On 6 June 1822, a musket accident at Fort Mackinac left French-Canadian fur trader Alexis St. Martin with a permanent hole in his stomach. Against all expectation, he survived, and US Army surgeon William Beaumont recognised the opportunity: for the first time in history, a living human stomach could be observed directly at work. What followed was years of groundbreaking research that transformed our understanding of digestion, but also a deeply unequal relationship between researcher and subject. This episode examines the accidental experiment that founded modern gastric physiology, alongside other events from 6 June: a near-Earth asteroid explosion over the Mediterranean in 2002 that went almost unnoticed, the 1985 exhumation that confirmed the death of Josef Mengele, and the 1933 opening of the world’s first drive-in cinema in New Jersey. A day of survival, improvisation, and the things that weren’t supposed to happen.

• The Man With the Window in His Stomach The story of Alexis St. Martin, who survived a catastrophic musket wound in 1822 that left a permanent opening into his stomach. Surgeon William Beaumont conducted years of experiments through this gastric fistula, revolutionising the understanding of digestion whilst St. Martin became an involuntary research subject. Also covered: the 2002 Mediterranean asteroid explosion that went largely unnoticed, the 1985 exhumation confirming Josef Mengele’s death, and the 1933 opening of America’s first drive-in cinema.

• https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/gastricfistula/
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Beaumont
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420158/
• https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/
• https://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/07/world/brazil-confirms-mengele-skeleton.html
• https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/first-drive-in-movie-theater-180972331/