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War of the Words · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full 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. War is no time for civility. When two
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  Speaker 1: sides are fighting, they often resort to all manner of
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  Speaker 1: tactics to defeat one another, be at guns or missiles
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  Speaker 1: or nuclear weapons. The end result of war is almost
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  Speaker 1: always destruction. However, during the seventeen and eighteen centuries, England
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  Speaker 1: found another way to win a war, several of them.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, they resorted to insults. For many years, the
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  Speaker 1: English and the Dutch maintained an amicable relationship. When the
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  Speaker 1: Netherlands took up arms against the Kingdom of Spain in
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  Speaker 1: the late fifteen hundreds, it was the British who came
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  Speaker 1: to their aid. The ensuing Dutch revolt led to the
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  Speaker 1: creation of a new republic outside of Spain's rule. England
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  Speaker 1: and Spain continued to fight for some years. However, the
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  Speaker 1: British Royal Navy had started to run low on funding.
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  Speaker 1: King Charles the First needed help, and, being aligned with
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  Speaker 1: the Catholic Church, sought assistance from another Catholic leaning country, Spain,
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  Speaker 1: but the Dutch had no idea. The other problem was
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  Speaker 1: that the Dutch were beginning to outpace the British when
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  Speaker 1: it came to their cargo ships. They had already dominated
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  Speaker 1: the herring trade, taken over English held territories, fought onerous
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  Speaker 1: English taxes, and by the mid seventeenth century moved in
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  Speaker 1: on English trading routes. Oliver Cromwell, head of the Commonwealth
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  Speaker 1: of England, had had enough. With his iron fist. He
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  Speaker 1: managed to rebuild the Royal Navy and present the first
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  Speaker 1: real threat to Dutch seapower. It took issue with their
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  Speaker 1: more re s in a bowl, freighting rates and variety
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  Speaker 1: of goods for sale. They also possessed far more cargo
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  Speaker 1: ships than the English. In sixteen fifty one, Parliament passed
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  Speaker 1: a first in a series of acts designed to reduce
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  Speaker 1: the netherlands dominance on sea trade. It prohibited any non
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  Speaker 1: English ship from bringing goods into English ports or its territories.
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  Speaker 1: The Dutch didn't take lightly to their former allies tactics.
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  Speaker 1: They started growing their navy once again. When England ordered
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  Speaker 1: that other country ships lowered their flags in the presence
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  Speaker 1: of English vessels, the Dutch refused. Shortly thereafter, war broke out.
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  Speaker 1: The first Anglo Dutch War lasted two years, beginning in
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  Speaker 1: sixteen fifty two. Three more wars followed over the next
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  Speaker 1: several decades. Throughout that time, relations between the Dutch and
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  Speaker 1: the English were strained, but when they weren't fighting, the
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  Speaker 1: two nations resorted to less violent and more childish methods
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  Speaker 1: of retribution. They called each other names. The Dutch spread
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  Speaker 1: rumors that the English were the spawn of Satan, and
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  Speaker 1: because of that they were born with tales. British sailors
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  Speaker 1: referred to their Dutch counterparts as butter boxes and joked
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  Speaker 1: about how much they drank whenever a natural disaster, such
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  Speaker 1: as a fire or a flood occurred in either country.
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  Speaker 1: Each side believed that the other had invited punishment from
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  Speaker 1: God for their bad behavior, and, contrary to popular belief,
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  Speaker 1: time did not heal all wounds. When the wars finally ceased,
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  Speaker 1: neither side felt like reconciling with the other. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: things became worse. The English incorporated the word Dutch into
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  Speaker 1: their vocabulary to mean anything bad or inferior. Dutch courage,
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  Speaker 1: for example, meant someone who had to drink heavily to
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  Speaker 1: build up the bravery necessary to fight. Dutch comfort signified
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  Speaker 1: the silver lining that at least things couldn't get any worse.
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  Speaker 1: Many of these phrases aren't used today, as our sensibilities
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  Speaker 1: and attitudes towards other cultures have matured since the seventeen hundreds. However,
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  Speaker 1: there is one saying that has held on despite its connotations,
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  Speaker 1: but still funny enough. It didn't start in England. Its
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  Speaker 1: first use was traced back to an article in the
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  Speaker 1: New York Times in eighteen seventy. S America, it seems,
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  Speaker 1: had also gotten into the habit of insulting the Dutch
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  Speaker 1: by equating their name with something unpleasant. The turn the
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  Speaker 1: Americans had created was called a Dutch treat. It was
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  Speaker 1: used to describe an outing between two people where each
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  Speaker 1: person paid for their own food and drinks. Today, it's
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  Speaker 1: used any time people pay their own share, whether it's
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  Speaker 1: a first date or a big group events. Although we
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  Speaker 1: don't call it a Dutch treat anymore. Nowadays, we simply
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  Speaker 1: call it going Dutch. It was the golden age of
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  Speaker 1: the automobile, and Robert was an engineer who grew up
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  Speaker 1: just outside of Detroit, the heart of the American car industry.
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  Speaker 1: Like the US to the country, Robert was in love
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  Speaker 1: with the steel machines racing across the open road. So
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  Speaker 1: when Robert became an engineer in the nineteen fifties, he
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  Speaker 1: focused on how to help people stay safer in their cars,
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  Speaker 1: and that brought him to the idea of improving a
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  Speaker 1: common part of the car safety, the windshield wiper. At
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  Speaker 1: the time, wipers had two settings on and off, but
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  Speaker 1: Robert knew that he could do better. He converted his
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  Speaker 1: basement into a cross between an engineering lab and an
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  Speaker 1: automotive shop. Hopefully his new wife, Phillis knew what she
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  Speaker 1: was getting into when she married an inventor, because I
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  Speaker 1: can only imagine the array of parts and tools that
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  Speaker 1: would have filled his home workshop, separated from their laundry
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  Speaker 1: room by panels of glass. We do know that at
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  Speaker 1: the very least, Robert brought home a dashboard and windshield
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  Speaker 1: he's salvaged from a junkyard to test out his new mechanisms.
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  Speaker 1: Motorized arms swept across the glass in front of him
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  Speaker 1: like arms of a clock, and Phillis must have been
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  Speaker 1: patients because the work took Robert ten years. When we
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  Speaker 1: factor in the fact that he was fishing his PhD,
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  Speaker 1: building a family, and starting a career teaching at a
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  Speaker 1: university in Detroit, that delay makes a lot of sense.
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  Speaker 1: But he involved the whole family in the project. On
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  Speaker 1: days when it started to rain, they would all run
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  Speaker 1: outside and dive into the car so that Robert could
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  Speaker 1: test his latest version. By the end, his notes filled
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  Speaker 1: twenty three books, each three pages long. Eventually, though he
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  Speaker 1: cracked it. He had created a windshield wiper that was
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  Speaker 1: more than just on or off, but instead moved at
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  Speaker 1: variable speed. It was something new and that made it
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  Speaker 1: valuable to car manufacturers around Robert's home, so he set
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  Speaker 1: up a meeting with the company he loved, Ford. In
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  Speaker 1: October of nineteen sixty three. He outfitted his Ford convertible
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  Speaker 1: with his finished invention and drove it down to the
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  Speaker 1: Ford plant, where he showed it off to the engineers.
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  Speaker 1: To Robert, the offer was clear, Ford should buy his
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  Speaker 1: invention and bring it into the company. Together they could
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  Speaker 1: make Ford cars safer for every driver. And when Ford
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  Speaker 1: called him back, it seemed like his American dream was
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  Speaker 1: coming true. But the second meeting didn't go quite the
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  Speaker 1: way he expected. When he arrived, they showed him their
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  Speaker 1: own version of the intermittent wiper, inspired by his own creation.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, they didn't have the benefit of Robert's ten
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  Speaker 1: years of work, so they showered him with questions and
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  Speaker 1: he answered all of them. Show us how it works,
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  Speaker 1: they asked him, and we'll buy it. And as their
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  Speaker 1: conversations continued over time, it seemed like Robert was on
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  Speaker 1: the team. But then the line went dead. When Ford
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  Speaker 1: finally rolled out cars with intermittent wipers in nineteen sixty nine,
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  Speaker 1: Robert and his invention weren't even mentioned, and once it
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  Speaker 1: was on the market, the invention spread how far well
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  Speaker 1: The idea was so good that eventually Robert's son Dennis,
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  Speaker 1: brought home the controls for a new system being used
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  Speaker 1: in Mercedes cars. When Robert crack did open, he realized
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  Speaker 1: it was also a copy of his design. It was
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  Speaker 1: a massive blow, and for years Robert struggled to come
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  Speaker 1: to terms with his life's work being swiped by the
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  Speaker 1: biggest automakers on the planet. But Robert was a fighter. Fortunately,
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  Speaker 1: he had filed for a patent back in nineteen sixty four,
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  Speaker 1: and when it came through in nineteen sixty seven, it
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  Speaker 1: gave him what he needed to take the fight to
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  Speaker 1: big companies that were scooping up cash from his contribution.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't easy though. In fact, the battle was hard
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  Speaker 1: enough that Roberts family suffered. He poured everything he had
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  Speaker 1: into the struggle, not just for the money but for
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  Speaker 1: his work to be acknowledged, and there were major losses
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  Speaker 1: along the way. Robert often represented himself when no one
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  Speaker 1: was willing to take on the fight against big companies
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  Speaker 1: like General Motors. In those cases didn't always make it far,
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  Speaker 1: but in the end Robert would get some wins as well.
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  Speaker 1: A jury ruled against Ford in nineteen ninety, and a
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  Speaker 1: judgment against Chrysler ordered the company to pay him thirty
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  Speaker 1: million dollars. It was even appealed all the way to
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  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court as the company tried to duel the
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  Speaker 1: inventor into the ground. Fortunately for Robert, the justices refused
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  Speaker 1: to bend to the big company's pressure. It became a
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  Speaker 1: classic story of the underdog coming out on top. But
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  Speaker 1: there's one more thing that makes Robert's invention fascinating. You see,
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  Speaker 1: the whole project to prevent car accidents started out with
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  Speaker 1: an accident, and a bad one, but not a car crash.
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  Speaker 1: You see, when Robert was on his honeymoon, celebrating his
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  Speaker 1: brand new marriage, he did what so many people do
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  Speaker 1: and popped open a bottle of champagne. And that's when
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  Speaker 1: the cork became a dangerous projectile. It hit young Robert
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  Speaker 1: in the eye. His new wife, Phillis, rushed to his
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  Speaker 1: side as the blood ran down his face. The injury
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  Speaker 1: was bad enough that he lost most of the sight
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  Speaker 1: in his left eye. In the end, it was Robert
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  Speaker 1: Kern's own accident that inspired an invention that would come
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  Speaker 1: to define his life's work, all inspired by the original
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  Speaker 1: intermittent wiper that we all benefit from every day, the
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  Speaker 1: lid of the human eye. I hope you've enjoyed today's
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  Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
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  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
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  Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
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  Speaker 1: me Aaron Mankey in partnership with How Stuff Works. I
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  Speaker 1: make 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 M