didn't know, though, was that the king had outlawed dueling, so once more she fled the city under pain of death.

However, she was quickly pardoned the next year to continue her career at the opera.

Around 1703, Julie began a relationship with Madame La Marquise de Florensac, one of the greatest beauties of the French court.

It seemed like finding love with the madame made Julie finally settle down.

The two lived together for two whole years until Madame Florenzac fell ill in 1705 and passed away.

Devastated by the loss, Julie retired from the stage, and for the first time in her career, she fell quiet.

She followed not long after, dying in 1707.

Like any good song, Julie's short life certainly had highs and lows.

But at just 37 years old, it ended on a single somber note.

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Humanity has always been fascinated by lights in the sky.

Since the dawn of time, we worship the stars, the moon, and the sun.

People fought and died over the idea that the Earth orbited the sun and not the other way around.

Then by the 19th century, some began to believe that visitors from other worlds could be seen flying by in their spaceships if one only looked closely enough.

It all goes to show how meaningful celestial phenomena can be.

And yet when the largest celestial event in recorded history appeared in 1908, hardly anyone noticed.

The Shanyagar people had lived in the Siberia region for generations, building huts along the rivers and herding the plentiful reindeer.

But one sunny afternoon, the land that had long nurtured them suddenly felt changed.

The air became warm instead of its icy cold.

An invisible force knocked them over.

Then lightning shot out of the sky, scorching the trees in the forests and lighting them on fire.

As astounding as all of this was, it was nothing compared to what came next.

A second sun appeared in the sky, nearly blinding the Shenyagir.

Then there was a massive bang, louder than any thunder they had ever heard.

This second sun seemed to explode, vaporizing the herd of reindeer beneath it.

The entire forest was knocked over, the leaves burned, the Shanyagir's huts reduced to sticks.

There were more flashes, more thunder, until finally the air cooled.

The flashes stopped, and all that remained was an even more desolate landscape.

Many miles away in St.

Petersburg, Russia, scientists detected unusual seismic readings from the direction of Siberia.

But they didn't think much of it.

Only one of them, Leonid Kulik, wanted to investigate.

He had heard rumors about the event and believed that there might be an asteroid impact involved.

If so, the leftover minerals could be worth a lot of money.

But he was soon distracted, as was the world, by the Great War, followed by the equally violent Russian Civil War.

By 1921, things had quieted down some and Leonid was finally able to secure funding for an expedition into Siberia.

He questioned many villagers about the event, but his first trip to the area didn't yield any significant findings.

Siberia is a third larger than the United States as a whole, and far less populated.

It constitutes the entire northern half of Asia.

Leonid's search area was about 500 square miles.

Needle in a haystack doesn't even begin to cover it.

But he was persistent, and he always found little breadcrumbs when speaking with villagers who remembered the event.

He returned to Siberia in 1927, this time traveling farther north.

He followed a trail of villagers and indigenous people who all remembered the day the sky lit up and their homes were blown over.

He traveled so far that eventually his expedition had to abandon their horse-drawn carriages due to the deep snow.

They packed their belongings onto the backs of reindeer and continued on.

And finally, after a long journey, Leonid and his team crested a hill and were met with the most extraordinary sight they could have ever imagined.

For miles and miles below them, the forest had been destroyed.

All that remained were naked dead tree trunks, some of them toppled over and some of them standing still.

There were literally millions of dead trees and they all seemed to be leaning away from a central point.

Leonid and his men rushed to the center, hoping to confirm his asteroid theory.

They excavated carefully for years, but there was no evidence of extraterrestrial matter.

Finally, though, it dawned on Leonid there had been an asteroid, and a large one at that, but it was vaporized in the atmosphere.

The explosion was still massive, causing what we now know today as the Tunguska event.

The impact was enough to knock down the forest and many small settlements, and likely killed thousands of animals and at least a few people.

However, there was no crater, no minerals, as the asteroid never actually touched the Earth.

Later on, people in Ireland and England realized that they had witnessed the event as well, although obviously from a greater distance and at night.

To them, the night sky was just unnaturally bright, especially considering that the moon wasn't even out at that time.

Today, the Tunguska event remains the largest celestial impact in recorded history.

NASA has even studied it and formed an organization called the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which might be the coolest name in recorded history.

And their mission?

To stay curious, of course, about the night skies, watching for any signs of the next Tunguska event.

If an object of that size ever touched down in a populated area, it could be disastrous.

And so the PDCO remains vigilant, ready to divert any asteroid that heads our way.

If you live in a remote area, make sure you call them first.

If your house mysteriously falls over.

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 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 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.

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