Status Quo

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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.

Even now in our modern world, the idea of a monarch is appealing to some people.

Elections are messy and they can lead to corrupt politicians taking power.

But many times throughout history, the biological heir to a throne didn't want the throne itself or refused to do the work to be prepared for it.

And such was the case in the 13th century in the Indian kingdom of Delhi, where the sultan's sons all paled in comparison to his highly capable daughter.

Razia spent her days running all over Delhi, meeting with dozens of people who needed her to solve their problems.

In one morning alone, she arbitrated a dispute between two merchants, inspected a rickety horse stable, and ordered new armor for the guards.

Meanwhile, her oldest brother, Phiros, spent his days lounging by the river, drinking wine, and betting his concubines.

Their father, the sultan, was away at war, and so it fell to Razia to run things.

It was a difficult situation, but she rose to the occasion.

She worked hard as a young woman to learn everything she could about administration and warfare should she ever need to assist her father.

And now, that time had come.

Soon, the people grew to love her.

The city was cleaner, safer, and more efficient, with Razia in charge.

When her father returned from his military campaign in the year 1231, he was greatly impressed by all her work.

It astonished Razia when he invited her and the heads of the noble families to his throne room, where he named Razia his heir.

I have to mention that it was unheard of to have a female ruler in the kingdom of Delhi.

The kingdom had converted to Islam just a few decades prior and female rulers were forbidden.

But the sultan had always been unconventional.

He was born a slave and he fought his way to power and he knew that his sons just weren't the ones to continue his empire.

No, it had to be Razia.

And this controversial decree was immediately put to the test in 1236 when the sultan died from an illness, and it should have been Razia's turn to rule, but the nobles immediately turned against her, instead putting her brother Feroz on the throne.

But over the next few months, he proved to be a selfish and cruel leader.

He did nothing to help his people and instead spent all his time hunting down and executing any potential rivals, including one of his own brothers.

Razia was only spared because Feroza's arrogance kept him from seeing a woman as a threat to his power.

But Razia should have been his chief concern.

Only a few months into Feroza's harsh rule, Razia went out into Delhi and gave an impassioned speech to the people.

She told them that her brother was ruining all of her and her father's hard work in building up the kingdom.

He would bring war on all of them if he continued to rule.

And the people agreed.

Following Razia, they stormed the palace and captured Feroz.

Razia had no sympathy for him.

She ordered his execution, getting justice for the brother that Feroz had killed.

For now, the nobles had no choice but to accept Razia as their sultan.

She once again set about improving the kingdom, establishing universities and libraries, and sending the army out across the empire to keep the peace.

But having a female ruler still didn't sit right with the Muslim nobles.

The final straw came when Razia took a lover, a formerly enslaved African named Yakut.

An unmarried female ruler with a black lover would be controversial in India today.

In medieval times, it sent the country into a frenzy.

In the year 1240, just three and a half years into Razia's rule, the nobles attacked her army and took her prisoner.

They executed Yakut.

and planned to do the same to Razia.

But the nobles soon started squabbling amongst one another about who would rule after she was dead.

And that's when the noble who had captured Razia, a man named Altunia, had an unlikely change of heart.

He realized that Razia was the only one fit to rule and he pledged his loyalty to her.

And Razia knew that her affair with Yakut had been controversial, and so she made the decision to marry Altunia with the hopes that it would help the other nobles accept her.

But unfortunately, their hearts were dead set against the idea of a female sultan.

Razia and Altunia's army went up against against the combined army of the other nobles in one final climactic battle, and ultimately Razia's men were defeated.

She and her husband were forced to flee the kingdom.

In the end, with no one left to protect them, Razia and Altunia were captured by soldiers from a neighboring Hindu kingdom, and these were political and religious rivals that had no sympathy for her.

They put her to death in October of 1240.

It's incredibly curious that the kingdom of Delhi preferred to go to war rather than accept the most qualified ruler simply because she was a woman.

To this day, she remains one of the very few queens in Islamic history.

It goes to show that monarchies are rarely about merit and all about preserving the status quo.

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.

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If you've ever looked up at the night sky, you have probably noticed that some stars seem to twinkle like their brightness ebbs and flows.

Some nights they blaze overhead while other nights they look so faint as to almost disappear.

Almost a century ago, a curious young woman looked up at those same stars and asked a vital question.

Why?

Why do some stars flicker while others burn steady?

The question would launch a years-long investigation and reveal one of the most important scientific discoveries ever made.

When Cecilia died in 1979 at the age of 79, her official obituary celebrated the life of a curious and whip-smart astronomer, a Harvard professor, a loving wife, and a doting mother.

It was a wonderful tribute to a brilliant and dedicated astrophysicist.

But the obituary failed to mention Cecilia's most stunning achievement, one that should cement her name alongside scientists like Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Albert Einstein.

In fact, Cecilia Payne may be one of the greatest scientists to have ever lived.

Cecilia was born in Wendover, England in 1900, and from a young age, she was an avid reader with a curious mind.

She loved school and wanted to pursue a college degree, which was highly unusual for women at the time.

That might be why her mother refused to cough up money for tuition.

So, Cecilia found another way to go to college.

She won a full scholarship to Cambridge University.

She knew that she wanted to study science, but wasn't sure which field.

On a whim, she decided to attend a public lecture from astronomer Arthur Eddington.

He talked about a recent expedition to view a solar eclipse and how his observations proved Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Cecilia was wrapped.

From that moment on, she knew she wanted to study physics.

She spent the next few years taking classes and devouring countless textbooks on astronomy.

But because she was a woman, Cambridge refused to give her a science degree.

And so in response, Cecilia said, fine, and in 1923, she moved to the United States where she met the director of the Harvard College Observatory.

He was so taken with Cecilia that he offered her a graduate fellowship at Harvard.

By the time Cecilia started that fellowship, the Harvard Observatory was deep into a study on stellar spectra, which was essentially photographs of starlight.

Except these photos spread starlight out into its full rainbow of colors, like when light catches in a prism.

Basically, they were trying to catch the full light spectrum for thousands of stars.

It was arduous work, but Cecilia was intrigued, so she dedicated herself to the project.

Now, about 60 years before Cecilia arrived at Harvard, another astrophysicist conducted a similar experiment.

He heated up various chemical elements and observed the spectrum of light given off when these elements turn into gas.

What he learned was that each element had its own unique light spectrum, almost like a fingerprint.

And Cecilia was aware of this study.

In fact, she was ruminating on it one night while stargazing.

She found herself wondering why certain stars seemed to flicker.

She called these variable stars and hypothesized that they were made of different elements than the stars that held steady.

And so she came up with a brilliant brilliant way to test out her theory.

She compared starlight spectra to elemental gas spectra, which allowed her to measure the surface temperature of stars.

Once she could see the spectra of each star, she could piece together which elements were involved in its composition.

Two years after starting the project in 1925, Cecilia presented her findings as part of her doctoral thesis.

And her results were surprising.

Even though stars were huge and impossibly dense, they were almost entirely made of hydrogen and helium, the two lightest elements in the universe.

But that's not all.

She also revealed a true surprise.

Through her observations, she also learned that the majority of the visible universe is made of hydrogen.

In other words, she discovered what the fabric of our universe is made of.

Her professor was so proud of her that he sent her thesis to a colleague at Princeton, a guy named Professor Henry Russell.

But Russell tossed her thesis aside, calling her results impossible.

And of course, that stung.

Cecilia knew she had done solid research, and yet she didn't know how to argue with a tenured professor.

Luckily, her peers found her thesis brilliant.

It inspired colleagues to check her work, and within a few years, supplemental research showed that, yes, Cecilia had been correct all along.

It was incredible.

At just 25 years old, she had successfully figured out the anatomical makeup of the universe.

After that, Cecilia Payne became the first person person to ever earn a PhD in astronomy from Harvard.

But despite being one of the most brilliant astronomers of our time, her work was often brushed aside or credited to men who proved similar theories years later.

She received some recognition throughout her career, but it pales in comparison to the prestige given to her male colleagues.

Although the American Astronomical Society did give Cecilia much-deserved recognition in 1976, they awarded her the prestigious Henry Norris Russell Prize, the award named yes, for Professor Russell, the Princeton astronomer who told her that her research was impossible.

It's fair to say that she proved him wrong, simply by keeping her goals sky high.

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.

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