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Felidae Familiaris · 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. He believed the creature was inherently evil and
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  Speaker 1: that it harbored the spirit of Satan. Pope Gregory the
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  Speaker 1: Ninth knew this because his Grand papal inquisitor, Conrad of Marburg,
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  Speaker 1: who had been tasked with suppression of heresy along with
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  Speaker 1: ridding the land of which Is, had provided actual evidence.
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  Speaker 1: The evidence confessions, of course, no, not from the creature,
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  Speaker 1: but from those around him, and the confessions were obtained
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  Speaker 1: by way of torture. Lucifer's agent must be dealt with.
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  Speaker 1: Conrad warned, and the Pope believed him, and so began
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  Speaker 1: the Vatican's War on cats. Conrad took the task of
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  Speaker 1: eliminating heresy in which Is seriously, although some say a
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  Speaker 1: bit too seriously. He believed in a guilty, intel proven
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  Speaker 1: innocent approach and quickly gained a reputation for cruelty. Pope
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  Speaker 1: Gregory had granted Conrad the authority to ignore Church policies
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  Speaker 1: and rules for the sake of the inquisition, and so
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  Speaker 1: torture was his go to method of questioning. As you
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  Speaker 1: can imagine, the accused, when asked a loaded question, might
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  Speaker 1: just confess to anything to stop the suffering. Conrad's proof
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  Speaker 1: to the Pope in this particular case was a very
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  Speaker 1: common confession. The accused had taken part in a black
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  Speaker 1: mass and ritual, and once performed, the accused forgotten their
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  Speaker 1: loyalty to the Church. During the ritual, a statue of
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  Speaker 1: a cat would come to life. He told the Pope.
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  Speaker 1: A cat, a black cat to be more specific, would
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  Speaker 1: walk backward through the mass. As it passed, each participant
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  Speaker 1: kissed the cat um directly beneath its tail. Then the
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  Speaker 1: participants lit candles in either the cat turned into Lucifer,
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  Speaker 1: or Lucifer would emerge from the shadows, his upper body
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  Speaker 1: shimmering but his lower half covered in black fur. The
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  Speaker 1: rituals the inquisitor conceived might seem a bit of a
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  Speaker 1: stretch to us, but cats had a whole history that
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  Speaker 1: was in direct conflict with the Church. A great example
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  Speaker 1: can be seen in the Battle of Pellusium and Egypt,
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  Speaker 1: where the Egyptians faced off against the Persians. Egypt, if
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  Speaker 1: you recall, had a lot of warm feelings towards cats
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  Speaker 1: and even worshiped them, so the Persians took advantage of that.
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  Speaker 1: They adorned their shields with images of cats, and the
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  Speaker 1: strategy worked the Persians one because the Egyptians wouldn't dare
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  Speaker 1: throw spears at images of the sacred cat. In Roman mythology,
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  Speaker 1: the goddess of freedom was symbolized as a cat. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: there's a darker store a more closely tying the cat
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  Speaker 1: to the underworld. Hara once turned a woman into a cat.
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  Speaker 1: The cat then became a servant of Hecate, the goddess
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  Speaker 1: of the underworld, And finally, in medieval England, a cat's
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  Speaker 1: prowess at catching and killing mice was likened to Satan's
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  Speaker 1: love of stealing souls. So, as misguided as it was,
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  Speaker 1: the progression from ordinary animal to a servant of the
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  Speaker 1: devil seemed natural to Pope Gregory. In response to Conrad's
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  Speaker 1: so called proof, the pope created a papal doctrine on
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  Speaker 1: June twelve, thirty three. Cats. It stated were to be exterminated.
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  Speaker 1: It was believed that eliminating cats, particularly black cats, would
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  Speaker 1: help keep people safe from Satan's grasp and break any
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  Speaker 1: spells the cats might be part of. As a result,
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  Speaker 1: cats became so persecuted that their population in Europe declined dramatically.
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  Speaker 1: I won't go into the brutal and horrific details, but
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  Speaker 1: this cruel practice continued all the way up until eighteen seventeen,
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  Speaker 1: and aston cats didn't come without consequence, though. In fact
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  Speaker 1: it created another problem, the increase in the population of
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  Speaker 1: mice and rats. But it wasn't really the rodents who
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  Speaker 1: caused the problem so much as the fleas living on them.
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  Speaker 1: The fleas, you see, were carriers of the bubonic plague.
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  Speaker 1: No cats to haunt the mice equaled more mice with
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  Speaker 1: disease carrying fleas, which according to some historians, helped the
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  Speaker 1: plague spread as far and fast as it did. And
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  Speaker 1: you'd think this side effect of killing cats would change
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  Speaker 1: their minds about cats being evil, but it didn't. The
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  Speaker 1: church just spuned the news, claiming that Satan was so
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  Speaker 1: angry about the killing of his feline servants that he
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  Speaker 1: created the plague as retaliation. Over time, cat eradications thankfully declined,
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  Speaker 1: although the black cat is still much less common in
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  Speaker 1: some parts of Europe than centuries ago. Today, the Vatican
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  Speaker 1: still has a thing for cats, although it's no longer
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  Speaker 1: rooted in fear. The current Pope shares the belief that
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  Speaker 1: all animals should be cherished and respected. Still he should
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  Speaker 1: never forget how for a very long time Europe disagreed.
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  Speaker 1: After all, for nearly six hundred years, cats were the
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  Speaker 1: perr ficked villains. Mad Jack Churchill had a saying, any
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  Speaker 1: officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed.
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  Speaker 1: His sort of choice a basket hilted Scottish broad sword.
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  Speaker 1: While other World War two soldiers went into battle with
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  Speaker 1: rifles and tanks, mad Jack Churchill stepped onto the battlefield
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  Speaker 1: with his trusty broad sword. Oh and a longbow and
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  Speaker 1: a few grenades. And one more thing, bagpipes. No, you
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  Speaker 1: don't need to back up and listen to that intro again,
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  Speaker 1: I did say World War two, and now you get
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  Speaker 1: the idea where the nickname mad Jack came from. But
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  Speaker 1: here's the thing. He wasn't crazy at mad Jack, fighting Jack,
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  Speaker 1: or whatever else you want to call him. Was a
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  Speaker 1: Lieutenant colonel, a fearless warrior and a bold leader, and
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  Speaker 1: his men loved him for it. An adventurer since childhood,
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  Speaker 1: Churchill's love of exploration and life in general continued well
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  Speaker 1: into adulthood. He graduated from the Royal Military College in Sandhurst, England,
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  Speaker 1: in nine six. After that he moved to Burma with
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  Speaker 1: the Manchester Regiment, and it was there in Burma that
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  Speaker 1: Churchill learned to play the bagpipes. But the army wasn't
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  Speaker 1: adventurous enough for Churchill, and so he moved to Kenya,
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  Speaker 1: where he worked as both a newspaper editor and of
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  Speaker 1: all things, a male model. He also took up archery
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  Speaker 1: and acting, appeared in two motion pictures before leaving the
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  Speaker 1: film industry, and he continued to compete in other areas too,
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  Speaker 1: military piping competitions where he took second place, and the
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  Speaker 1: World Archery Championships in Norway. In nineteen thirty nine, after
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  Speaker 1: Germany invaded Poland, Churchill returned to the military as part
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  Speaker 1: of the British Expedition a force to France. During a raid,
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  Speaker 1: he became the only British soldier to kill an enemy
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  Speaker 1: with a longbow. His shot was so clean and silent
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  Speaker 1: the target never knew what hit him. Churchill quickly volunteered
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  Speaker 1: for a special forces division, the Commandos. Their mission was
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  Speaker 1: to carry out raids in German occupied Europe. On December,
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  Speaker 1: those commandos attacked the German garrison in Norway. As soon
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  Speaker 1: as the ramps on the first landing craft were lowered.
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  Speaker 1: Churchill was playing March of the cameraon men on his bagpipes.
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  Speaker 1: In the middle of the song, though he paused momentarily
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  Speaker 1: to toss a grenade into enemy territory. Just two hours later,
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  Speaker 1: headquarters received this message Battery and Island captured casualties slight
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  Speaker 1: demolitions in progress. Churchill for his actions that day he
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  Speaker 1: was awarded the Military Cross and Bar. Later on, Churchill,
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  Speaker 1: with the help of a corporal, captured a German observation post,
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  Speaker 1: taking forty two p nurse and In nineteen forty four
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  Speaker 1: he organized a motley crew of fifteen hundred Partisans to
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  Speaker 1: land a raid in Yugoslavia. Once again, he led his
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  Speaker 1: men onto the field playing his bagpipes. The following morning,
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  Speaker 1: another attack was scheduled, this time just forty men led
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  Speaker 1: by Churchill, but everyone except Churchill was killed or wounded.
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  Speaker 1: As the Germans advanced, he played his bagpipes once more,
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  Speaker 1: but he was taken captive and held prisoner by s. S.
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  Speaker 1: Troops until nineteen forty five, when a German army unit
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  Speaker 1: intent on liberating prisoners outnumbered the s. S troops and
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  Speaker 1: free Churchill and the others. He walked ninety three miles
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  Speaker 1: to Verona, Italy to meet up with an American unit.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty two, his active duty years were behind him.
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  Speaker 1: Churchill briefly returned to the Silver screen when MGM hired
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  Speaker 1: him as an archer. From there, he moved to Australia
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  Speaker 1: and became a military instructor. Ever the adventurer, he took
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  Speaker 1: up surfing. Churchill retired from active service at the age
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  Speaker 1: of fifty three with a host of awards, including two
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  Speaker 1: for distinguished service. He eventually settled down to army desk jobs,
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  Speaker 1: but he retained his eccentricity. While writing home from the city,
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  Speaker 1: he frequently opened the train window and tossed his briefcase out.
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  Speaker 1: When questioned about it, he explained that he was throwing
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  Speaker 1: his briefcase into his backyard so that he wouldn't have
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  Speaker 1: to carry it from the station. Mad Jack Churchill passed
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  Speaker 1: away peacefully in a Surrey home in n at the
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  Speaker 1: ripe old age of eight nine. He was remembered by
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  Speaker 1: his friends and family as being optimistic and for seeing
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  Speaker 1: the best in humanity. Oh and that film in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: fifty two that hired him to play in Archer, the
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  Speaker 1: MGM Technicolor classic starring Elizabeth Taylor Ivanhoe. I hope you've
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
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  Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
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  Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
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  Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
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  Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
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  Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
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  Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,