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Note by Note · 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. 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 right there on display, just waiting
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  Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: The year was nineteen fifty six, and the West African
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  Speaker 1: city of Accras was alive with music. As the plane
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  Speaker 1: touched down on the tarmac, jubilant crowds began to cheer
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  Speaker 1: and sing the name of the American ambassador. This was
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  Speaker 1: no ordinary diplomat. He was Louis Armstrong, the famous jazz musician.
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  Speaker 1: The US government had recently recruited him to its Jazz
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  Speaker 1: Ambassador program, which aimed to fight the spread out of
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  Speaker 1: communism through music. By sending famous American artists on tours
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  Speaker 1: around the world. They sought to spread America's values and hopefully,
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  Speaker 1: the popularity of its politics. Jazz had been chosen for
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  Speaker 1: two reasons. First, the genre was incredibly popular, and second,
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  Speaker 1: many of the musicians were black. The burgeoning civil rights
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  Speaker 1: movement was causing lots of bad press for America and
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  Speaker 1: the government hoped that promoting black artists might help rehabilitate
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  Speaker 1: its image abroad. Louis Armstrong wasn't particularly interested in that
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  Speaker 1: second part, but he'd never been to Africa before and
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  Speaker 1: saw the trip as an opportunity to connect with his roots.
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  Speaker 1: While he didn't know which part of the continent his
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  Speaker 1: enslaved ancestors came from, he hoped that visiting might spark
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  Speaker 1: some feeling of connection. Meanwhile, Acron was experiencing a unique
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  Speaker 1: cultural moment of its own. In nineteen fifty six. It
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  Speaker 1: was the capital city of the British Gold Coast Colony,
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  Speaker 1: which had been under imperialist rules since the fifteenth century.
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  Speaker 1: Now the country seemed to be on the brink of independence.
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  Speaker 1: The peace could sense change on the horizon, and there
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  Speaker 1: was a strange, jubilant excitement in the air. A visit
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  Speaker 1: from an American musician as popular as Louis Armstrong offered
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  Speaker 1: a much needed opportunity to celebrate, so the moment he
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  Speaker 1: stepped off the plane, the crowd exploded. Thirteen bands played
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  Speaker 1: on trucks around the tarmac. The mood was so raucous
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  Speaker 1: that Louis picked up his own trumpet and joined in
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  Speaker 1: with them. Over the next forty eight hours, he played
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  Speaker 1: a number of shows around the city, one at the
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  Speaker 1: old Polo Grounds in front of one hundred thousand celebratory spectators,
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  Speaker 1: another at the Opera, and a third at the Paramount Club,
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  Speaker 1: where he was joined on stage by some of the
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  Speaker 1: country's most famous musicians. With all the excitement, it certainly
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  Speaker 1: felt like a homecoming. But for Louis Armstrong, the connection
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  Speaker 1: he'd been looking for came during a quiet moment backstage.
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  Speaker 1: He met a dancer who bore a striking resemblance to
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  Speaker 1: his mother, who had just died a few years earlier,
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  Speaker 1: and according to Louis, seeing this woman convinced him that
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  Speaker 1: his ancestors came from that area. He stated, and I quote,
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  Speaker 1: I came from here way back. At least my people did.
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  Speaker 1: Now I know this is my country too. By the
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  Speaker 1: time he left Acra two days later, it seemed that
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  Speaker 1: everyone was a little different. Just a year later, the
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  Speaker 1: Gold Coast achieved its independence, becoming the nation of Ghana. Today,
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  Speaker 1: the country has a vibrant, stable democracy, and its most
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  Speaker 1: popular music genre is called highlife, a fusion of African
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  Speaker 1: Caribbean music and traditional jazz. In a sense Louis Armstrong's
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  Speaker 1: visit to Acra was a homecoming for his music as
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  Speaker 1: much as it was for him. After all, jazz was
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  Speaker 1: heavily influenced by traditional West African songs, which enslave peoples
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  Speaker 1: brought with them to the United States. That music had
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  Speaker 1: now come full circle, inspiring a fresh generation of West
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  Speaker 1: African artists. It seems that the Jazz Ambassador program had
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  Speaker 1: been a success, subtly steering a fledgling country toward democracy,
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  Speaker 1: but it had also changed Louis Armstrong, making him more
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  Speaker 1: convinced than ever that the American government had their own
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  Speaker 1: work to do back home. Soon after returning home, he
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  Speaker 1: dropped out of the program as an act of protest.
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  Speaker 1: When questioned on the matter, he gave reporters a simple explanation,
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  Speaker 1: the way they're treating my people down south, the government
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  Speaker 1: can go to hell. Nestled in the Alleghany Mountain County
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  Speaker 1: of Greenbrier, West Virginia, is the Greenbrier Resort. Since opening
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  Speaker 1: in the seventeen hundreds, the resort has attracted high profile clientele,
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  Speaker 1: including politicians, celebrities, and even royalty. The palatial resort sits
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  Speaker 1: on eleven hundred acres and offers its visitors five hundred
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  Speaker 1: rooms to choose from. It's got plenty of space for
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  Speaker 1: long held secrets, and it's loaded with wartime history. For one,
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  Speaker 1: this expansive property served as a hospital and enemy prison
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  Speaker 1: during w World War Two. For this reason, it has
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  Speaker 1: long been a source of local pride, but it wasn't
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  Speaker 1: until after the war that the Greenbrier became a source
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  Speaker 1: of mystery. In nineteen fifty eight, the iconic venue gave
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  Speaker 1: locals some much needed zeal. At the time, the country
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  Speaker 1: was in the midst of the Cold War, and people
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  Speaker 1: all across the US sought distraction from fear and uncertainty.
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  Speaker 1: So when ground broke on a new wing at the Greenbrier,
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  Speaker 1: residents felt a sense of hopefulness. The expansion symbolized optimism
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  Speaker 1: for the future, but the excitement soon turned to confusion.
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  Speaker 1: You see, locals looked on as construction workers dug the
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  Speaker 1: hole for the foundation, and it was massive, probably a
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  Speaker 1: few stories deep. People were familiar with the resort's layout,
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  Speaker 1: after all, many of them had worked there, but no
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  Speaker 1: one knew of any other part of the building that
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  Speaker 1: reached so far underground. Confusion devolved into fear when cement
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  Speaker 1: trucks began parading to and from the construction site, and
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  Speaker 1: this went on for days before giant steel doors were
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  Speaker 1: installed and guards were stationed out front. It was unlike
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  Speaker 1: anything people had ever seen before, and it felt ominous
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  Speaker 1: inside the building. The wing was closed off to anyone
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  Speaker 1: except top personnel and curiously, a continuous stream of TV repairmen.
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  Speaker 1: One administrative employee stuck up a friendship with the repairman's manager,
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  Speaker 1: and there was something the employee couldn't shake. All of
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  Speaker 1: the other resort workers were Greenbrier employees, but the TV
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  Speaker 1: repairman worked for a contracting company. None of the Greenbrier's
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  Speaker 1: top personnel provided any explanation for this, so people started
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  Speaker 1: forming their own theories. By the time the Cuban missile
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  Speaker 1: crisis occurred in the early sixties, many believed the expansion
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  Speaker 1: served as a nuclear hideout for President John F. Kennedy.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't an outlandish thought, considering a lot of residents
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  Speaker 1: had built bomb shelters in their own backyards, and yet
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  Speaker 1: few people who supported this theory would openly admit to it.
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  Speaker 1: People still remembered the World War II posters that had
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  Speaker 1: the phrase loose lips sink ships. So while gossip and
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  Speaker 1: speculation circled among friends, most people rarely discussed the mystery
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  Speaker 1: underneath their own town. But in nineteen ninety two, one
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  Speaker 1: person in Greenbrier opened up to someone who would turn
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  Speaker 1: the tides forever. They anonymously contacted a Washington Post reporter
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  Speaker 1: and laid out the full truth. As it turned out,
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  Speaker 1: the people of the town had been right almost You see,
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  Speaker 1: the wing wasn't a nuclear shelter for JFK, but for
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  Speaker 1: every single member of Congress. It was a bunker fitted
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  Speaker 1: with a congressional floor and podium, a fully stocked pharmacy,
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  Speaker 1: and eleven hundred pre assigned bunk beds. The people of
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  Speaker 1: Greenbrier weren't surprised when they heard the news. If anything,
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  Speaker 1: they were satisfied to be proven right. There were a
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  Speaker 1: few other people who weren't surprised either, the Forsyth TV repairman.
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  Speaker 1: They were some of the only people allowed in the
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  Speaker 1: bunker before nineteen ninety two, and they weren't there to
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  Speaker 1: repair TVs. They were actually technicians who performed routine safety checks.
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  Speaker 1: They made sure that all the protective features worked, like
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  Speaker 1: the blastproof doors and the decontamination showers. Since it was constructed.
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  Speaker 1: Congress has never used the bunker, and hopefully they never
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  Speaker 1: have to, but that doesn't change the fact that it
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  Speaker 1: was simultaneously both the most necessary use of funds and
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  Speaker 1: the most wasteful. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
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  Speaker 1: of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
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  Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
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  Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
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  Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
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  Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
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  Speaker 1: over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
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  Speaker 1: stay curious.