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Exotic Tastes · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
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  Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
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  Speaker 2: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 2: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. In September of nineteen eighty five,
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  Speaker 2: a fire broke out in a working class home in Yorkshire, England.
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  Speaker 2: In just a few short minutes, everything Ron and Mary
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  Speaker 2: Hall had built for twenty seven years had gone up
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  Speaker 2: in smoke, well almost everything. As the firefighters tramped through
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  Speaker 2: the home, putting out the last of the smoldering embers,
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  Speaker 2: something caught their eye. Hanging on the soot blackened wall
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  Speaker 2: was a perfectly pristine painting of a young street urchin
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  Speaker 2: with tears rolling down his face. Upon seeing it, one
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  Speaker 2: of the firefighter's side the curse of the crying boy
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  Speaker 2: painting had struck again. In the fall of nineteen eighty five,
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  Speaker 2: a strange phenomenon was tearing across England. One by one,
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  Speaker 2: houses were going up in smoke. Now, this in and
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  Speaker 2: of itself wasn't unusual. Every one of these fires had
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  Speaker 2: a perfectly normal explanation, like faulty wiring or a smoldering cigarette.
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  Speaker 2: What was strange were the paintings left behind. In nearly
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  Speaker 2: every case, the only thing left untouched by the blaze
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  Speaker 2: was a framed print of a crying little boy. The
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  Speaker 2: crying boy paintings weren't uncommon at the time. In fact,
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  Speaker 2: they were hugely popular with working class Brits. As the
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  Speaker 2: story goes, after World War II, a series of tearful
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  Speaker 2: portraits of children started appearing in Italy, and they were
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  Speaker 2: attributed to a few different artists like Giovanni Braggoline or Franchoiseville,
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  Speaker 2: but in truth, these were both pseudonyms for one individual man,
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  Speaker 2: Spanish painter Bruno Amadio. Bruno supposedly began painting street urchins
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  Speaker 2: as a way to bring attention to the plight of
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  Speaker 2: children orphaned by the war. Cheap prints of his paintings
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  Speaker 2: were sold all across Europe, proving especially popular with British tourists,
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  Speaker 2: so much so that an estimated fifty thousand of Bruno's
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  Speaker 2: prints were sold in England alone. While this explains why
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  Speaker 2: Bruno's paintings were popular, it doesn't shed any light on
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  Speaker 2: why they were at the heart of so many mysterious fires,
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  Speaker 2: that is until the newspapers brought a little known story
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  Speaker 2: to light. According to the Sun, a British tabloid, one
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  Speaker 2: of the most popular crying boy paintings was of a
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  Speaker 2: young boy named Don Bonillo. Don had been dealt a
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  Speaker 2: tragic hand and was orphaned when his parents perished in
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  Speaker 2: a fire, and supposedly wherever Don went, mysterious fires would
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  Speaker 2: spontaneously appear. Despite the rumors, Bruno adopted Don. All was
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  Speaker 2: well until one day when a fire broke out in
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  Speaker 2: Bruno's studio. Angry the boy, Bruno accused him of arson
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  Speaker 2: and kicked him out, and he never saw Don again,
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  Speaker 2: but stories of the boy trickled back to him seven
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  Speaker 2: years later, when a car crashed in Barcelona and burst
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  Speaker 2: into flames. The driver's remains were burned beyond recognition, but
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  Speaker 2: a driver's license in his wallet identified him as Don Bonillo.
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  Speaker 2: This backstory, coupled with the blazes, was enough to convince
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  Speaker 2: many Brits that the crime boy paintings were cursed. So
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  Speaker 2: when a tabloid called The Sun offered to help people
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  Speaker 2: get rid of their unwonted art, hundreds of prints came
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  Speaker 2: pouring into their London office. On Halloween nights in nineteen
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  Speaker 2: eighty five, the Sun built a bonfire of crime Boy
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  Speaker 2: paintings and set them alight, and with that they put
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  Speaker 2: an end to the crime Boy curse, which was very poetic,
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  Speaker 2: as after all they had started it in the first place.
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  Speaker 2: You see, the Sun was a tabloid that was not
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  Speaker 2: above in belishing a story to sell a paper, and
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  Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty five it was a paper that was
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  Speaker 2: in a war. Its chief rival, the Day Mirror, was
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  Speaker 2: threatening its circulation, so when the first Crying Boy story
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  Speaker 2: proved popular, they leaned into it. Yes, the fires were real,
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  Speaker 2: as were the crime Boy portraits, but since it was
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  Speaker 2: such a popular series of prints, there was really nothing
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  Speaker 2: unusual about them being present at multiple house fires. Oh
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  Speaker 2: and about Bruno, the enigmatic painter. While he was a
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  Speaker 2: real painter, it's doubtful that he ever adopted a young
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  Speaker 2: fire starter street urchin, especially not one who wanted to
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  Speaker 2: haunt his paintings. That was an invention of the Sun
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  Speaker 2: as well. And as for the paintings themselves, well, even
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  Speaker 2: at the time, the firemen believed that they knew why
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  Speaker 2: the prince survived the fires. The cheap prints many people
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  Speaker 2: had in their homes were made of high density hardboard.
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  Speaker 2: This material is very tough to burn. In fact, when
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  Speaker 2: a BBC presenter tried to set one on fire in
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  Speaker 2: twenty ten, he was barely able to singe the boy.
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  Speaker 2: With that, any last lingering beliefs in the Crying Boy
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  Speaker 2: curse suddenly went up in smoke. We eat a lot
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  Speaker 2: of meat. The average American consumes two hundred and twenty
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  Speaker 2: five pounds of animal products each year, the vast majority
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  Speaker 2: of which is beef, pork, and chicken. Specialty meats like veal, lamb,
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  Speaker 2: and bison are reasonably easy to get your hands on,
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  Speaker 2: but for the most part, we restrict ourselves to a
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  Speaker 2: tiny corner of the animal kingdom. At least most of
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  Speaker 2: us do. In the nineteen twenties, a group of students
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  Speaker 2: at Cambridge University set out to expand their diets by
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  Speaker 2: sampling what they called strange flesh. They dubbed themselves the
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  Speaker 2: Glutton Club, and they more than lived up to their name.
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  Speaker 2: Their mission, as stated, was to dine on and I quote,
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  Speaker 2: birds and beasts which were before unknown to the human pellet.
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  Speaker 1: The Gluttons met weekly and ate everything they could get
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  Speaker 1: their hands on that mainly turned out to be exotic birds.
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  Speaker 1: First they tried hawk, then heron, and eventually an elderly
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  Speaker 1: brown owl, which was so stringy they could barely keep
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  Speaker 1: it down. As you'd imagine, the club's appetites took a
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  Speaker 1: serious dive after that incident, with many members choosing to
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  Speaker 1: focus on their ports rather than on their plates, but
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  Speaker 1: at least one member stayed true to the cause. After
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  Speaker 1: leaving Cambridge, the Glutton Club's president was offered a spot
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  Speaker 1: on an oceanic voyage around the world. It was the
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  Speaker 1: perfect opportunity to encounter and devour species of animals that
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  Speaker 1: had never been tasted by an Englishman before. His mouth
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  Speaker 1: was watering before he could say yes. For the next
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  Speaker 1: five years, he traveled the globe, eating his way across
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  Speaker 1: one continent after another, and technically he was the expedition's naturalist,
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  Speaker 1: brought along to study and catalog the various species they
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  Speaker 1: encountered during the voyage, and he did do that. But
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  Speaker 1: once he was done studying the specimens, each one found
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  Speaker 1: its way onto his plate. He filled his research journals
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  Speaker 1: with descriptions of the exotic meats he tried, commenting and
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  Speaker 1: compared ring flavor and tenderness. He sampled everything from pumas
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  Speaker 1: and armadillos to iguanas and giant tortoises, and while he
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  Speaker 1: did enjoy many of them, it was the South American
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  Speaker 1: agouti that proved to be the most memorable. This large
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  Speaker 1: rodent weighs upwards of twenty pounds, is typically slow roasted
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  Speaker 1: over a fire, and is closely related to the guinea pig.
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  Speaker 1: According to the Gluttons Journals, it was the best meal
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  Speaker 1: he had ever tasted. His appetite almost got the better
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  Speaker 1: of him one winter when he sat down for Christmas
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  Speaker 1: dinner with the crew. He was halfway through what looked
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  Speaker 1: like turkey when he realized it was something else. The
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  Speaker 1: meat came from a Rhea, a large flightless bird similar
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  Speaker 1: to an ostrich. The glutton had been tracking rhea for weeks,
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  Speaker 1: trying to catch one, with no luck. Apparently, the ship's
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  Speaker 1: cook had beaten him to the punch. Realizing that he
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  Speaker 1: was about to devour a priceless, unstudied specimen, the glutton
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  Speaker 1: leaped to his feet and shouted for everyone to stop eating.
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  Speaker 1: He quickly gathered up the remaining bones, skin and flesh
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  Speaker 1: and hacked them into a crate and had them ship
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  Speaker 1: back to London for examination and storage. Christmas Dinner was ruined,
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  Speaker 1: but the science had been mostly salvaged. The Glutton finally
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  Speaker 1: returned to England in eighteen thirty six, but his work
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  Speaker 1: was far from over. He spent several more years examining
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  Speaker 1: the specimens and the notes that he had brought back,
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  Speaker 1: and then finally, in eighteen fifty nine, he published a
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  Speaker 1: book on everything he had learned during his voyage. This time,
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  Speaker 1: he didn't focus so much on the flavor of the
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  Speaker 1: animals he encountered, but his beliefs about how they had
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  Speaker 1: come to exist in their habitats. From his observations, he
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  Speaker 1: extrapolated a theory explaining how organisms changed over time, suggesting
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  Speaker 1: that all life on Earth could be traced back to
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  Speaker 1: a single origin. His book rocked the scientific community to
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  Speaker 1: its core and is still considered one of the most
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  Speaker 1: significant works of modern science. The Glutton, of course, was
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  Speaker 1: named Charles Darwin. His book The Origin of Species is
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  Speaker 1: famous for introducing the theory of evolution that changed our
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  Speaker 1: understanding of the natural world forever. And Darwin might not
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  Speaker 1: have ever devised it at all, if not for his
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  Speaker 1: voracious appetite for discovery. 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.