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The Great Beyond · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
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  Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: When we're young, we tend to fear the prospect of death.
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  Speaker 1: We haven't lived our lives yet, and we don't know
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  Speaker 1: what awaits us on the other side, if there even
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  Speaker 1: is another side. Those who have lived long, fulfilling lives, however,
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  Speaker 1: might see death as the next frontier. After all they've
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  Speaker 1: seen and done it all over here. The idea of
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  Speaker 1: the unknowing might not seem so terrifying to them. But
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  Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties, one man set out to prove
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  Speaker 1: the unprovable by doing the unthinkable. His name was Thomas Bradford,
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  Speaker 1: a professor in Detroit, Michigan. Bradford held a number of
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  Speaker 1: jobs over the course of his life. He dabbled in acting, sports,
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  Speaker 1: and engineering, but later on he found himself swept up
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  Speaker 1: in the spiritualism movement that had captivated people during the
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  Speaker 1: nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was one of the
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  Speaker 1: many individuals who conducted and attended seances attempting to communicate
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  Speaker 1: with spirits from beyond the grave, an interest that no doubt,
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  Speaker 1: had been catalyzed by the loss of his wife sometime earlier.
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  Speaker 1: As well. Spiritualism had taken off in the years following
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  Speaker 1: the Civil War, and although many so called mediums were
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  Speaker 1: nothing more than opportunistic fraudsters, the idea that the dead
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  Speaker 1: were never really gone proved comforting to those in mourning.
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  Speaker 1: Harry Houdini's wife, Bess, famously held a seance every year
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  Speaker 1: in the hopes of talking to her beloved husband one
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  Speaker 1: more time, and yet he never showed up. And so
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  Speaker 1: it was natural for someone like Bradford to look at
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  Speaker 1: the griffs being carried out and do a little bit
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  Speaker 1: more digging. More than anything, he just wanted proof, proof
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  Speaker 1: that these spirits were really there somewhere, waiting to chat
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  Speaker 1: with their living loved ones. In other words, he wanted
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  Speaker 1: proof that there was an afterlife. To test this, Bradford
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  Speaker 1: came up with in experiments, one which required an assistant
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  Speaker 1: to help complete. He placed an ad in the local
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  Speaker 1: newspaper seeking someone with a passion for spiritualistic science. He
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  Speaker 1: received a response from a woman named Ruth Dorin. Dorian
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  Speaker 1: was not a spiritualist, nor did she believe in the
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  Speaker 1: veracity of things like seances or automatic writing. She was
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  Speaker 1: reported as saying, I answered his advertisement through a simple
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  Speaker 1: desire to know more about a thing in which I
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  Speaker 1: was little versed. In a way, they were opposite sides
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  Speaker 1: of the same coin. Both Bradford and Dorian wanted the truth,
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  Speaker 1: but they each had different motives. He wanted to believe
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  Speaker 1: the afterlife was real, whereas she was just hoping for
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  Speaker 1: a little more clarity on a subject that she knew
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  Speaker 1: nothing about. So Bradford explained his experiment to her. According
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  Speaker 1: to a note the police found on his typewriter after
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  Speaker 1: it was all over, it is through scientific facts that
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  Speaker 1: I proposed to demonstrate clearly the phenomena of spirits and
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  Speaker 1: prove that all the phenomena is outside the domain of
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  Speaker 1: the supernatural. How he was able to prove the existence
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  Speaker 1: of a realm beyond the living, though well, he had
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  Speaker 1: to go there by taking his own life. He believed
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  Speaker 1: that once he reached the afterlife, he'd be able to
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  Speaker 1: communicate with these still alive. Dorian Bradford carried out his
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  Speaker 1: tests on February fifth of nineteen twenty one. After sealing
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  Speaker 1: his apartment, he turned on his heater and blew out
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  Speaker 1: the pilot light. The room filled with gas as Bradford
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  Speaker 1: laid down on his bed waiting for the inevitable. He
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  Speaker 1: was only forty eight years old. The police soon discovered
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  Speaker 1: his body and questioned miss Doran about her involvement. She
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  Speaker 1: claimed that he had not explained exactly what he was
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  Speaker 1: going to do, only that he intended to prove that
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  Speaker 1: the dead and the living could communicate between realm, a
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  Speaker 1: fishy alibi given her involvement, but it was enough to
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  Speaker 1: satisfy the police, who ruled his death a suicide. She
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  Speaker 1: later told the press, I am his friend. If he
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  Speaker 1: can cause his spirit to come back to earth, I
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  Speaker 1: believe his spirit will come to me. First hours passed
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  Speaker 1: without a word from Bradford, and over the following days
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  Speaker 1: a number of stories were published about what he had
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  Speaker 1: done to himself. It all ended with a fairly definitive
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  Speaker 1: article published in The New York Times on February eighth
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  Speaker 1: of nineteen twenty one, three days after the incident. The
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  Speaker 1: headline read dead spiritualist silent I guess he finally got
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  Speaker 1: his answer. Boxing is a strategic sport, one that requires
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  Speaker 1: more than just strong arms and quick feet. It's about
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  Speaker 1: understanding Europe and knowing everything about them, from their strengths
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  Speaker 1: and weaknesses to their go to moves in the ring.
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  Speaker 1: Boxing is just as much about your mind as it
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  Speaker 1: is about your fists. Although every now and then a
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  Speaker 1: fighter can find themselves getting help without even knowing it.
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  Speaker 1: Could it be intervention from a higher power maybe, or
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  Speaker 1: maybe they can see what's going to happen on fight
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  Speaker 1: nights before anybody else, like Sugar Ray Robinson. Robinson was
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  Speaker 1: actually born Walker Smith Junior in nineteen twenty one. His
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  Speaker 1: father had started out as a farmer before moving the
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  Speaker 1: family to Detroit, where he found jobs in construction and
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  Speaker 1: as a sewer worker. After his parents divorced, though, Smith
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  Speaker 1: and his mother moved to Harlem in New York City,
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  Speaker 1: where he had originally planned on becoming a doctor, but
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  Speaker 1: come high school, he quickly realized that his passions lived elsewhere.
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  Speaker 1: He dropped out of school and started training as a boxer.
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  Speaker 1: He tried to compete in his first boxing tournament when
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  Speaker 1: he was only fourteen years old, but the Amateur Athletic
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  Speaker 1: Union required him to be a member first, a feat
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  Speaker 1: he'd be unable to accomplish for another two years. But
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  Speaker 1: Smith was resourceful. He borrowed the identity of another young
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  Speaker 1: boxer named Ray Robinson, who had given up the sport,
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  Speaker 1: and so from that point on, Walker Smith Junior became
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  Speaker 1: known as Ray Robinson. The nickname Sugar Ray came about
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  Speaker 1: what a spectator was heard describing him as sweet as sugar,
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  Speaker 1: and it stuck. Robinson worked his way up, gaining a
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  Speaker 1: reputation as an unbeatable opponent. He fought and won forty
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  Speaker 1: matches before facing his first loss in a rematch against
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  Speaker 1: rival Jake Lamatta in the early nineteen forties. As a
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  Speaker 1: welterweight fighter, in nineteen forty six, he secured a record
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  Speaker 1: of seventy three wins and the title, which he successfully
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  Speaker 1: defended several times over the next year. In nineteen forty seven,
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  Speaker 1: though Robinson would come face to face with an opponent
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  Speaker 1: he couldn't knock out. It wasn't another fighter. Maybe it
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  Speaker 1: was fear, or perhaps fate had laced up its own
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  Speaker 1: pair of gloves to take him on. Whatever it was
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  Speaker 1: it scared him enough to make him want out. Robinson
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  Speaker 1: was slated to fight old boxer named Jimmy Doyle. Doyle
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  Speaker 1: was a few years younger than Sugar Ray. His parents
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  Speaker 1: came from New Orleans before moving to Los Angeles, California,
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty one. This wasn't a regular match either.
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  Speaker 1: Robinson was defending his title once again and Doyle was
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  Speaker 1: ready to take it. But the night before the bout,
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  Speaker 1: Robinson was awakened by a dream, well more like a nightmare.
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  Speaker 1: He dreamt that he had knocked out Doyle, not an
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  Speaker 1: uncommon feat in the fighter's line of work. He had
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  Speaker 1: knocked out plenty of guys before, but this felt different.
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  Speaker 1: In the dream, Sugar Ray kept screaming at his unconscious
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  Speaker 1: opponent to get up, Get up, Jimmy. He kept shouting,
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  Speaker 1: but the rival boxer wouldn't budge, and then Robinson woke
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  Speaker 1: up to him. It was more than a dream. It
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  Speaker 1: was a premonition that he wouldn't just beat Jimmy Doyle.
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  Speaker 1: He believed that he was going to kill him. Robinson
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  Speaker 1: told the promoters the next morning that he didn't want
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  Speaker 1: to go through with the fight, but they assured him
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  Speaker 1: that he had nothing to worry about. It had just
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  Speaker 1: been a dream, nothing more. He even spoke to a
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  Speaker 1: Catholic priest who also told him everything would be fine.
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  Speaker 1: That was enough to put Robinson's fears to bed. On
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  Speaker 1: June twenty fourth of nineteen forty seven, Sugar Ray, Robinson,
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  Speaker 1: and Jimmy Doyle entered the ring. They punched and jabbed
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  Speaker 1: for seven rounds until the eighth, when Robinson scored a
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  Speaker 1: left hook that sent Doyle to the mat. He hit
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  Speaker 1: the canvas hard and lost consciousness before being taken to
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  Speaker 1: a local hospital. Doyle sadly never woke up. Hours after
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  Speaker 1: being admitted, he was pronounced dead. It was the first
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  Speaker 1: death of a boxer during a title fight, and it
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  Speaker 1: shook Robinson to his core. Distraught over what had transpired,
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  Speaker 1: Sugar Ray set up a trust fund for Doyle's parents,
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  Speaker 1: which he paid fifty dollars into every month for the
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  Speaker 1: next ten years. Robinson went on to become one of
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  Speaker 1: the most famous and well respected boxers in the sport's history,
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  Speaker 1: but he would be haunted by the death of Jimmy
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  Speaker 1: Doyle his entire life. It had been a dream come
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  Speaker 1: true in the worst way possible. I hope you've enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
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  Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
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  Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
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  Speaker 1: 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 Worldoflore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.