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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. Time, as many have said, is like a river.

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Speaker 1: It is constantly flowing, carrying moments away on a current,

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Speaker 1: never to be seen again. And like a river, time

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Speaker 1: changes everything it touches. It erodes mountains and topples civilizations. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: much of what we know today will be gone and

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Speaker 1: replaced with something else, all thanks to the passage of time.

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Speaker 1: But every once in a while I misses something like

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Speaker 1: an island whose people have been isolated from the rest

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Speaker 1: of the world, or a box buried for future individuals

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Speaker 1: to on Earth and learn about an era they weren't

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Speaker 1: around to see. And once in a while, these overlooked

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Speaker 1: pockets of time are brought to the surface, giving us

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Speaker 1: a glimpse into a past once thought to be lost forever.

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Speaker 1: Francis LaBelle Leepac was a period of great significance between

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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy one and nineteen fourteen, Europe saw a boom

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Speaker 1: in scientific and cultural breakthroughs, and at the center of

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Speaker 1: it all was Paris. The City of Lights became the

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Speaker 1: birthplace for groundbreaking movements in art and music. Around this

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Speaker 1: time lived a woman named mart du Florian. Born in

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty four, she'd lived a rough life, dating all

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Speaker 1: the way back to her early childhood. Her brother and

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Speaker 1: sister had died when they were infants, leaving her and

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Speaker 1: only child. Things didn't get much better as she got

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Speaker 1: older either. She gave birth to her first son, Henri,

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Speaker 1: when she was just eighteen, only to lose him three

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Speaker 1: months later. Fortunately, a year after that, she had another son,

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Speaker 1: whom she also named Henri. He lived far longer, passing

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Speaker 1: away in the mid nineteen sixties. Du Florian was a

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Speaker 1: French courtesan, moving within elite social circles and carrying on

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Speaker 1: affairs with prominent politicians and artists at the time, and

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Speaker 1: one such artist was Giovanni Bordini. Baldini hailed from Italy,

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Speaker 1: yet much of his career was spent in Paris. He

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Speaker 1: was known for his beautiful portraits of people like artist

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Speaker 1: John Singer, Sergeant and poet Robert du Montesquieu. Funny enough,

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Speaker 1: do Montesquieu also happened to be a client of du Florian's.

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Speaker 1: Baldini's nickname was the Master of Swish, which he had

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Speaker 1: earned for his unique flowing style, not his basketball skills.

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Speaker 1: His paintings seemed to come alive, as though he had

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Speaker 1: captured his models in motion. Among his many subjects was

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Speaker 1: du Florian. Though much of Baldini's work eventually found its

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Speaker 1: way into galleries and private collections, his portrait of Madame

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Speaker 1: du Florian was lost to time. Now do Florian lived

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Speaker 1: in a fifte hundred square foot apartment for most of

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Speaker 1: her life. It was located near the Red Light District,

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Speaker 1: putting her right in the middle of the action during

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Speaker 1: the Belle Lipoch. Sadly, do Florian passed away in that

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Speaker 1: home in nineteen thirty nine, leaving on Red to handle

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Speaker 1: her affairs. He then began living in the same apartments himself,

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Speaker 1: along with his own daughter, but she fled Paris in

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty two and moved to the south of France.

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Speaker 1: In doing so, she left her father and the apartment

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Speaker 1: behind her and never looked back. It was believed that

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Speaker 1: on relived there until he died in nineteen sixty six,

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Speaker 1: but even that wasn't enough to bring her back for

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Speaker 1: a visit. Despite not once returning to the property even

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Speaker 1: after her father's death, she chose to pay the rent

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Speaker 1: each month for the next forty four years. She died

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Speaker 1: in two thousand ten at the age of ninety one.

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Speaker 1: With no one left to claim ownership of the apartment

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Speaker 1: nor its contents, it was opened up by the executors

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Speaker 1: of her will to a local auctioneer, and what he found,

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Speaker 1: albeit under a thick layer of dust, astounded him. The

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Speaker 1: apartment had been untouched for decades. It was filled to

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Speaker 1: the brim with elegant furniture one years old or more.

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Speaker 1: In the bedroom, they found a four poster bed complete

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Speaker 1: with a canopy. A massive vanity had been tucked into

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Speaker 1: the corner, on top of which sat empty bottles and canisters,

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Speaker 1: as well as an array of hair brushes. In the kitchen,

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Speaker 1: glassware pots, pans, and cutlery, all of it still in place,

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Speaker 1: as though it had been waiting for its owner to

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Speaker 1: come home. There was a giant stuffed ostrich in one room,

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Speaker 1: along with some mickey mouse and porky pig dolls, all

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Speaker 1: made before the Second World War, and artwork paintings of

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Speaker 1: all shapes and sizes hung on the walls. Some had

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Speaker 1: been leaned against furniture and were even seated on chairs

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Speaker 1: across from each other, like they'd been having a conversation.

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Speaker 1: The piece to resistance, however, was one particular painting, the

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Speaker 1: portrait of the apartment's original owner, Madame du Florian, painted

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Speaker 1: by the master of Swiss himself, Giovanni Boldini. In the end,

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Speaker 1: it seems the auctioneer hadn't unlocked an apartment door at all.

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Speaker 1: He'd unearthed the time capsule that nobody knew had existed

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Speaker 1: for over seventy years. Better late than never. I suppose

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Speaker 1: there's something powerful about a name. If it's a name

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Speaker 1: we share with others, it has power to connect us

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Speaker 1: to them. Maybe your own name comes from an emotional

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Speaker 1: experience had by your parents, or perhaps it's a way

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Speaker 1: to pay respects to a loved one from our past. Sometimes, though,

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Speaker 1: a name transforms over the years to represent more than

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Speaker 1: just a family line, but an actual legacy. In Heinrich

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Speaker 1: would eventually experience that. But it all started with a

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Speaker 1: simple gift. Actually, there was a lot about Heinrich that

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Speaker 1: was simple. He was born into a simple life in

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Speaker 1: the mountains of Germany back in seventeen nine seven. His

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Speaker 1: father was a simple forester, and while he had a

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Speaker 1: lot of siblings eleven, in fact, life with all of

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Speaker 1: them was fairly simple. And then war changed all that.

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Speaker 1: Sometime around eighteen oh five, his father left to fight

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Speaker 1: the French elsewhere in Europe, and he took all of

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Speaker 1: the oldest boys with him. Heinrich, though, was only eight,

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Speaker 1: so he stayed behind with his mother and the rest

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Speaker 1: of his siblings. But the French were stronger, and soon

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Speaker 1: enough they were pressing into German territory. In Heinrich's mountain town.

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Speaker 1: To protect the family, his mother took them deeper into

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Speaker 1: the mountains, but while it protected them from the French,

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Speaker 1: had put them in other dangers. Before long, only Heinrich

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Speaker 1: and one sister survived orphans in a war torn country.

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Speaker 1: And then a miracle happened. The father he believed to

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Speaker 1: have died, suddenly returned. With the war over, the remnants

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Speaker 1: of his family pulled together, and if there was one

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Speaker 1: thing they knew better than most, it was would Not

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Speaker 1: only was Heinrich's father a forester, but he was a carpenter,

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Speaker 1: and those skills came in handy as their town and

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Speaker 1: those around it began to rebuild homes, roads, barns, fences,

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Speaker 1: and of course, his father also planted more trees. In

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Speaker 1: eighteen twelve, though, tragedy visited Heinrich's family once again. A

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Speaker 1: powerful storm drove everyone in town to seek shelter, and

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Speaker 1: while it was over quickly, there was a bit of lightning,

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Speaker 1: and one lightning strike coincidentally struck the house his family

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Speaker 1: was hiding in. Everyone except Heinrich was instantly killed. It

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Speaker 1: was more war after that. There he was at the

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Speaker 1: age of fifteen with no one to care for him

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Speaker 1: or to call family, so he joined up with the

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Speaker 1: Prussian army, a post that took him all the way

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Speaker 1: to a Belgian town called Waterloo. He survived, although tens

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Speaker 1: of thousands of his fellow soldiers did not. Again, loss

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Speaker 1: had become a part of his world. When peace returned

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Speaker 1: and Heinrich was able to settle down, he fell back

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Speaker 1: on that family love of wood. Soon enough. He was

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Speaker 1: a skilled cabinet maker, but also dabbled in music on

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Speaker 1: the side. In fact, that was a passion he shared

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Speaker 1: with his wife Julianne, who he married in eight Now

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Speaker 1: it might be easy to assume Heinrich's legacy was loss,

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Speaker 1: the loss of his mother and siblings, the loss of

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Speaker 1: his father, even the loss of his fellow soldiers in

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Speaker 1: Belgium at the Bottle of Waterloo. He and his wife

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Speaker 1: certainly did their best to replace that missing family by

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Speaker 1: having ten children of their own. If you want to

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Speaker 1: interpret his story that way, there's nothing wrong with that.

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Speaker 1: But Heinrich would be remembered for something else, something that

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Speaker 1: came not out of loss but out of joy. And

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Speaker 1: like I said at the beginning of this story, it

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Speaker 1: was all about a gift. You see, when he married

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Speaker 1: his wife Julianne, he did something very romantic. He made

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Speaker 1: her something with his own hands, something wonderful and beautiful,

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Speaker 1: something that would fill their home with joy and happiness

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Speaker 1: and song. Heinrich made her a p know and it

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be the last one he would make. For the

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Speaker 1: rest of his life. Heinrich would grow a business around

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Speaker 1: that skill, and his pianos would win countless awards. Before

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Speaker 1: long they were coveted instruments, and they still are to

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Speaker 1: this day. Maybe his loss was our gain. Maybe he

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Speaker 1: wanted his family name to live on without fear of

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Speaker 1: war or tragedy taking it away. Whatever his reason for creating,

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Speaker 1: the world of music and the piano itself, will never

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Speaker 1: be the same, all thanks to Heinrich Heinrich Steinway. I

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Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.

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Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about

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Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show

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Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,

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Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television and show,

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Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the

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Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,