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Florida Man · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Mankey'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. If you pay attention to the news, you've
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  Speaker 1: most likely heard a sentence that started with the words
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  Speaker 1: Florida man, Florida man in no seriously, I have drugs.
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  Speaker 1: T Shirts arrested for possession of drugs, Florida man charged
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  Speaker 1: with assault with a deadly weapon after throwing alligator through
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  Speaker 1: Wendy's drive through window. And Florida man gets tired of
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  Speaker 1: waiting at hospital, steals ambulance, drives home. And those, if
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  Speaker 1: you're wondering, are all real headlines from the Sunshine State.
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  Speaker 1: So what is it about Florida that attracts these kinds
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  Speaker 1: of people? Well, the short answer is because there are
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  Speaker 1: so many of them. Florida, you see, is the third
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  Speaker 1: most populous states in America, with upwards of twenty million
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  Speaker 1: residents and another one hundred fifty million tourists visiting each year.
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  Speaker 1: So really it's just a matter of statistics. But these
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  Speaker 1: hijinks didn't start recently. Florida has always been a part
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  Speaker 1: of the news cycle, going as far back as the
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  Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. About one hundred thirty miles north of Tampa
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  Speaker 1: Bay is a city known as cedar Key. It's part
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  Speaker 1: of a cluster of islands, most of which are uninhabited
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  Speaker 1: today and make up a wildlife refuge protected by the government.
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  Speaker 1: But during the eighteen hundreds, cedar Key was central to
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  Speaker 1: Floridian commerce. The Eagle Pencil Company and eber Hard Faber
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  Speaker 1: owned pencil mills in cedar Key. After the Civil War
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  Speaker 1: it was a major port and there was even a
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  Speaker 1: railroad line connected back to the mainland. But March of
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  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty nine was when everything changed. A new mayor
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  Speaker 1: had been elected, and his name was William Cartrell, a
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  Speaker 1: thirty three year old poster child for nepotism. His father
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  Speaker 1: had been a state senator and his brother was a
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  Speaker 1: successful business owner on the island. He also managed to
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  Speaker 1: marry up joining a high society family that allowed him
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  Speaker 1: to move even higher in the world. But old Billy
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  Speaker 1: had a problem. He liked to drink when he was sober,
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  Speaker 1: he was a pleasant fellow and got along with most everyone.
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  Speaker 1: But after a few fingers of whiskey, he was a
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  Speaker 1: totally different person, mean, angry, and without restraint. As time
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  Speaker 1: went on, the cachet of his politically connected family, along
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  Speaker 1: with his own personal police force, turned Mayor Cartrell from
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  Speaker 1: a belligerent drunk into a full on tyrant. With carte
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  Speaker 1: blanche to do as he pleased, Catrell enjoyed loading up
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  Speaker 1: on booze and abusing his authority. He yelled and ranted
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  Speaker 1: at people, seemingly at random, screaming at whoever was closest
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  Speaker 1: to him at the time. Often those rants would turn
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  Speaker 1: into death threats against individuals that he believed had wronged him.
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  Speaker 1: He would also walk into his brother's general store and
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  Speaker 1: pull a gun on everyone inside, taking them hostage. He
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  Speaker 1: didn't want money, though, he just really liked terrifying people.
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  Speaker 1: On one awful evening, Mayor Catrell forced several of his
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  Speaker 1: constituents out of their homes at gunpoint and made them
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  Speaker 1: all dance for him in the street. That gun was
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  Speaker 1: also used to torment the local telegraph operator, who Cotrell
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  Speaker 1: hated for no known reason. During one of their spats.
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  Speaker 1: The mayor aimed the pistol at a black residence standing
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  Speaker 1: off to the side, and told him to beat up
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  Speaker 1: the telegraph operator for his enjoyment. Despite his out of
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  Speaker 1: control nature, however, Catrell went unchallenged even his re election campaign.
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  Speaker 1: Was his success. Perhaps the local populace didn't want to
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  Speaker 1: upset him any further, but nobody stood up to him,
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  Speaker 1: at least nobody in town. That wouldn't happen until the
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  Speaker 1: arrival of James Harvey Pinkerton. Pinkerton had been appointed the
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  Speaker 1: new customs agent on the island by President Benjamin Harrison.
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  Speaker 1: He saw firsthand how the mayor handled his official business
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  Speaker 1: with the locals. Pinkerton called him out on it, and
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  Speaker 1: the mayor handled the offense as diplomatically as he knew how.
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  Speaker 1: He threatened to kill Pinkerton, but that was a bad move.
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  Speaker 1: The average telegraph operator might have been helpless against the
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  Speaker 1: mayor's drunken outbursts, but not an employee of the federal government.
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  Speaker 1: Pinkerton wrote a detailed report of Cantrell's behavior and all
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  Speaker 1: the things that he spat at the agents, and then
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  Speaker 1: he sent it off to Washington. The report soon found
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  Speaker 1: its way to the President's desk, and Benjamin Harrison knew
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  Speaker 1: that the problem wouldn't fix itself, so he sent in
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  Speaker 1: some reinforcements to help. In May of eighteen ninety, the U. S.
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  Speaker 1: Coast Guard landed on the shores of the island to
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  Speaker 1: take the mayor and his goons into custody. Catrell, having
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  Speaker 1: learned of his impending arrest ahead of time, fled cedar
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  Speaker 1: Key for the mainland. While the residents were happy that
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  Speaker 1: the mayor was now out of their lives, they wanted
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  Speaker 1: the Coastguard guard too. Many of those living in cedar
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  Speaker 1: Key had been supporters of the Confederacy and they didn't
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  Speaker 1: like the United States government snooping around their island. But
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  Speaker 1: the President didn't care about their complaints. His people stuck
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  Speaker 1: around and helped cedar Key install a new city government
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  Speaker 1: that didn't keep them paralyzed by fear. As for Billy Catrell,
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  Speaker 1: he escaped to Alabama until he was finally arrested for
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  Speaker 1: his crimes and cedar Key. Unfortunately, though he never stood trial.
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  Speaker 1: While out on bond, he got into an altercation at
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  Speaker 1: a local bar and was placed in handcuffs once again.
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  Speaker 1: He told police Chief Adolph Gerald that he would kill
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  Speaker 1: him once he was released, and even challenged him to
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  Speaker 1: a duel. Mayor Catrell, true to his words, showed up
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  Speaker 1: the next day in a horse drawn carriage ready to duel,
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  Speaker 1: but the chief had the upper hand. As the former
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  Speaker 1: mayor approached him, Gerald armed with his shotgun, fired twice
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  Speaker 1: at his assailant and killed him on the spot. William
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  Speaker 1: Catrell was a terrible man with an even more terror
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  Speaker 1: will temper. He was given near infinite power over a
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  Speaker 1: small city, which he wielded with impunity. But the press
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  Speaker 1: had the last word on his reign of terror. Newspapers
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  Speaker 1: everywhere published articles about Cantrell's demise, with many using too
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  Speaker 1: simple words to sum up everyone's feelings. Good Ribbons Solomon
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  Speaker 1: August Andre had a dream. Born in Sweden in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: fifty four, Andre could never quite seem to get ahead.
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  Speaker 1: He had a degree in mechanical engineering from the Royal
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  Speaker 1: Institute of Technology in Stockholm, but came to the United
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  Speaker 1: States in eighteen seventy six and worked as a janitor
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  Speaker 1: at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Upon his return to Sweden,
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  Speaker 1: he ran his own machine shop for several years until
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  Speaker 1: a lack of business forced him to close. Andrea returned
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  Speaker 1: to his alma mater as an assistant in eighteen eighty,
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  Speaker 1: and two years later he was invited to join a
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  Speaker 1: scientific expedition to the island of Spitzbergen in Norway. The
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  Speaker 1: trip only lasted a year, after which he found work
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  Speaker 1: in the Swedish Patent Office. In his spare time, Andrea
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  Speaker 1: wrote extensively about air electricity, heat conduction, and various new inventions.
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  Speaker 1: But there was something calling to him, something out there,
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  Speaker 1: beckoning him from behind his desk and into the great
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  Speaker 1: wide open the North Pole. It came during a time
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  Speaker 1: known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, when brave
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  Speaker 1: explorers risked their lives to chart Antarctica. Andrea, however, wanted
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  Speaker 1: to be the first to reach the opposite pole, and
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  Speaker 1: to do so using only a hot air balloon. He'd
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  Speaker 1: been fascinated with balloons ever since his eighteen seventy six
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  Speaker 1: strip to America, when he'd run into John Wise, an
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  Speaker 1: American ballooning expert and true pioneer in the field. Andrea
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  Speaker 1: was captivated by the idea of soaring over the Earth
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  Speaker 1: in a massive balloon and decided that that was how
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  Speaker 1: he was going to reach the North Pole, so he
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  Speaker 1: approached the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on February and
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  Speaker 1: he outlined his plan. He did so again five months
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  Speaker 1: later in London when he spoke at the sixth International
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  Speaker 1: Geographical Congress. He proposed using a hydrogen filled balloon to
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  Speaker 1: be guided by the wind across the Arctic Sea and
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  Speaker 1: to the Bearing Strait. From there, he and his team
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  Speaker 1: of two other explorers would travel over Alaska, Canada, possibly Russia,
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  Speaker 1: and finally across to the North Pole. He already had
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  Speaker 1: a balloon to the Svie, which he had purchased two
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  Speaker 1: years prior, and he'd accounted for all possible problems that
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  Speaker 1: might arise during the journey. He would go during the
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  Speaker 1: Arctic summer, when the temperatures were a bit warmer. The
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  Speaker 1: midnight sun would allow the men to study the area
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  Speaker 1: all day and night without having to stop, and there
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't be much in the way of precipitation to weigh
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  Speaker 1: the balloon down during the flight, and he snow that
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  Speaker 1: did accumulate would simply melt at higher temperature or get
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  Speaker 1: blown off by the wind. Andre first attempted the voyage
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  Speaker 1: north in eighteen nineties six, but immediately had to cancel
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  Speaker 1: when the winds refused to behave It wasn't until July
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  Speaker 1: of the following year when he, along with twenty seven
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  Speaker 1: year old civil engineer Canute Frankel and physics student Niles Strindberg,
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  Speaker 1: were able to lift off from Norway's Danes Island. Takeoff
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  Speaker 1: was rocky. The brand new balloon, named the Omen Eagle,
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  Speaker 1: was weighed down heavily by the men, their equipment and
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  Speaker 1: drag ropes. Those ropes were quickly discarded to allow them
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  Speaker 1: to gain altitude within the first few minutes. Though Andrea
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  Speaker 1: and his team had expelled more than sixteen hundred pounds
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  Speaker 1: of essential weight to get the balloon high enough to
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  Speaker 1: clear the water, it was actually too much. They climbed
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  Speaker 1: higher and higher, reaching a peak altitude of twenty three
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  Speaker 1: hundred feet. Andrea let lose several buoys with messages inside
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  Speaker 1: that were meant to be carried back to land on
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  Speaker 1: the ocean's currents. Homing pigeons were also released, each carrying
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  Speaker 1: a note bearing their coordinates at the time for the
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  Speaker 1: papers to report on. They floated for ten and a
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  Speaker 1: half hours before the balloon started to sink. What followed
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  Speaker 1: was another forty one hours of their basket dragging along
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  Speaker 1: the ground as the aircraft struggled to stay up right.
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  Speaker 1: They finally landed on a stretch of polar ice just
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  Speaker 1: three hundred miles shy of the North Pole on July four.
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  Speaker 1: They had come prepared with guns, skis, a tent, and
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  Speaker 1: several months worth of provisions, and so they began their
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  Speaker 1: trek north, hoping to reach the Pole before winter. Along
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  Speaker 1: their journey, the three men killed and eight polar bears
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  Speaker 1: and seals to keep them going, all while hiking along
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  Speaker 1: the vast icy land. It wasn't until a few weeks
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  Speaker 1: later when they realized that all their marching had been
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  Speaker 1: in vain, as the pack ice they were on was
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  Speaker 1: moving in the opposite direction to where they needed to go.
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  Speaker 1: After that, the team changed course to make up for
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  Speaker 1: lost time, headed toward a remote island named White Island
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  Speaker 1: in October of eight, and that was the last anyone
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  Speaker 1: ever heard for essay Andre and his two companions for
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  Speaker 1: thirty three years. They were assumed lost until a Norwegian
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  Speaker 1: ship on a scientific expedition discovered their remains on the
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  Speaker 1: island of Vitea. The crew of the vessel had come
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  Speaker 1: to study glaciers. Instead, they found Andrea's boat, his journal,
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  Speaker 1: and two skeletons wearing monogram clothing. Another ship came to
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  Speaker 1: the island months later and located the final body, as
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  Speaker 1: well as a box of photographic film that had been
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  Speaker 1: brought by Strindberg to document their journey. The three sets
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  Speaker 1: of remains were sent back to Stockholm and cremated, but
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  Speaker 1: the cause of their death was still a mystery. They
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  Speaker 1: hadn't succumbed to the ice, and they hadn't killed each other.
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  Speaker 1: After reading through their journals and notes, it was believed
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  Speaker 1: by doctors and experts that all three men had died
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  Speaker 1: of an illness brought on by eating half cooked polar
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  Speaker 1: bear meat. Although he didn't quite make it to the
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  Speaker 1: North Pole, sa Andrea was viewed as a hero. Back
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  Speaker 1: home in Sweden, he and his team were celebrated for
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  Speaker 1: giving their lives in the name of science. A documentary
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  Speaker 1: novel publish in the nineteen sixties, however, posited that Andre
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  Speaker 1: had actually been afraid to let down the Swedish press
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  Speaker 1: and public, and so he carried on with the expedition
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  Speaker 1: regardless of his own misgivings. Whatever the case, Andre died
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  Speaker 1: an explorer. He got himself out of the patent office
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  Speaker 1: and into the thick of it. He may not have
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  Speaker 1: reached the North Pole, but he inspired many others after
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  Speaker 1: him to keep trying, just not by hot air balloon.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.