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Strike Out · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production
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  Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world
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  Speaker 1: is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an
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  Speaker 1: open book, all of these amazing tales are right there
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  Speaker 1: on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. America's national pastime has seen its
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  Speaker 1: fair share of legends. Greats like Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays,
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  Speaker 1: Ted Williams, and Ty Cobb have left their marks not
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  Speaker 1: just on baseball but on the landscape of American sports.
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  Speaker 1: Yet there are two players who have been named as
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  Speaker 1: legends despite suffering a few embarrassing losses at the heights
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  Speaker 1: of their careers, specifically at the hand well the arm
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  Speaker 1: of one unsuspecting picture. The name Jackie Mitchell probably doesn't
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  Speaker 1: ring a bell even to the most ardent baseball fans.
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  Speaker 1: Mitchell was a left handed pitcher for a minor league
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  Speaker 1: team in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Before that, Mitchell grew up learning
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  Speaker 1: from some of the best pitchers the game had ever seen.
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  Speaker 1: Dazzy Vance, who had played for the Brooklyn Dodgers in
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  Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, had once taught the up and comer
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  Speaker 1: how to throw a sinker. There were also the kids
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  Speaker 1: around town who would all play ball together, giving Mitchell
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  Speaker 1: all the practice needed to take on the biggest names
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  Speaker 1: in baseball, specifically Babe Ruth and lou Garrig. By one,
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  Speaker 1: Ruth was a star on the field and off. He'd
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  Speaker 1: already won three World Series with the New York Yankees,
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  Speaker 1: He'd been in a feature film, and he was doing
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  Speaker 1: some of the best playing of his life. And Lou Garrig,
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  Speaker 1: Ruth's teammates, was right behind him. In more ways than one.
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  Speaker 1: Where Ruth batted third in the lineup, Garrig batted fourth.
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  Speaker 1: From extra base hits to total basses, lou garreg stats
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  Speaker 1: were often one or two places behind the Babes, making
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  Speaker 1: the two players a powerful duo on the field. Joe Angle,
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  Speaker 1: formerly of the Washington Senators, was looking for a way
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  Speaker 1: to boost ticket sales for his minor League Tennessee baseball team.
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  Speaker 1: It just so happened that the Yankees were passing through
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  Speaker 1: Chattanooga on their way back from spring training in Florida.
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  Speaker 1: They decided to play a few exhibition games against Angle's team,
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  Speaker 1: the Lookouts, which were sure to drum up business. After all,
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't every day that Chattanooga locals got to see
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  Speaker 1: Babe Ruth and lou Garreg play against their hometown heroes.
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  Speaker 1: And to really seal the deal, Angle brought over his
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  Speaker 1: newly signed picture Jackie Mitchell to face the Babe and
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  Speaker 1: the Iron horse head on. Mitchell couldn't wait to knock
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  Speaker 1: Ruth and Gereg for a loop, especially with the possibility
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  Speaker 1: of a big league career on the line. The date
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  Speaker 1: was set on April second. Four thousand cheering fans filled
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  Speaker 1: the stands at Angle Stadium. The day before, reporters had
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  Speaker 1: interviewed Mitchell, who was quoted as saying, I'll do my
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  Speaker 1: best and we'll go out there with plenty of pep
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  Speaker 1: and with my mind made up on one thing. To
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  Speaker 1: fan Babe Ruth. The picture took the mount. Ruth stepped
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  Speaker 1: up to the plate. The crowd roared. Mitchell through the
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  Speaker 1: first pitch as a ball inside a rough start. A
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  Speaker 1: second pitch flew over the plate, Ruth swung and missed
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  Speaker 1: strike one. Another pitch came sailing through and he swung
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  Speaker 1: once more, Strike two. Ruth asked the umpire to examine
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  Speaker 1: the ball for any defects or signs of tampering, but
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  Speaker 1: the umpire didn't detect anything out of the ordinary. Mitchell
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  Speaker 1: had smoked him fair and square. Ruth angrily accepted the
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  Speaker 1: umpire's ruling and got ready. Finally, the last ball sailed
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  Speaker 1: straight ahead, landing in the catcher's mitt. As the Great
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  Speaker 1: Bambino swung for the third time, he was out, much
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  Speaker 1: to the surprise of the crowd. He threw his bat
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  Speaker 1: on the ground and stormed off as Garret stepped up
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  Speaker 1: to the plate and Lou didn't fare any better, swinging
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  Speaker 1: at every pitch and missing each time. Three strikes and
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  Speaker 1: he was out for one heavy hitter. To strike out
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  Speaker 1: against a newcomer was a shock, but two that was
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  Speaker 1: unheard of. Even more surprising was who they'd lost to.
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  Speaker 1: Jackie Mitchell wasn't just a minor league nubi. Jackie Mitchell
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  Speaker 1: was an eighteen year old girl. Now, some historians claim
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  Speaker 1: the whole thing was a set up from the start,
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  Speaker 1: After all, Joe Engel's nickname was the Baron of Bologna.
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  Speaker 1: He was known to pull all kinds of stunts to
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  Speaker 1: sell tickets to his games, including replacing his shortstop with
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  Speaker 1: a live Turkey. Pitting an unknown Mitchell against two willing
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  Speaker 1: participants in Ruth and Gereg may have been just another
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  Speaker 1: ruse to get people in the seats. Others believe Mitchell
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  Speaker 1: really did strike them out. Neither Ruth nor Gereg ever
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  Speaker 1: admitted to being in on it. She was young and inexperienced,
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  Speaker 1: so it was possible that they just didn't expect her
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  Speaker 1: to pitch the way that she did and missed because
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  Speaker 1: of it. Either way, Jackie Mitchell died in nineteen eighties seven,
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  Speaker 1: believing that she had struck out Babe Ruth and lou Garrig.
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  Speaker 1: She was a legend in her own right and an
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  Speaker 1: inspiration to women everywhere. At the height of World War Two,
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  Speaker 1: people all over the world were pitching in to support
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  Speaker 1: the war effort. Those who couldn't fight helped organize scrap
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  Speaker 1: metal drives, welded airplane wings together, and sold war bonds.
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  Speaker 1: Many of these jobs were done by the wives and
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  Speaker 1: mothers of the men fighting overseas. However, over three hundred
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  Speaker 1: and fifty thousand women served during the war, from the
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  Speaker 1: Army to the Air Force. In fact, several women helped
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  Speaker 1: the Allies win thanks to a particularly crafty secret weapon,
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  Speaker 1: one that the enemy never saw coming. Phillis Latour was
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  Speaker 1: born in South Africa in nineteen twenty one, but at
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  Speaker 1: the age of twenty she moved to England and joined
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  Speaker 1: the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. She had never intended on
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  Speaker 1: going into the field, instead opting to become a flight
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  Speaker 1: mechanic and work on planes. However, her superiors saw her
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  Speaker 1: as a valuable asset outside of the shop due to
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  Speaker 1: her fluency with the French language. Latour had been chosen
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  Speaker 1: to become a spy, and she jumped at the chance.
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  Speaker 1: Her godmother's father had been killed by the Nazis and
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  Speaker 1: her godmother had sadly taken her own life while she
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  Speaker 1: was held prisoner. This was her chance to avenge their deaths,
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  Speaker 1: and Latour's spy training was multifaceted, with a strenuous physical
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  Speaker 1: regimen on top of a rigorous mental exercise. She learned
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  Speaker 1: how to infiltrate buildings with the help of a former
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  Speaker 1: cat burglar, while also studying Morse code. She also had
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  Speaker 1: to make fourteen parachute jumps and know how to pick
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  Speaker 1: locks to prove that she could do the job. Once
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  Speaker 1: her training was complete, Latour was given the code name
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  Speaker 1: Genevieve and deployed out into the field. She worked on
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  Speaker 1: a v she France for a year for beginning the
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  Speaker 1: biggest mission of her life. On May one, nine four,
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  Speaker 1: she parachuted into Nazi occupied Normandy. Her name this time
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  Speaker 1: was Poulette and she was just a poor French girl
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  Speaker 1: selling soap to make ends meet. She traveled by bicycle,
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  Speaker 1: stopping and talking pleasantly with the Nazi officers she met.
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  Speaker 1: To them, she was a simple, unassuming girl just passing by.
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  Speaker 1: To her, the soldiers were tools to be used as
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  Speaker 1: she coaxed valuable information out of them. Then she took
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  Speaker 1: what they told her, like their current positions and plans,
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  Speaker 1: and sent everything back to the British. But in order
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  Speaker 1: to get the messages across enemy lines, Latour had to
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  Speaker 1: encode it in case the Germans intercepted it. To do this,
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  Speaker 1: she didn't use a common cipher or encryption technique. She
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  Speaker 1: relied on something she had on hand, her knitting needles.
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  Speaker 1: It sounds crazy, I know, but knitting was a perfect
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  Speaker 1: way to hide messages in plain sight. La Tour used
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  Speaker 1: knit stitches and pearl stitches to represent the dashes and
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  Speaker 1: dots of Morse code, which were translated later using a
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  Speaker 1: special machine. She had thousands of codes at the ready,
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  Speaker 1: all of which were stored on a piece of silk
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  Speaker 1: she kept tied up in her hair, and she wasn't
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  Speaker 1: the only one. Knitting was a popular way to transmit
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  Speaker 1: messages for both sides of the war. It was said
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  Speaker 1: that the Germans had taken to knitting entire sweaters in
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  Speaker 1: order to conceal their messages. If someone were to unravel
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  Speaker 1: the sweater, they'd find a wool thread with knots up
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  Speaker 1: and down the length of it. That thread would then
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  Speaker 1: need to be placed against a door frame that had
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  Speaker 1: been marked up with the letters of the alphabet one
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  Speaker 1: inch apart. The letters that the knots touched were the
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  Speaker 1: letters used to encode the message, and even those who
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  Speaker 1: weren't knitting codes into their gloves and scarves could serve
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  Speaker 1: as great spies, blending into the background and just listening
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  Speaker 1: to conversations. This was a technique often used during the
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  Speaker 1: Revolutionary War. The messages overheard by knitters were written on
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  Speaker 1: little pieces of paper and stuffed into balls of yarn
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  Speaker 1: that were then passed two American soldiers without the British
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  Speaker 1: ever know what was going on. It seems that for
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  Speaker 1: hundreds of years, knitting flew under the radar as it tried,
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  Speaker 1: in true way to undermine the opposition. The stories of
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  Speaker 1: those who stitched their way to victory might sound implausible,
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  Speaker 1: but they are anything but yarns. Their tales of courage,
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  Speaker 1: about the women who won by doing what few people
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  Speaker 1: could do. They pulled the wool over their enemies eyes.
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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.