August 2nd, 1921

    The morning was still young as a forty-year-old high school teacher Hans Duncker set off from his home toward an old town through the busy streets of Bremen, Germany. Reaching the cathedral, in the medieval center of the city, Duncker stopped in his tracks and tilted his head to one side, listening to a sweet song drifting to him on the cool breeze. Somewhere out of sight, a nightingale was singing. He sat and listened. Strange enough, nightingales never sang in August and certainly not in the middle of town. Perplexed, Duncker made a note to return and locate the bold singer. The following week he met the owner of the mystery bird, Karl Reich, a thirty-six-year-old well-known bird keeper. Once he saw the bird, he was amazed, for the song came not from a nightingale, but from a special canary that Reich engineering through a decade of dedicated breeding. This meeting would change the world of genetics and both mens futures drastically, and they had no idea.

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