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Sounds Big · 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 are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: The year was eighteen sixty five. The place an estate
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  Speaker 1: just east of Nashville. A man named Colonel Patrick Henry
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  Speaker 1: Anderson was struggling under debts, and his land was on
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  Speaker 1: the verge of collapse. His financial ruin seemed inevitable. Now,
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  Speaker 1: before you extend too much sympathy toward the colonel, it's
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  Speaker 1: worth knowing that he was the manager of a plantation
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  Speaker 1: in Civil War era Tennessee. His financial woes were entirely
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  Speaker 1: tied to the resolution of the Civil War. The Confederacy
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  Speaker 1: had lost, and human trafficking, the enterprise that supported the
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  Speaker 1: entire Southern economy, was no more. Colonel Anderson was so
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  Speaker 1: desperate for anyone to salvage his fortunes that he wrote
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  Speaker 1: a letter to a man named Jordan, entreating him to
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  Speaker 1: come back and work for him. Jordan, you see, was
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  Speaker 1: a former enslaved man of the Colonels. Jordan had also
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  Speaker 1: taken the last name Anderson, and had been freed by
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  Speaker 1: the Union Army in eighteen sixty four. The request to
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  Speaker 1: come back and work for his former enslaver was so
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  Speaker 1: absurd that Jordan, who was by this point living in Dayton, Ohio,
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  Speaker 1: had to respond. Now. The man could not read or write,
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  Speaker 1: but what he could do was dictate to a neighbor,
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  Speaker 1: who sent the response on his behalf. The document was
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  Speaker 1: entitled Letter from a Freedman to his old master. In
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  Speaker 1: this letter, Jordan Anderson described his pleasant life in Ohio
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  Speaker 1: to the man who had once held him captive for decades.
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  Speaker 1: Jordan insisted that he and his wife, Millie, were in
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  Speaker 1: a good situation and didn't wish to go back south.
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  Speaker 1: In a tone that at first sounds sincere but drips
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  Speaker 1: with sarcasm, he outlined his concern that he and his
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  Speaker 1: wife wouldn't get the proper treatment they deserved if they
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  Speaker 1: were to go back and work for their one time enslaver.
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  Speaker 1: And then he went on to make a request what
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  Speaker 1: the colonel would have to do in order to get
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  Speaker 1: his interest. Jordan requested thirty two years of back pay
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  Speaker 1: for both himself and his wife, amounting to some eleven thousand,
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  Speaker 1: six hundred and eighty dollars including interest, that's equal to
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  Speaker 1: about a quarter of a million dollars today. To compliment
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  Speaker 1: that dry sense of humor, he said that the figure
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  Speaker 1: included deductions for clothing that his master purchased for them,
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  Speaker 1: and for the services of a dentist to pull a
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  Speaker 1: couple of teeth. Underlying every sly jab in the letter
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  Speaker 1: is the brutal reality that life for a black man
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  Speaker 1: in the South was still extremely difficult even after emancipation.
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  Speaker 1: Dan Anderson mentioned in the letter that he wished to
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  Speaker 1: get his children a good education, implying that this would
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  Speaker 1: not be possible in the South, and that any request
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  Speaker 1: from him to go there would be an absurd decision
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  Speaker 1: on his part and if his intent wasn't abundantly clear
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  Speaker 1: at that point. Jordan also added a PostScript, say howdy
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  Speaker 1: to George Carter, he wrote, and thank him for taking
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  Speaker 1: the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.
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  Speaker 1: The reference to attempted murder makes for a perfect punchline.
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  Speaker 1: Jordan Anderson obviously had no intention of going back to
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  Speaker 1: work for the Colonel. It is an eight hundred and
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  Speaker 1: eight word clapback against a man who never saw Jordan
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  Speaker 1: as worthy of human dignity. What makes the letter an
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  Speaker 1: incredible historical document is the use of humor to critique
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  Speaker 1: the brutal reality of slavery. Jordan's tone is blistering to
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  Speaker 1: read even today, and we can only imagine how his
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  Speaker 1: former enslaver received it. One month later, in September of
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  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five, Colonel Anderson sold his plantation, all one
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  Speaker 1: thousand acres of it, for a fraction of its value.
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  Speaker 1: He was dead two years later at the age of
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  Speaker 1: forty four. According to a journalist who tracked down his
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  Speaker 1: surviving family, they remained bitter at Jordan for generations afterward,
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  Speaker 1: saying that he should have been loyal and respectful to
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  Speaker 1: the colonel, whatever that means, thus proving that generations later
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  Speaker 1: they still missed the entire point of the letter. Jordan. Anderson,
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  Speaker 1: on the other hand, outlived his former master by almost
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  Speaker 1: forty years. His letter, published in local papers, became a
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  Speaker 1: viral sensation in its day, encouraging comparisons to Mark Twain,
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  Speaker 1: the legendary literary satirist, and it was printed and reprinted
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  Speaker 1: among oral accounts of surviving enslaved peoples, helping give insight
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  Speaker 1: and perspective on the sort of person who survived enslavement
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  Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century. Even though he was illiterate, Jordan
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  Speaker 1: Andersen displayed an incredible literary wit, and without the ability
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  Speaker 1: to read or write, he backed his way into becoming
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  Speaker 1: an acclaimed offe, a more important voice of the American
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  Speaker 1: experience than people like Colonel Anderson ever would be. It
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  Speaker 1: was August twenty sixth, eighteen eighty three in the Dutch
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  Speaker 1: colony of Katimbang, on the southern end of the island
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  Speaker 1: of Sumatra. Johanna Baar inc Was the wife of the
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  Speaker 1: local colonial overseer. She stood on the porch of her
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  Speaker 1: family's home, looking out across the Sunda Strait at the
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  Speaker 1: smoking volcano Krakatoa. The volcano was known to occasionally spew
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  Speaker 1: ash and lava into the air, it had for as
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  Speaker 1: long as they'd live there, and it was doing that now.
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  Speaker 1: But Johanna was less concerned with what she could see
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  Speaker 1: and more concerned with what she could hear. For months now,
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  Speaker 1: the volcano had been producing a series of loud bangs
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  Speaker 1: similar to thunder but over the last day or so,
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  Speaker 1: those bangs had been growing in volume and frequency. When
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  Speaker 1: she closed her eyes and listened to the jungle around her,
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  Speaker 1: the birds chirped with a chaotic energy that wasn't typical.
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  Speaker 1: She walked inside, picked up her newborn infant son from
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  Speaker 1: his crib, and held him close. She looked at her
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  Speaker 1: two other young children playing in the sitting room with
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  Speaker 1: their nanny, and she had a bad feeling. Johanna's heart
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  Speaker 1: leapt at the arrival of a new sound, two loud bangs,
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  Speaker 1: but not from the volcano. They were heard coming from
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  Speaker 1: the roof. Outside. She could see large smoldering stones raining
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  Speaker 1: down onto the colony. It was pumice stone. The volcano
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  Speaker 1: was erupting. The family ran with their servants from their
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  Speaker 1: cottage into the hills. Johanna tried to ignore the putrid,
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  Speaker 1: burning air as it coated her throat, and the sharp
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  Speaker 1: panes of the pumice stones when they landed on her,
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  Speaker 1: but once again what she could hear was infinitely more
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  Speaker 1: terrifying than what she could see or feel. This time,
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  Speaker 1: she heard a roaring sound coming from behind them, and
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  Speaker 1: it was getting louder, and then suddenly, a massive wave
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  Speaker 1: crashed through the jungle behind them, sending their hiking party
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  Speaker 1: flying in all directions. It was all Johanna could do
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  Speaker 1: to hold onto her baby. Her husband and their servants
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  Speaker 1: grabbed the other children, and they all held onto whatever
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  Speaker 1: they could, dragging themselves forward through the jungle against the
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  Speaker 1: crashing current. Miraculously, the family managed to pull themselves through
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  Speaker 1: the jungle, out of the water and up into the hills,
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  Speaker 1: where the safety of their village awaited them. The family
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  Speaker 1: and the villagers alike huddled inside. Johanna hoped that the
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  Speaker 1: worst of it was behind them, that she wouldn't hear
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  Speaker 1: any further harbingers of doom. Unfortunately, her hope couldn't have
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  Speaker 1: been more in vain. At five point thirty in the morning,
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  Speaker 1: an ear piercing boom shook the whole island. The baby
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  Speaker 1: cried and the children screamed, And then at six forty
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  Speaker 1: four am, another ash began to fall outside the windows,
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  Speaker 1: and then at eight twenty eight a third boom, and finally,
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  Speaker 1: at ten o two am, the sound to end all sounds.
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  Speaker 1: The whole world seemed to shake. Johanna felt two sharp
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  Speaker 1: pains on both sides of her head, and all went silent.
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  Speaker 1: Her entire body seemed to swell. Her lungs inflated to
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  Speaker 1: their maximum capacity, and she couldn't expel the air. She
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  Speaker 1: felt beyond dizzy, completely disoriented. Luckily, the disorientation quickly passed
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  Speaker 1: and she could breathe again, but she couldn't hear a thing.
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  Speaker 1: Even worse, looking down, she saw white smoke curling its
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  Speaker 1: way up into the room from the floorboards. The heat
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  Speaker 1: was unbearable. When she looked down at the baby in
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  Speaker 1: her arms, she realized that he wasn't moving. Some combination
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  Speaker 1: of the heat, the smoke, and the sound had taken
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  Speaker 1: her child from her. Devastated, she laid the baby down
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  Speaker 1: and wandered outside into the smoke. She couldn't see her
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  Speaker 1: hands in front of herself. She couldn't hear anything. When
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  Speaker 1: she felt her face, she realized that her skin was
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  Speaker 1: hanging loose off of her body. She was literally melting.
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  Speaker 1: She fell to the jungle floor and waited for Krakatoa
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  Speaker 1: to claim her as its next victim. When Krakatoa erupted
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  Speaker 1: that August in eighteen eighty three, it killed over thirty
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  Speaker 1: six thousand people. Most died from the resulting tsunamis, but
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  Speaker 1: some died from the sound of the eruption itself. You see,
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  Speaker 1: that final ten oh two am explosion is believed to
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  Speaker 1: have registered at three hundred and ten decibels, the loudest
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  Speaker 1: sound ever documented in history. At that level, the shockwave
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  Speaker 1: from Krakatoa ceased to be a mere sound wave and
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  Speaker 1: instead became a wave of air pressure, rupturing the ear
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  Speaker 1: drums and even the internal organs of anyone within one
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  Speaker 1: hundred miles. People three thousand miles away in Australia even
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  Speaker 1: heard the sound. Miraculously, Johanna and the rest of her
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  Speaker 1: family actually survived. They were found at the brink of
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  Speaker 1: death and nursed back to health. Their hearing ofally returned.
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  Speaker 1: But it's possible that her baby and hundreds of others
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  Speaker 1: were killed by the sound of Krakatoa alone. It's incredibly
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  Speaker 1: curious that's in a legendary disaster where massive waves, falling
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  Speaker 1: pumice stones and burning clouds could kill you, it was
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  Speaker 1: an invisible force in the air that was the most
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  Speaker 1: deadly of all. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
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  Speaker 1: of 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 Mankey
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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 Worldolore dot com. And until next time,
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  Speaker 1: stay curious.