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Ship of Fools · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
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  Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. The best laid plans,
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  Speaker 1: as they say, often go awry. It doesn't matter how
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  Speaker 1: much we prepare. When the worst happens, there's little we
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  Speaker 1: can do to fight it. Sometimes the only option is
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  Speaker 1: to let a situation play out and hope for the best,
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  Speaker 1: even when hope seems to have run dry. King Philip
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  Speaker 1: of Spain had a plan. He had planned on harvesting
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  Speaker 1: the pearls found along the Mexican coast. Philip had built
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  Speaker 1: three ships in Acapulco, Mexico, smaller and easier to handle
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  Speaker 1: than the enormous galleons of most Armada's. They were called caravels,
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  Speaker 1: and because of their smaller size, they handled better in
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  Speaker 1: the shallow waters. In sixteen twelve, the completed ships took off,
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  Speaker 1: each one led by a different captain with a crew
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  Speaker 1: of Portuguese slaves. The slaves were sent into the water
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  Speaker 1: to dive down for the pearls at the bottom. The
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  Speaker 1: fleet worked its way up the Pacific coast, with one
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  Speaker 1: ship choosing to trade with local villages for their pearls.
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  Speaker 1: One of the captains, Alvarez de Cordon, was attacked in
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  Speaker 1: a trade gone bad and seriously wounded. While he recovered
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  Speaker 1: King Philip's two other ships headed farther north in search
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  Speaker 1: of more pearls, but one clipped a reef along the way.
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  Speaker 1: Its crew and captain fled the sinking vessel and joined
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  Speaker 1: the third ship, now the only one still on the water.
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  Speaker 1: Captain Juan at Torbay debated turning around and heading back
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  Speaker 1: home to Acapulco, but the promise of greater riches one
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  Speaker 1: out over reason. His ship continued north until it had
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  Speaker 1: reached an estuary that eventually led to a large inland sea,
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  Speaker 1: as he called it. He kept pushing the ship, skirting
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  Speaker 1: the edge of the sea and then up a river
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  Speaker 1: for a hundred miles before finally deciding to turn around.
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  Speaker 1: The journey down the river and back to the inland
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  Speaker 1: sea went fine. However, they've been traveling for weeks, and
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  Speaker 1: in that time the water levels had dropped. The ship
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  Speaker 1: was surrounded by sandbars on all sides, blocking their route
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  Speaker 1: back to the Pacific. For three days, they sailed the
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  Speaker 1: perimeter of the sea looking for a way out, until
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  Speaker 1: finally they had to accept the realization that they were trapped.
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  Speaker 1: Once they ran aground, the men packed up as much
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  Speaker 1: cargo as they could carry, and then they abandoned ship.
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  Speaker 1: Some of them perished on the trip to Guaymas, a
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  Speaker 1: Spanish settlement along the western coast of Mexico, although a
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  Speaker 1: good number of them survived. After a few months, they
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  Speaker 1: returned to Acapulco, but they never returned to their caravel.
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  Speaker 1: It had been lost to the sea. Then, in two
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  Speaker 1: thousand nine, journalist Robert Marcos made a discovery in southern California.
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  Speaker 1: He had been studying local petroglyphs, also known as pre
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  Speaker 1: historic rock paintings, when he discovered something odd about them.
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  Speaker 1: The people who had painted these hadn't drawn primitive animals
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  Speaker 1: or humans. They drawn a boat, a ship tall, with
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  Speaker 1: square sails and oars sticking out from the sides. These
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  Speaker 1: rocks caught the attention of the Maritime Museum of San Diego,
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  Speaker 1: who traveled down to get a look for themselves. Their
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  Speaker 1: initial observation was that the rock drawings depicted earlier expeditions
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  Speaker 1: from the mid fifteen hundreds, but no other ships had
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  Speaker 1: ever been found in the area. Except there was, and
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  Speaker 1: only six miles away. You see, for over two hundred years,
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  Speaker 1: a turbased ship had sat there in the middle of
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  Speaker 1: a California canyon, untouched by humanity and water. In eighteen seventy,
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  Speaker 1: one man told the New York newspaper that he'd witnessed
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  Speaker 1: the wreck of a gallant ship in the desert while
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  Speaker 1: traveling in southern California. That same year, a group of
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  Speaker 1: four explorers decided to see for themselves and described a
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  Speaker 1: ship whose bow and stern were plainly visit bowle as
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  Speaker 1: they said, almost two fifty nine miles from the Gulf
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  Speaker 1: of California, and one woman's husband claimed that he'd spotted
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  Speaker 1: an open boat, but big, with round metal discs on
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  Speaker 1: its sides, half buried in the sand of a narrow canyon.
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  Speaker 1: It seems that that petroglyph had painted an accurate picture,
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  Speaker 1: as they say. Unfortunately, getting close to a turn based
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  Speaker 1: ship is nearly impossible these days. The U. S. Navy
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  Speaker 1: has declared the canyon it rests within to be an
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  Speaker 1: active bombing range, meaning no more exploration can happen for
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  Speaker 1: the time being. Still, all signs point to the ancient
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  Speaker 1: ship still being there in the canyon, waiting for its
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  Speaker 1: crew and for the sea to come and set it free.
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  Speaker 1: How do you measure a man's life by his career
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  Speaker 1: or his family. In the case of one man, we
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  Speaker 1: might just want to start with how much he could
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  Speaker 1: bench press. Louis was born in Quebec in eighteen sixty three,
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  Speaker 1: but his parents couldn't have been more different. His father
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  Speaker 1: wasn't particularly tall or strong, but his mother was an
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  Speaker 1: impressive six ft one and weighed roughly two hundred sixty
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  Speaker 1: five pounds. According to the stories, she could toss a
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  Speaker 1: barrel of flour over her shoulder and carry it up
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  Speaker 1: several flights of stairs. And Louie's grandfather was no slatch either,
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  Speaker 1: weighing in at two hundred sixty pounds and looming over
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  Speaker 1: the rest of them at six ft four. Young Louis
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  Speaker 1: seemed to have inherited his mother's jeans. When he was twelve,
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  Speaker 1: he would show off to the workers on his family
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  Speaker 1: farm by carrying a calf around on his shoulders. One day,
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  Speaker 1: the calf decided enough was enough, so it kicked Louis
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  Speaker 1: in the back before escaping from that point on, Louis
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  Speaker 1: stuck to carrying a sack full of grain on his
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  Speaker 1: shoulder for a quarter mile at a time. Each day,
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  Speaker 1: he'd add another two pounds to the load and repeat
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  Speaker 1: the trip. His mother, a religious woman, suggested Louis grow
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  Speaker 1: out his hair like the Bible's Samson, and as his
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  Speaker 1: hair grew, so did his feats of strength. At the
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  Speaker 1: age of seventeen, he was put through the hardest test
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  Speaker 1: of his young life when a farmer's wagon nearby, heavy
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  Speaker 1: with cargo, had gotten stuck in the swampy mud. Unable
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  Speaker 1: to move it himself, the farmer asked Louie to help.
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  Speaker 1: The aspiring strongman came to the rescue, lifting the wagon
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  Speaker 1: out of the mire and garnering a bit of attention
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  Speaker 1: in the process. Capitalizing on his new found fame, Louis
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  Speaker 1: tried his luck against other actual strong men, but he
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  Speaker 1: didn't start out easy. His first match was against the
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  Speaker 1: strongest man in Canada, Michaux of Quebec. During their contest,
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  Speaker 1: the two thirty pound Louis best did Michou by lifting
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  Speaker 1: a five hundred pound granite boulder. Now officially the strongest
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  Speaker 1: man in Canada, Louis aimed higher. He wanted to see
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  Speaker 1: how he'd fare in America. His first competition had him
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  Speaker 1: lifting a fifteen hundred pound horse off the ground. A
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  Speaker 1: horse stood on a platform supported by two iron bars,
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  Speaker 1: which Louis held onto as he hoisted them. Eventually, Louie
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  Speaker 1: got married and went back to Canada to raise a family.
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  Speaker 1: He was also a bigger star there than he'd ever
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  Speaker 1: been in the United States. In eighties six Rematch against
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  Speaker 1: Me show, Louis lifted a two eighteen pound barbell one handed,
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  Speaker 1: as well as almost dred pounds with his back. His
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  Speaker 1: opponent missed the mark by three hundred pounds. Once again,
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  Speaker 1: Louis was crowned the strongest man in Canada. The trouble
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  Speaker 1: was there wasn't much money to be made as a
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  Speaker 1: celebrity strongman in Quebec, so Louis worked a regular job
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  Speaker 1: in between weightlifting gigs. After breaking up a knife fight
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  Speaker 1: between two men and then carrying them to the police station,
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  Speaker 1: one under each arm, he was offered a job on
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  Speaker 1: the force. He saved his money up, though, and within
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  Speaker 1: a few years he'd put enough together to open his
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  Speaker 1: own restaurant with an adjoining gym. Of course, in fact,
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  Speaker 1: Jim became so popular that both his strongman compatriots and
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  Speaker 1: up and comers would go there to work out, and
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  Speaker 1: it was common for one of the younger newcomers to
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  Speaker 1: challenge Louie to a match. The jovial teacher was only
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  Speaker 1: too happy to oblige, and he never lost. But nothing
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  Speaker 1: could take him away from his true passion professional competition.
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  Speaker 1: Louis went back on tour in eighteen eighty five against
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  Speaker 1: who's who of other strong men, one of whom could
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  Speaker 1: ben coins with his bare hands, and he beats every
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  Speaker 1: single one of them. But his greatest demonstration of strength
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  Speaker 1: came later on in his career. In one Louis went
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  Speaker 1: up against four draft horses, the kind that were used
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  Speaker 1: to haul farm equipment across fields. Louis held two ropes
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  Speaker 1: in each hand, and then the horses were whipped and
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  Speaker 1: cokes to pull as hard as they could in an
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  Speaker 1: attempt to get Louis to let go or maybe even
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  Speaker 1: tear him into but the strong man held firm, refusing
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  Speaker 1: to budge an inch or let go of the ropes.
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  Speaker 1: Four years later, in eighteen nine, he lifted over four
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  Speaker 1: thousand pounds with his back. The weight came in the
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  Speaker 1: form of eighteen men standing on a platform. Like I've said,
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  Speaker 1: this guy was incredibly strong. Yet for all of his strength,
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  Speaker 1: Louis Sere wasn't a particularly large man. He was only
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  Speaker 1: five ft eight five inches shorter than his own mother,
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  Speaker 1: and although he had gained considerable weight as he got older,
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  Speaker 1: he was often much slimmer than the men he competed against.
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  Speaker 1: In the end, though, Louis wasn't stronger than death, which
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  Speaker 1: came for him in nine When he died, he weighed
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  Speaker 1: over four hundred pounds and had retained the title of
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  Speaker 1: undefeated strongest man in Canada, possibly even the world. His
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  Speaker 1: funeral was attended by throngs of admirers, and Canada with
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  Speaker 1: a great length to honor the man who had performed
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  Speaker 1: what they considered to be his most important feat of strength.
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  Speaker 1: He lifted his entire country high above the rest of
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  Speaker 1: the world. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
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  Speaker 1: 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 Manky
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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 world of Lore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious, Yeah,