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Skull Buster · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
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  Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
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  Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Few people throughout history have contributed to the
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  Speaker 1: development of the modern world more than Renee des Cartes.
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  Speaker 1: He was a philosopher, a scientist, and a mathematician who
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  Speaker 1: wrote on a variety of subjects. He believed that the
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  Speaker 1: human body possessed the spirits of animals, which affected the
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  Speaker 1: human soul, and he also helped prove our own existence
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  Speaker 1: with the phrase that I'm sure you've heard before. I
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  Speaker 1: think therefore I am. But perhaps the most interesting part
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  Speaker 1: of descartes life didn't actually occur while he was alive.
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  Speaker 1: It was how he got ahead after he died. Descartes
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  Speaker 1: hailed from tour in France and helped shape the age
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  Speaker 1: of Enlightenment of the seventeenth century. His life was relatively short,
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  Speaker 1: with the noted philosopher passing away from pneumonia in Sweden
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  Speaker 1: at the age of fifty three. But in his wake,
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  Speaker 1: he didn't just lead behind one of the most influential
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  Speaker 1: legacies ever recorded, he also left a surprisingly tantalizing skull.
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  Speaker 1: You see, Descartes died at a particularly gruesome time when
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  Speaker 1: the dead, especially dead celebrities, were not always allowed to
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  Speaker 1: rest in peace. Grave robbing and sales of remains were
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  Speaker 1: popular pastimes for people looking to make a quick buck.
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  Speaker 1: After his initial burial in a Catholic cemetery in Stockholm, Sweden,
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  Speaker 1: his body was transferred to the Saint Etienne du Monts
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  Speaker 1: in Paris in sixteen sixty six, but it wouldn't stay
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  Speaker 1: there forever. The French Revolution of the seventeen nineties brought
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  Speaker 1: with it the fear of losing descartes remains forever, so
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  Speaker 1: he was dug up to be moved once again. However,
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  Speaker 1: the man who exhumed the body, an archaeologist named Alexander Lenoir,
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  Speaker 1: noticed that he wasn't all there. Literally, all that remained
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  Speaker 1: of Renee Descartes were his femur, tibia, and some skull fragments.
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  Speaker 1: Lenoir abscond with the few bones left behind and fashioned
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  Speaker 1: them into a set of rings. But what happened to
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  Speaker 1: the skull. Well, while descartes remains were being reinterred in
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  Speaker 1: eighteen eighteen, everyone noticed the missing cranium, and one man
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  Speaker 1: in attendance, a chemist by the name of jonce yaka Brazilius,
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  Speaker 1: happened to be visiting France at the time. He eventually
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  Speaker 1: returned to Stockholm and a few years later found out
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  Speaker 1: that a wealthy Swedish man had bought the skull at auction.
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  Speaker 1: This collector had allegedly wanted it as part of his
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  Speaker 1: eccentric collection of oddities, which he kept in what was
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  Speaker 1: called a Wunderkammer. A Wunderkammer, by the way, was actually
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  Speaker 1: one of the most appropriate places for descartes missing skull
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  Speaker 1: to end up. It's a German word that means cabinets
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  Speaker 1: of curiosities. Hey, how about that? Anyway, Brazilius met with
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  Speaker 1: the collector and persuaded him to part with the skull.
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  Speaker 1: It didn't take more than a quick glance for Brazilius
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  Speaker 1: to know that he now possessed the real deal, how
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  Speaker 1: because someone had gone to the trouble of labeling it
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  Speaker 1: for him. Written across the forehead was the identity of
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  Speaker 1: the person who had taken it from its grave a
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  Speaker 1: man named Plantstrom. You see, back in sixteen sixty six.
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  Speaker 1: Planstrom had actually been tasked with guarding Descartes's body on
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  Speaker 1: its way back to France. However, he didn't really watch
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  Speaker 1: over it. It was more like he looted it, taking
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  Speaker 1: the skull for himself. After his own death, it was
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  Speaker 1: revealed that Planstrom had been in serious debt, and the
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  Speaker 1: skull was given to a brewer in Stockholm as payment
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  Speaker 1: for the money that he owed him. The skull was
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  Speaker 1: then passed down from father to son before making its
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  Speaker 1: way into the hands of various other owners. Several of
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  Speaker 1: those owners added to Planstrom's note with inscriptions of their
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  Speaker 1: own writing directly onto the skull. Once Brasilius got his
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  Speaker 1: hands on it, he brought it back to France, where
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  Speaker 1: it has remained ever since, stored safely at the Musa
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  Speaker 1: Delme in Paris. Or is it not. According to scholars
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  Speaker 1: at Lund University in Sweden, they believe that the writing
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  Speaker 1: on the skull doesn't actually prove that it was Descartes.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, they claim it's proof that the object is
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  Speaker 1: certainly a fake. The real skull doesn't exist anymore, well,
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  Speaker 1: not in one piece. Anyway, a fragment of parietal bone
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  Speaker 1: that was donated to the university in seventeen eighty bears
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  Speaker 1: a curious inscription, the skull of Descartes number six. The
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  Speaker 1: number six seems to indicate that there are at least
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  Speaker 1: five other pieces out there, and perhaps more. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: researchers believe that descartes skull was a victim of a
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  Speaker 1: practice called skull blasting. This was a way of separating
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  Speaker 1: the cranial bones along their seams or suitures. The result
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  Speaker 1: turned a skull into a series of individual bones that
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  Speaker 1: could then be sold to the highest bidders. They grew
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  Speaker 1: quite popular during the sixteenth and seventeen centuries among vendors
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  Speaker 1: who trafficked in unusual goods. But even the authenticity of
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  Speaker 1: the skull fragment at Lund University is up for debate,
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  Speaker 1: leaving many to wonder what really happened to the Philosopher's skull,
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  Speaker 1: and we may never get an answer. All we can
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  Speaker 1: do is philosophies it was, therefore it might still be.
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  Speaker 1: The Beatles had a pretty contentious relationship with the spiritual realm.
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  Speaker 1: Although they had been raised as either Protestant or Roman Catholic,
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  Speaker 1: they eventually gave up their original religions to pursue other beliefs.
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  Speaker 1: George Harrison studied with Hindu gurus, and all four band
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  Speaker 1: members learned from an Indian yogi during the nineteen sixties,
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  Speaker 1: but nothing really stuck With John Lennon. He shunned all
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  Speaker 1: forms of organized religion, although considered himself a religious and
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  Speaker 1: spiritual person. In an interview back in September of nineteen eighty,
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  Speaker 1: he was quoted as saying people always got the image
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  Speaker 1: I was an anti Christ or anti religion. I'm not.
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  Speaker 1: I'm a most religious fellow. So it was no wonder
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  Speaker 1: that Lenin was someone who participated in non traditional spiritual practices.
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  Speaker 1: For example, in the nineteen sixties, he employed a personal
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  Speaker 1: astrologist named Alex Martis, also known as Magic Alex. Magic
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  Speaker 1: Alex would consult the stars and provide insights into Lennon's future.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty nine, John and Yoko were on a
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  Speaker 1: vacation in Greece with Magic Alex in tow when John
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  Speaker 1: asked him to tell him about his future, what would
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  Speaker 1: it be like, what would happen to him next? And
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  Speaker 1: Alex seemingly didn't know. The Beatles would break up just
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  Speaker 1: a few months later, but he did have a premonition
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  Speaker 1: of something bad happening to Lenin. According to Magic Alex,
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  Speaker 1: the singer songwriter was in grave danger. He was going
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  Speaker 1: to be killed by a gunshot on an island. The
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  Speaker 1: couple were understandably shocked by the prediction and immediately canceled
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  Speaker 1: their scheduled boat trip around the Greek Islands. Later that week,
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  Speaker 1: John and Yoko returned home and continued to live their
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  Speaker 1: lives normally, eventually moving to New York City in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy one. Lennon then became an activist and an outspoken
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  Speaker 1: critic of the Vietnam War, which nearly got him deported
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  Speaker 1: by the Nixon administration. He had a successful solo career
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  Speaker 1: and even collaborated with legendary artists such as David Bowie
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  Speaker 1: and Elton John, But in nineteen eighty he came face
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  Speaker 1: to face with his fate in a way that he
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  Speaker 1: never saw coming. That fate's name was Mark David Chapman.
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  Speaker 1: Chapman was born in Fort Worth, Texas, in nineteen fifty
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  Speaker 1: five to a father in the Air Force and a
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  Speaker 1: mother who worked as a nurse. He had a rough childhood,
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  Speaker 1: his father was often abusive to him and to his mother,
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  Speaker 1: while he faced regular bullying at school. Chapman eventually moved
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  Speaker 1: to Georgia and found religio as a born again Presbyterian.
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  Speaker 1: He got a job working at the local y m
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  Speaker 1: c A as a camp counselor during the summer of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, when he was sixteen years old. He
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  Speaker 1: was beloved by both the kids and the staff. But
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  Speaker 1: around the same time, Chapman discovered something that would change
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  Speaker 1: his outlook on the world forever. In fact, it became
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  Speaker 1: something of an obsession. It was a book by author J. D.
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  Speaker 1: Salinger called The Catcher in the Rye. The story followed
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  Speaker 1: a disillusioned teenager named Holden Caulfield who felt alienated by
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  Speaker 1: the world around him. It was a world filled with
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  Speaker 1: adults he called phonies, hypocritical and shallow, people who couldn't
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  Speaker 1: see what they had become. Chapman internalized the novel to
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  Speaker 1: a disturbing extent. He didn't just see himself in Caulfield,
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  Speaker 1: he wanted to be him. Chapman had been a big
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  Speaker 1: Beatles fan when he was younger, but resented John Lennon
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  Speaker 1: for a statement that he had made back in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty six when he had called the band more popular
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  Speaker 1: than Jesus. The hyper religious. Chapman wouldn't stand for such
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  Speaker 1: blasphemous remarks. Lennon's hypocritical beliefs also bothered him. After all,
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  Speaker 1: Lenin was a successful musician with millions of dollars, yet
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  Speaker 1: he's sang about living a life of peace without material things.
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  Speaker 1: Chapman traveled to New York City in December of nineteen eighty,
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  Speaker 1: then checked into the Sheraton Hotel on December eighth. He
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  Speaker 1: exited the hotel, leaving his clothing and other belongings behind
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  Speaker 1: for the authorities to find later. He bought a new
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  Speaker 1: copy of The Catcher in the Rye at a nearby
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  Speaker 1: store and wrote the words this is my statement on
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  Speaker 1: the inside, and then he signed it Holden Caulfield. Chapman
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  Speaker 1: found his way over to West seventy two Streets on
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  Speaker 1: Manhattan's upper west side. This was the home of the
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  Speaker 1: Dakota co Op building, where John and Oko lived. Chapman
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  Speaker 1: hung out there all day waiting to catch a glimpse
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  Speaker 1: of Lenin. He spotted both John and Yoko leaving the
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  Speaker 1: building as they headed to a recording session around five PM.
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  Speaker 1: Chapman even got Lennon to sign a CD for him
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  Speaker 1: in the process, but hours later, around eleven pm, he
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  Speaker 1: was still at the Dakota. The couple eventually returned from
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  Speaker 1: the studio, and as they entered the building, Chapman pulled
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  Speaker 1: out a thirty eight Special revolver and fired four bullets
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  Speaker 1: into John Lennon's back and shoulder. When the police arrived,
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  Speaker 1: they found the shooter sitting by himself. He was reading
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  Speaker 1: the catcher in the rye and willingly allowed them to
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  Speaker 1: take him into custody. Lennon sadly passed away from his
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  Speaker 1: injuries on the way to the hospital. The strange part
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  Speaker 1: was that John Lennon had known he was going to die,
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  Speaker 1: just not at that moment. He had been told eleven
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  Speaker 1: years earlier that he would be killed by a bullet
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  Speaker 1: on an island. What he didn't realize was that island
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  Speaker 1: would be Manhattan, and the bullet would be fired by
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  Speaker 1: one of his fans. 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: and Manky 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 World of Lore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious, Yeah,