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Burning Rubber · 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. Some people are able to see the future
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  Speaker 1: where others cannot. Steve Jobs knew that the computer was
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  Speaker 1: meant to be more like an appliance in a person's home,
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  Speaker 1: like a dishwasher or a refrigerator, and not a giant
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  Speaker 1: mainframe only meant for laboratories in large companies. And the
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  Speaker 1: Internet sprung from the minds of several individuals who developed
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  Speaker 1: protocols and systems to connect people all over the world.
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  Speaker 1: They understood the information should be free and easily accessible,
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  Speaker 1: no matter where a person lived. Elliott Handler's vision for
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  Speaker 1: the future wasn't as grand as a smartphone in everyone's
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  Speaker 1: pockets or a global computer network. His dreams were a
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  Speaker 1: lot lower to the ground. Born in Chicago in nineteen sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: Handler moved with his family to Colorado, where he developed
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  Speaker 1: an interest in art. By the time he had reached
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  Speaker 1: the Art Center College of Design in California. He had
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  Speaker 1: found his true calling industrial design. Handler married his wife,
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  Speaker 1: Ruth several years later when he was in his early twenties,
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  Speaker 1: and the two quickly started a family in He and
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  Speaker 1: Ruth joined with a third partner, Harold Matson, and the
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  Speaker 1: three of them started a new company out of one
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  Speaker 1: of their garages. They made all kinds of products, including
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  Speaker 1: picture frames and furniture. Ruth ran the business operations, while
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  Speaker 1: Handler and Matson headed up design and development. Matson didn't
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  Speaker 1: last long at the company, though. His failing health forced
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  Speaker 1: him to sell his airs back to the Handlers one
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  Speaker 1: year later, but his name would remain with a company
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  Speaker 1: going forward, and I'll get to that in a bit.
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  Speaker 1: Over the years, Elliott kept his eyes peeled for the
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  Speaker 1: kind of evergreen product that would always be popular. It
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  Speaker 1: was after a recent trip to Europe when he finally
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  Speaker 1: found it. He brought back a special gift for his grandson,
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  Speaker 1: a car. It was nice looking, but it didn't perform well,
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  Speaker 1: and he found it pretty boring. Handler thought that he
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  Speaker 1: could do better, so he pivoted his company in a
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  Speaker 1: new direction by filling his staff with mechanical engineers and
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  Speaker 1: designers from the automotive industry. There was Jack Ryan, who
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  Speaker 1: was working for Raytheon at the time and developing missiles,
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  Speaker 1: as well as Howard Reese and Larry Wood, both of
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  Speaker 1: whom had come over from Ford. Handler offered them the
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  Speaker 1: opportunity of a lifetime to develop the kinds of cars
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  Speaker 1: they could only dream of. Handler's executives, though, were wary.
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  Speaker 1: After all, what did he know about building cars? He
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  Speaker 1: never made one before, but Elliott was confident he had
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  Speaker 1: surrounded him self with all the right people. The early
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  Speaker 1: prototypes utilize some of the most advanced engineering for the time.
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  Speaker 1: For example, the axles were comprised of guitar strings, which
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  Speaker 1: gave them high performance suspension. They also reduced friction in
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  Speaker 1: the wheels, allowing them to roll more easily and go
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  Speaker 1: faster and so in nineteen Handler released a line of
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  Speaker 1: sixteen vehicles, each with a unique yet familiar design. There
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  Speaker 1: was Camaro, a Corvette, a Mustang, Volkswagen Beetle with its
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  Speaker 1: engine coming through the hood, and a completely custom car
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  Speaker 1: from Dodge known as the Diora. It had started life
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  Speaker 1: out as a pickup truck, but the rear bed had
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  Speaker 1: been converted to store to surfboards instead the perfect car
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  Speaker 1: for a beach lover, and the cars were a smashing success.
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  Speaker 1: People love them, especially kids who would race them all
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  Speaker 1: day long on floors and carpets or sidewalks and driveways,
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  Speaker 1: although adults got a kick out of them too, but
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  Speaker 1: mostly for their collectible value. And these weren't just any
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  Speaker 1: old cars. They have been developed by a man whose
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  Speaker 1: company name was the combination of both his and his
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  Speaker 1: former partners names, the matt and Matson and the E
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  Speaker 1: L from Elliott matt l Mattel. As for the cars,
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  Speaker 1: their name had come from an off handed comment uttered
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  Speaker 1: by someone in the Mattel parking lot. This stranger got
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  Speaker 1: to look at one of the designers own vehicles, Chevy
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  Speaker 1: el Camino, and he said to the designer, those are
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  Speaker 1: some hot wheels, and the rest was history. Elliott Handler
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  Speaker 1: was no stranger to pulling product names from real life.
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  Speaker 1: By the way, Mattel's other bestsellers, Barbie and her boyfriend Ken,
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  Speaker 1: both named after the Handler kids. I guess if you're
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  Speaker 1: going to make your company a roaring success, it's best
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  Speaker 1: to keep it in the family. No two wars are
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  Speaker 1: ever fought the same much of the Revolutionary War was
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  Speaker 1: fought by rows and rows of soldiers lined up on
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  Speaker 1: opposite sides of a field, while the Vietcong utilized guerilla
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  Speaker 1: tactics during the Vietnam War two years later. Infantry formations,
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  Speaker 1: weapons and strategies changed because armies always look for an
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  Speaker 1: edge over their enemies, and one big area for improvement
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  Speaker 1: has been in the vehicles operated during wartime. Surprisingly enough, however,
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  Speaker 1: one war was a hotbed of transportation advancement beyond all others.
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  Speaker 1: The submarine, for example, made its debut during the American
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  Speaker 1: Revolution when it was used to attach time bombs to
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  Speaker 1: British ships. Well, that was the idea. It never succeeded,
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  Speaker 1: but it did pave the way for the H. L.
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  Speaker 1: Hunley Confederate submarine during the Civil War. The Industrial Revolution
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  Speaker 1: turned the Civil War into a launch pad for all
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  Speaker 1: sorts of new technologies. But while the South was busy
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  Speaker 1: attacking from below, the Union and the North had its
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  Speaker 1: eyes towards the sky. In the eighteen hundreds, aeronauts were
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  Speaker 1: busy honing a form of air transportation that had made
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  Speaker 1: its debut almost a hundred years earlier, balloons. They believe
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  Speaker 1: that their hot air balloons were the future of military combat,
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  Speaker 1: putting them through a battery of tests to see how
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  Speaker 1: much weight they could carry and how far they were
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  Speaker 1: able to travel, one man, Daddeus Low, got to work
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  Speaker 1: on his plan for aerial support. Only days after the
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  Speaker 1: war first began, Low had landed a massive hot air
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  Speaker 1: balloon in Unionville, South Carolina, a tiny village full of
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  Speaker 1: scared and trigger happy individuals. A crowd of rifle wielding
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  Speaker 1: locals approached the deflating balloon. Low hopped out of the basket,
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  Speaker 1: dressed in a tall hat and a frock coat, and
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  Speaker 1: greeted them with a smile. He announced that he had
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  Speaker 1: just come from Cincinnati, Ohio, traveling over nine hours and
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  Speaker 1: five miles before dropping into their small town. But the
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  Speaker 1: crowd did not cheer or welcome him with open arms.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't care about his experiments, or how far his
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  Speaker 1: balloon had traveled, or that he planned to attempt a
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  Speaker 1: transatlantic flight in one. Later, they figured that he must
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  Speaker 1: have been a spy. Luckily, Low was able to talk
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  Speaker 1: his way out of being arrested or killed, and he
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  Speaker 1: managed to make his way back to Ohio in one piece,
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  Speaker 1: despite nearly getting killed by angry Southerners. Though Lowe's balloon
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  Speaker 1: test had been a success, it was on his train
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  Speaker 1: ride home when he realized he could do more than
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  Speaker 1: just fly over an ocean. He could do some real
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  Speaker 1: good for the war effort, and so, with the help
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  Speaker 1: of a financier, he reached out to Washington, imploring them
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  Speaker 1: to start up a balloon corps with low at the helm. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 1: another aeronaut named John Lemontaigne was in a similar situation.
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  Speaker 1: He too dreamed of flying a hot air balloon over
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  Speaker 1: the Atlantic, but had failed twice spectacularly. Actually, his first
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  Speaker 1: balloon got caught in a storm and crashed into some
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  Speaker 1: trees in upstate New York. His second attempt wound up
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  Speaker 1: putting him three hundred miles away from his origin point
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  Speaker 1: in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. After he was rescued,
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  Speaker 1: he weaved a fast and eating yarn for the papers
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  Speaker 1: that helped establish him as more of a daredevil than
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  Speaker 1: a washout. Eventually, he also saw the opportunity in using
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  Speaker 1: hot air balloons for military reconnaissance, especially over enemy territory.
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  Speaker 1: He wrote to the Secretary of War in May of
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  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty one, around the same time as Thaddius Low.
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  Speaker 1: Lowe's investor, however, had a direct connection to the Treasury
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  Speaker 1: Secretary Sam and Pete Chase, which worked in his favor.
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  Speaker 1: He was invited to bring his balloon to discuss his
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  Speaker 1: aerial plans for the Union. Low wanted to hook up
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  Speaker 1: a telegraph machine in the basket to relay information from
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  Speaker 1: the balloon back to contacts on the ground. There was
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  Speaker 1: just one problem. They couldn't do it wirelessly. A wire
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  Speaker 1: had to run down along the balloons tether lines. Low
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  Speaker 1: tested his mobile telegraph machine on June seventeenth of eighteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty one, bringing his balloon to a soaring five hundred
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  Speaker 1: feet up. The test was a success. He was able
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  Speaker 1: to send a message to both the White House and
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  Speaker 1: the War Department from high above the earth. Meanwhile, John
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  Speaker 1: le Montaigne also earned himself an invitation to demonstrate what
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  Speaker 1: his balloon could do. He hopped a train to Virginia.
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  Speaker 1: But this was not going to be a simple test
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  Speaker 1: in an open field away from battle. He was going
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  Speaker 1: to show them a real world example of what he
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  Speaker 1: was capable of. He took his balloon to three thousand
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  Speaker 1: feet into the clouds over Confederate territory in Virginia. He
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  Speaker 1: was able to report on the enemy position, which did
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  Speaker 1: prove incredibly valuable. But Thaddeus Low had beaten him to
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  Speaker 1: the punch. President Lincoln had given Thaddeus the green light
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  Speaker 1: to create his Union Balloon Cores, just as he had
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  Speaker 1: wanted to. After that, Low built two more balloons, named
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  Speaker 1: the Union and the Constitution, which he put to use
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  Speaker 1: by flying at an altitude of one thousand feet up.
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  Speaker 1: Time and time again, the men in his balloons spotted
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  Speaker 1: Confederate forces only miles away. All of their reports were
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  Speaker 1: transmitted vias telegraph and cemented the Balloon corps value to
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  Speaker 1: the military. Meanwhile, John le Montaigne wasn't doing too well.
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  Speaker 1: His own balloon had seen better days, and he was
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  Speaker 1: growing spiteful of Thaddeus Lowe's success. It didn't help that
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  Speaker 1: Low wanted nothing to do with him either. Les Montaigne
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  Speaker 1: went to the press to paint his rival in a
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  Speaker 1: negative light, hoping to turn public opinion to his side,
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  Speaker 1: and amazingly they did. Even Washington thought le Montaigne should
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  Speaker 1: have been given a chance, and he was assigned to
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  Speaker 1: the Balloon Corps to serve under Low. However, John refused
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  Speaker 1: to acknowledge his nemesis as the leader of the outfit
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  Speaker 1: and continued to drag his name in the papers. Low
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  Speaker 1: eventually got tired of his antics and had him discharged. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: even though the Balloon Corps had managed to help the
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  Speaker 1: Union many times during the war, the clashing egos of
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  Speaker 1: its two most prominent supporters had taken a toll and
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  Speaker 1: it's usefulness couldn't save it from the budget cuts to come.
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  Speaker 1: The war effort had cost the United States government a
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  Speaker 1: tremendous amount of money, and in eighteen sixty three, a
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  Speaker 1: new military at Thatch was assigned to supervised Lowe's balloon Corps.
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  Speaker 1: He started cutting the budget immediately, including Lowe's paycheck, which
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  Speaker 1: went from thirty dollars a week down to ten. Low
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  Speaker 1: quit soon after and walked away from the core for good.
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  Speaker 1: It kept going for a little while longer, but officially
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  Speaker 1: dissolved in August of eighteen sixty three. All these men
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  Speaker 1: wanted to prove was that hot air balloons were meant
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  Speaker 1: for more than just stunts and gimmicks. They could be
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  Speaker 1: valuable tools during the war. Sadly, the Union Balloon Corps
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  Speaker 1: was proof that despite their best efforts, Daddy is Low
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  Speaker 1: and John Les Montaigne had flown just a little too
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  Speaker 1: close to the sun. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
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  Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
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  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
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  Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
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  Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,