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Comet Cures · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: For all of recorded history, humans have looked to the
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  Speaker 1: sky for answers to our most important questions. What time
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  Speaker 1: is it, what's the weather like? What is humanity's place
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  Speaker 1: in the universe? That last one is a bit tougher
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  Speaker 1: to answer, but the point is, as largely earthbound creatures,
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  Speaker 1: people have always been fascinated by the mysteries of space,
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  Speaker 1: and that certainly was the case in May of nineteen
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  Speaker 1: ten when Halley's comment was hurtling towards Earth. Now, if
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  Speaker 1: you're not familiar, Halley's comment is a regular visitor to
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  Speaker 1: our solar system, passing by Earth once every seventy five
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  Speaker 1: years or so. But we didn't always know that. Records
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  Speaker 1: about a fiery ball shooting through the sky can be
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  Speaker 1: found as far back as ancient Babylon. However, it wasn't
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  Speaker 1: until seventeen oh five that British mathematician Edmund Helly realized
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  Speaker 1: that we were looking at the same commet every three
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  Speaker 1: quarters of a century, and now that comet's named after him.
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  Speaker 1: But there's something else that you should know about Edmund Helly.
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  Speaker 1: He didn't think the comet came just because he thought
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  Speaker 1: its appearance coincided with significant world events, most famously the
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  Speaker 1: Battle of Hastings in ten sixty six, when William the
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  Speaker 1: Conqueror took control of England. Because of this, Halle's comment
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  Speaker 1: became known as a harbinger of political and social upheaval.
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  Speaker 1: So in nineteen ten people were primed and ready to
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  Speaker 1: believe the comet would have some kind of effect on
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  Speaker 1: life on Earth. Let me set the stage. This was
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  Speaker 1: forty seven years before the launch of Sputnik, than fifty
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  Speaker 1: nine years before Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the Moon.
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  Speaker 1: Humans were still decades away from reaching space, but science
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  Speaker 1: was rapidly advancing, and Hallie's comet was a point of
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  Speaker 1: study that spring. As numerous scientists tracked the comet's approach,
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  Speaker 1: a French astronomer named Camille Flammarion noticed something. According to
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  Speaker 1: his calculations, Halle's comet was going to pass closer to
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  Speaker 1: Earth than ever before, so close that our planet was
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  Speaker 1: going to pass through the comet's tail, which might not
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  Speaker 1: sound like a big deal, except Flammarian had also discovered
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  Speaker 1: evidence of cyanogen gas in the comet's taiale. Cyanogen gas
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  Speaker 1: is similar to cyanide. It's extremely toxic and often deadly.
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  Speaker 1: And what did Flammarian do with this information? He published
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  Speaker 1: it in The New York Times, along with the warning
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  Speaker 1: that the dangerous gas could and I quote impregnate the
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  Speaker 1: atmosphere and possibly snuff out all life on the planet.
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  Speaker 1: But like no reason to panic, right, of course, people
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  Speaker 1: freaked out. Some families used cock towels and newspapers to
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  Speaker 1: try to insulate their homes so that that toxic air
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  Speaker 1: couldn't get inside. Others removed lightning rods from their houses
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  Speaker 1: for fear that they would attract the comet even closer
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  Speaker 1: to Earth. Soon. Other scientists spoke out against Flammarian's claims,
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  Speaker 1: assuring the public that there wasn't enough cyanogen gas in
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  Speaker 1: the comet's tail to hurt anybody, But by then the
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  Speaker 1: damage had already been done. And where there's sickness, reel
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  Speaker 1: or imagined someone will inevitably show up peddling a miracle cure.
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  Speaker 1: In the wake of this cosmological panic, gas masks flew
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  Speaker 1: off the shelves so fast that store owners couldn't keep
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  Speaker 1: them in stock. Advertisements for comet proof umbrellas showed up
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  Speaker 1: in the newspapers. Entrepreneurs even offered anti commet pills, which
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  Speaker 1: claimed to protect against the effects of cyanogen gas. People
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  Speaker 1: bought these at a dollar a pop, which would be
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  Speaker 1: roughly thirty bucks per pill today, a small price to
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  Speaker 1: say you and your family from a ball of toxic
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  Speaker 1: space gas. The only problem was this anti comic cure
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  Speaker 1: was just sugar pills and fancy packaging. Luckily, nobody needed
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  Speaker 1: protection from Halle's comment anyway. Flammarian's calculations had been wrong,
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  Speaker 1: and the comet tail missed Earth by nearly two hundred
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  Speaker 1: thousand miles. The comment did return to our solar system
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six, after scientists had learned a lot
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  Speaker 1: about the cosmos, and this time there wasn't a market
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  Speaker 1: for gas masks and magic medicine. But nineteen eighty six
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  Speaker 1: was full of historic landmarks, like the Iran Contra affair,
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  Speaker 1: the space Shuttle Challenger disaster and the nuclear explosion at Chernobyl,
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  Speaker 1: which begs the question if Halle's comment really does incite
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  Speaker 1: political and social upheaval, who knows what will happen the
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  Speaker 1: next time it comes around in twenty sixty one. Many
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  Speaker 1: of us grew up hearing the following words from our
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  Speaker 1: parents when we hit a certain age, get a job.
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  Speaker 1: If we wanted to go out with our friends or
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  Speaker 1: buy a new video game, we needed money, and once
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  Speaker 1: we were old enough to get a job, that's how
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  Speaker 1: we earned our keep. But at the turn of the
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  Speaker 1: twentieth century, things looked a lot different For America's youth.
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  Speaker 1: Children had been working in dangerous conditions and in jobs
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  Speaker 1: that most adults were too scared to take on, either
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  Speaker 1: to support themselves or their whole families. Despite what popular
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  Speaker 1: movie musicals would have you believe, newspaper boys or newsies
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  Speaker 1: weren't just trying to eke out a living by selling
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  Speaker 1: papers on the streets. They also worked with organized crime
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  Speaker 1: as informants and gophers. Many who tried to hitch free
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  Speaker 1: rides on passenger trams would fall and have their arms
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  Speaker 1: and legs crushed by the vehicle's wheels. Making their lives
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  Speaker 1: that much harder. But perhaps one of the most life
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  Speaker 1: threatening jobs held by children, dating all the way back
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  Speaker 1: to the twelfth century, was that of the chimney sweep.
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  Speaker 1: Because of their small size, the young workers would climb
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  Speaker 1: into the flues to scrub them clean of soot and ash.
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  Speaker 1: In England, they were often bought by adult sweeps from
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  Speaker 1: orphanages or kidnapped from their parents. In the United States,
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  Speaker 1: many were African American children. Unsurprisingly, a lot of these
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  Speaker 1: kids died from various illnesses and cancers brought on by
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  Speaker 1: their work. It wasn't until the National Child Labor Committee
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  Speaker 1: was formed in nineteen oh four that the push to
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  Speaker 1: end child labor in America really took off. But one
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  Speaker 1: New Yorker didn't get the memo because he needed someone
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  Speaker 1: to help clear his chimney, and the only person available
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  Speaker 1: for the job was his nephew. In April of nineteen
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  Speaker 1: forty four, Rose Colgan heard a noise coming from behind
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  Speaker 1: her wall. She lived at nineteen seventy three Bryant Avenue
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  Speaker 1: in an area of the Bronx known as West Farms.
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  Speaker 1: Back in the eighteenth century, this part of New York
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  Speaker 1: was a massive farm belonging to one Theophilis Hunt and
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  Speaker 1: let that sink in for just a moment. It is
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  Speaker 1: hard to imagine the Bronx today as nothing but rich
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  Speaker 1: soil and grass. But for a very long time there
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  Speaker 1: stood only a couple of houses on the land, not
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  Speaker 1: a six story apartment building. Rose probably would have preferred
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  Speaker 1: the sound of the wind blowing across the fields to
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  Speaker 1: what she was actually hearing. Someone was crying day and
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  Speaker 1: night for help from behind her wall, and Rose, who
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  Speaker 1: lived on the first floor, reached out to her building
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  Speaker 1: superintendent for help. His name was William Setzer. He looked
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  Speaker 1: into the issue and discovered that someone had fallen down
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  Speaker 1: the chimney on the roof of the building had gotten
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  Speaker 1: themselves stuck in the walls of Rose's home. Unfortunately, Setzer
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  Speaker 1: was too large of a guy to fit down the
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  Speaker 1: chimney himself, but he knew someone who was just the
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  Speaker 1: right size, his ten year old nephew, Charles. William tied
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  Speaker 1: a rope around Charles's waist and lowered him down into
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  Speaker 1: the chimney. All was going well until the boy had
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  Speaker 1: descended about ten feet. Then his own whaling began because
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  Speaker 1: now he, too was stuck. His uncle spent thirty minutes
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  Speaker 1: tugging at the rope, eventually sliding his nephew back out
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  Speaker 1: to freedom. With no other small children to dangle precariously
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  Speaker 1: over his building's chimney, sets Her turned to a different
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  Speaker 1: kind of professional for help. Another man name unknown arrived
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  Speaker 1: on the scene with some tools and a little food.
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  Speaker 1: Hoping that this would do the trick. He entered Rose
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  Speaker 1: Cooligan's apartment and cut a small hole into her wall,
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  Speaker 1: and then, using a little milk and meat, he waited
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  Speaker 1: for the interloper to reveal themselves. Soon enough, they appeared,
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  Speaker 1: But milk and meat were only part of the equation.
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  Speaker 1: You see. This savior with the saw was from the
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  Speaker 1: American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and
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  Speaker 1: he also brought with him some catnip. The crying that
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  Speaker 1: had been keeping Miss Cooligan up for the last few
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  Speaker 1: nights had come from a cat who had tumbled down
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  Speaker 1: the chimney and gotten himself trapped. He was safely captured
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  Speaker 1: and transported to ASPCA headquarters. Yuks for William Setzer and
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  Speaker 1: his nephew. It's probably safe to say that neither OSHA
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  Speaker 1: nor Child Services made a visit to their homes, although
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  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if young Charles had lifelong claustrophobia
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  Speaker 1: from that point onward. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
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  Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
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  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
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  Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
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  Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.