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Light Reading · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menkey'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. Nobody likes being told to do something. Today's
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  Speaker 1: avid readers might recall the agony of struggling through books
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  Speaker 1: assigned on their high school reading list. It's even worse
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  Speaker 1: when the person giving the orders has no intention of
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  Speaker 1: participating themselves. For example, the Vietnam War draft of the
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  Speaker 1: nineteen sixties and seventies instilled resentment toward the war effort
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  Speaker 1: in those being called to serve. They hadn't fallen tiered.
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  Speaker 1: They had been pulled into something they never wanted to
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  Speaker 1: be part of. Those who have voluntarily enlisted in the
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  Speaker 1: military understand that they may be sent anywhere in the
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  Speaker 1: world as part of their service. Soldiers have an oath
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  Speaker 1: to defend their country from all enemies, foreign and domestic,
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  Speaker 1: but the lawmakers voting to enter such conflicts aren't going
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  Speaker 1: to see the front lines. They'll be safe and warm
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  Speaker 1: in their own beds at night while the men and
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  Speaker 1: women of the military carry out their demands. In the
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  Speaker 1: years before the United States entered World War One, a
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  Speaker 1: petition was circulated by the people of Nebraska to amend
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  Speaker 1: the Constitution. They've were tired of seeing their sons sent
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  Speaker 1: off to fight and die by a Congress with too
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  Speaker 1: much power and no awareness of the opinions of their constituents.
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  Speaker 1: The amendments would have done two things. First, it would
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  Speaker 1: have required a national vote by the American people to
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  Speaker 1: declare war on another country. And second, anyone who had
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  Speaker 1: voted yes would have been required to enlist to fight.
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  Speaker 1: The petition didn't get very far, but the idea also
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  Speaker 1: didn't immediately die out. It circulated for two decades as
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  Speaker 1: one World war ended and another one loomed on the horizon,
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  Speaker 1: and then in nineteen thirty five, Indiana Representative Louis Ludlow
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  Speaker 1: took a closer look like the people of Nebraska. He
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  Speaker 1: also thought the lives of the country soldiers were too
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  Speaker 1: important to leave up to Washington bureaucrats. Ludlow was one
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  Speaker 1: of many people who believed a sensationalist media apparatus and
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  Speaker 1: greedy corporations had influenced his colleagues into entering the previous
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  Speaker 1: major conflict. The people who suffered at the hands of
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  Speaker 1: such greed everyday citizens and their families, and something had
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  Speaker 1: to change, so Ludlow moved ahead with his plan. He
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  Speaker 1: proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would have required
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  Speaker 1: a majority vote by the American public to authorize a
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  Speaker 1: declaration of war. Today, it's looked back on as one
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  Speaker 1: of the worst policies ever put forth by a sitting congressman,
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  Speaker 1: but at the time it was lauded by seven five
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  Speaker 1: percent of the country. Those who supported it believed keeping
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  Speaker 1: America out of international conflicts would isolate them from violence.
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  Speaker 1: President Franklin Roosevelt, though, had no interest in cutting the
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  Speaker 1: United States off from its duty to protect vulnerable foreign allies.
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  Speaker 1: To leave war up to a national vote would have
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  Speaker 1: not only rendered future presidents powerless, but it also invited
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  Speaker 1: harm from hostile countries who didn't believe that they faced retribution.
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  Speaker 1: By eight the amendment still saw backing from sixty percent
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  Speaker 1: of the U. S population. Unfortunately, the longer World War
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  Speaker 1: two dragged on, the more people began to drop their
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  Speaker 1: support for the policy. Several high ranking senators came out
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  Speaker 1: against it as well. One equated it with holding a
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  Speaker 1: town meeting before a fire department was allowed to put
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  Speaker 1: out a fire. The amendment was voted on my Congress
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  Speaker 1: in eight but despite its bipartisan support, they couldn't achieve
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  Speaker 1: the two thirds majority to pass it. Nearly four years later,
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  Speaker 1: to hand bombed Pearl Harbor, officially kicking off the United
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  Speaker 1: States entry into World War Two. After such a horrific event,
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  Speaker 1: the country as a whole united behind a common goal,
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  Speaker 1: and support for the Ludlow Amendment evaporated almost overnight. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: Congress and the rest of the country moved in the
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  Speaker 1: complete opposite direction when it came to authorizing the president's
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  Speaker 1: use of force against foreign enemies. All of a sudden,
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  Speaker 1: they were all for it. Theodore Roosevelt was quoted as saying,
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  Speaker 1: a vote is like a rifle. Its usefulness depends on
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  Speaker 1: the character of the user. The sentiment at the time
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  Speaker 1: was that Ludlow had overestimated the characters of American voters,
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  Speaker 1: But we'll never know for sure. The members of Congress
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  Speaker 1: who voted against it, well, they took aim and fired.
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  Speaker 1: It seems they thought democracy was too important to leave
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  Speaker 1: in the hands of the American people. M Marriage changes people.
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  Speaker 1: For most it makes them more empathetic to the needs
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  Speaker 1: of another person. Of course, not all fair so well,
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  Speaker 1: turning inward and harboring resentment as their needs go unmet.
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  Speaker 1: Georgie went in a different direction though. Born in Hampshire, England,
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  Speaker 1: in two she got an early look at one marriage's
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  Speaker 1: downfall when her own parents split up a few years
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  Speaker 1: after she was born. Georgie's mother, now separated from her
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  Speaker 1: alcoholic father, had to find a way to provide for
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  Speaker 1: the two of them. At a time when women with
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  Speaker 1: children did not often strike out on their own, Georgie
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  Speaker 1: and her mother didn't stay in one place for too
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  Speaker 1: long and lived with family whenever they could. As she
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  Speaker 1: got older, Georgie started delving into the arts, taking a
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  Speaker 1: keen interest in literature. Her friend Dorothy Shakespeare came from
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  Speaker 1: an artistic family, but sadly no relation to that other
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  Speaker 1: Shakespeare guy, and Dorothy's mother, Olivia, was an accomplished novelist
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  Speaker 1: who held open salons where she would entertain up and
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  Speaker 1: coming artists at the time. One such person who ran
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  Speaker 1: in their circles was a man named William. He like Olivia,
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  Speaker 1: was a writer, and he took a liking to Georgie
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  Speaker 1: right away. Though their romance was unorthodox, after all, he
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  Speaker 1: was twenty seven years older than her, Georgie's mother had
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  Speaker 1: no qualms about their union. They married seven years later
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventeen, when Georgie was twenty five and William
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  Speaker 1: was fifty two. It wasn't the happiest of ceremonies, though
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  Speaker 1: their marriage had gotten off to a rocky start, as
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  Speaker 1: Williams still harbored feelings for two other women. So on
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  Speaker 1: their honeymoon, Georgie, who now just went by George at
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  Speaker 1: her husband's request, tried to smooth things out. She wanted
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  Speaker 1: to reassure him that he had made the right choice,
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  Speaker 1: and asked for assistance from a third party, not a
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  Speaker 1: therapist or a counselor, though, but a literal outside force.
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  Speaker 1: She sat at a desk with a pen and a
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  Speaker 1: blank sheet of paper in front of her and let
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  Speaker 1: her paranormal companion do the rest. George's hands flew across
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  Speaker 1: the page, writing words she had no control over. When
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  Speaker 1: she regaled a friend with the story of her experience,
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  Speaker 1: she claimed that her hand had been seized by a
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  Speaker 1: superior power. When it was over, the message was clear
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  Speaker 1: William had made the right decision in marrying George. Her
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  Speaker 1: automatic writing sessions only grew more frequent from that point on,
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  Speaker 1: and William recorded his observations of each one. He cataloged
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  Speaker 1: her illegible scribblings over the course of three years. The
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  Speaker 1: sessions ran for hours, several times a week, and not
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  Speaker 1: only did they convince him to forget about the women
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  Speaker 1: from his past, but they also somehow managed to get
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  Speaker 1: him to eat healthier too. Over the years, George generated
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  Speaker 1: thousands of pages of automatic writing, which had turned William's
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  Speaker 1: fascination with the occult into an obsession, and he channeled
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  Speaker 1: that passion into a book of his own titled A Vision.
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  Speaker 1: It discussed such topic says, the soul, fate, and the
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  Speaker 1: intersection of morality and the divine. In it, he described
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  Speaker 1: multiple dimensions shaped like funnels in the varying effects of
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  Speaker 1: the phases of the moon, all of which had been
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  Speaker 1: fueled by his wife's hard work, and like most men
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  Speaker 1: of his era, William made sure that he got all
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  Speaker 1: the credit. He published the first edition of A Vision
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen before following it up twelve years later with
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  Speaker 1: a revised version. But although Georgia's automatic writings were used
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  Speaker 1: verbatim throughout the book, William only ever listed himself as
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  Speaker 1: the author. It was unsurprising, as William had already made
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  Speaker 1: quite a name for himself with his own work, much
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  Speaker 1: of which had been inspired by his wife's efforts. You see,
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  Speaker 1: William was a poet, and he poured quite a bit
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  Speaker 1: of himself into his work. His love, his heartbreak, and
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  Speaker 1: his beliefs all found their way into such pieces as
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  Speaker 1: Leda and the Swan and Sailing to Byzantium. William Butler
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  Speaker 1: Yates changed the face of literature in the early twenty century.
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  Speaker 1: But he couldn't have done any of it without the
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  Speaker 1: help of his wife, George. And although he never gave
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  Speaker 1: her the credit she rightly deserved, he loved her. To Georgie,
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  Speaker 1: William was her brilliant husband, and to him, she was
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  Speaker 1: a vision. 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.