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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that powers through history without even breaking a sweat.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Bluesier, and in this episode we're talking about

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Speaker 1: the pioneering home video series that taught millions of health

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Speaker 1: conscious women and a few men how to feel the burn.

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Speaker 1: The day was April twenty fourth, nineteen eighty two, American

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Speaker 1: actress Jane Fonda released her first exercise video, Jane Fonda's Workout.

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Speaker 1: Produced during the early days of the home video market,

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Speaker 1: the sixty dollars VHS tape included two exercise routines, a

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Speaker 1: fifty five minute advanced workout and a lower intensity thirty

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Speaker 1: minute session for beginners. Both routines featured Jane Fonda leading

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Speaker 1: a small group of exercisers through a series of stretches,

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Speaker 1: leg lifts, and side bends while Peppy's synth heavy eighties

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Speaker 1: music played in the background. The tape was the first

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Speaker 1: of its kind, but it certainly wasn't the last, because

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Speaker 1: while it sold just three thousand copies in its first month,

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Speaker 1: Jane Fonda's Workout quickly found its audience, and within a

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Speaker 1: year it it sold more than two hundred thousand copies,

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Speaker 1: making it the first non theatrical videotape to top the

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Speaker 1: sales charts. The aerobics video proved to have staying power, too,

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Speaker 1: as it remained the top selling VHS tape for the

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Speaker 1: next six years, eventually selling more than seventeen million copies worldwide.

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Speaker 1: That unprecedented success launched a brand new home fitness industry,

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Speaker 1: with Fonda herself going on to release some two dozen

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Speaker 1: additional titles. Fonda's into the fitness space was hardly a

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Speaker 1: foregone conclusion. As the daughter of acclaimed actor Henry Fonda,

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Speaker 1: she was essentially Hollywood royalty. After her own breakout performance

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Speaker 1: in Broadways There Was a Little Girl in nineteen sixty,

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Speaker 1: Jane Fonda followed in her father's footsteps by making the

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Speaker 1: leap to the silver screen. She made a name for

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Speaker 1: herself with a string of romantic comedies, as well as

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Speaker 1: the lead role in the nineteen sixty eight sci fi

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Speaker 1: cult classic Barborella. She followed that campy, raunchy performance with

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Speaker 1: a more serious turn in nineteen sixty nine's They Shoot Horses,

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Speaker 1: Don't They. She earned her first Oscar nomination for that role,

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Speaker 1: and then took home the Best Actress Award for Clote

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Speaker 1: just two years later. Around the same time, Fonda dove

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Speaker 1: headfirst into political activism, taking an outspoken stance against President

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Speaker 1: Richard Nixon and the US War in Vietnam. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy nine, the actress won her second Oscar for the

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Speaker 1: hal Ashby war drama Coming Home. That same year saw

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Speaker 1: the release of one of Fonda's most famous films, a

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Speaker 1: disaster thriller about a nuclear meltdown called The Chinas Intro. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: the actress, a lifelong ballet enthusiast, broke her foot on

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Speaker 1: set during filming. The injury left her unable to exercise

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Speaker 1: through dance as she was used to, so she set

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Speaker 1: out in search of an alternative workout. That letter to

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Speaker 1: take an aerobics class in Los Angeles run by instructor

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Speaker 1: Lenny Kasden. The two women hit it off, and by

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Speaker 1: the fall of nineteen seventy nine they'd opened their own

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Speaker 1: workout studio in Beverly Hills. It was a risky move

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Speaker 1: to try to break into the male dominated gym industry,

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Speaker 1: but with Fonda's star power in Kasden's fitness knowhow, the

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Speaker 1: studio became an instant hit. At its peak, they welcomed

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Speaker 1: about two thousand visitors every week, and Fonda her head

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Speaker 1: himself taught several aerobics classes. The studio's success led to

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Speaker 1: the release of a tie in book in nineteen eighty one,

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Speaker 1: Jane Fonda's Workout Book, loaded with exercise routines and wellness

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Speaker 1: tips for readers to try at home. The book climbed

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Speaker 1: to number one on the New York Times Nonfiction Bestsellers list,

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Speaker 1: and it remained there for more than six months. Not

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Speaker 1: only that, it stayed in the top five for another

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Speaker 1: year and a half after that, cementing Fonda's new role

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Speaker 1: as a fitness guru and prompting the New York Times

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Speaker 1: to create a separate how to list for similar books.

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Speaker 1: It was the founder of Carl Home Video Stuart Carl,

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Speaker 1: who saw the potential of a home fitness video based

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Speaker 1: on the teachings in Fonda's Workout book. He had been

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Speaker 1: trying to create a market for non theatrical video cassettes

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Speaker 1: such as home improvement demonstrations, CPR instruction courses, and other

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Speaker 1: special interest titles, but none of them had been strong sellers.

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Speaker 1: Then one day, while walking around New York City with

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Speaker 1: his wife, Debbie. The couple came across a display of

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Speaker 1: Fonda's workout book in a store window. Debbie remarked that

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Speaker 1: it would be nice to work out in the privacy

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Speaker 1: of her own home, rather than having to brave the

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Speaker 1: crowd at the gym and compete with male bodybuilders for

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Speaker 1: the use of equipment. The comments sent Carl's mind racing,

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Speaker 1: and within a few days he was on the phone

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Speaker 1: with Jane Fonda, pitching the idea of turning her popular

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Speaker 1: book into a home video. The actress was skeptical at first,

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Speaker 1: fearing that her involvement in a non theatrical release might

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Speaker 1: damage her film career. She also wasn't sold on the

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Speaker 1: idea of home video, and to be fair, most people weren't.

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Speaker 1: In the early nineteen eighties, you needed a VCR to

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Speaker 1: play VHS tapes, and at the time only about ten

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Speaker 1: percent of American families owned one. In the end, it

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Speaker 1: was money that convinced to take the leap, though it

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Speaker 1: wasn't her own wallet she was thinking of. She and

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Speaker 1: her husband, career politician Tom Hayden had recently started a

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Speaker 1: new left political action committee called the Campaign for Economic

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Speaker 1: Democracy Fonda was already contributing proceeds from her films to

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Speaker 1: the organization, but she knew that a fresh revenue stream

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Speaker 1: from a workout video would go a long way toward

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Speaker 1: funding its operations. She signed on to the project, and

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Speaker 1: in early nineteen eighty two, the video went into production

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Speaker 1: with a budget of fifty thousand dollars. The initial idea

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Speaker 1: was to shoot it in her Beverly Hill studio, but

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Speaker 1: because the mirror lined walls made filming difficult, the production

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Speaker 1: built its own set instead. Although the title attributes the

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Speaker 1: workout to Jane Fonda, it was actually her partner Lennie Kasten,

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Speaker 1: who created the routine seen in the video. Fonda's role

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Speaker 1: was to execute the moves on camera along with a

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Speaker 1: group of backround round exercisers made up of teachers and

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Speaker 1: students from her gym. Despite her experience on camera, Fonda

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Speaker 1: still found the production difficult. She struggled to lead the

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Speaker 1: class without sounding out of breath, and she had to

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Speaker 1: remind herself that when giving directions, left and right would

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Speaker 1: be reversed for the viewer. The other complication was that

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Speaker 1: the footage had to be shot in continuous twenty five

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Speaker 1: minute increments, so shooting another take required starting the session

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Speaker 1: all over again, an exhausting prospect on the third or

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Speaker 1: fourth go On the thirtieth anniversary of the video in

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Speaker 1: twenty twelve, Fonda reflected on the amateur nature of the

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Speaker 1: project and on how those involved never could have guessed

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Speaker 1: the impact it would have. It was spit and prayer,

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Speaker 1: she said. Flying by the seat of our tights and

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Speaker 1: leg warmers. We rehearsed a few days, made some mistakes,

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Speaker 1: did our own hair and makeup, had one camera, and

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Speaker 1: figure it was no big deal. Was I wrong? I

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Speaker 1: don't remember exactly when I realized that, in spite of myself,

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Speaker 1: this little workout video had given birth to a new industry.

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Speaker 1: That may sound like hyperbole, but it really isn't when

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Speaker 1: you consider the glut of home fitness videos that were

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Speaker 1: soon to follow, including long running series from now famous

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Speaker 1: instructors such as Richard Simmons and Judy Massett, the creator

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Speaker 1: of Jazzer Size. Fonda's friendly, high energy approach to fitness

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Speaker 1: kicked off a nationwide workout movement for women, and in

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Speaker 1: the process, it also sparked some of the most recognizable

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Speaker 1: fashion trends of the nineteen eighties, including neons, spandex, leg

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Speaker 1: warmers and leotards, all of which Fonda had borrowed from

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Speaker 1: her days in ballet. The outfits in Fonda's videos aren't

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Speaker 1: as trendy as they used to be, and her workouts

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Speaker 1: certainly aren't as targeted or as hardcore as many of

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Speaker 1: the rooms utens you'd find at the gym these days. Still,

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Speaker 1: many of the moves aren't dissimilar from modern day pilates,

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Speaker 1: and they'll still get your blood pumping right along with

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Speaker 1: that charmingly retro music. So before you pony up for

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Speaker 1: peloton maybe check out Jane Fonda's workout instead. Purists will

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Speaker 1: want to shrack down a working VCR and tapes, but

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Speaker 1: for most people, looking up the routines on Amazon or

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Speaker 1: YouTube will work just as well. And of course, if

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Speaker 1: you'd prefer to live in the now, you can always

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Speaker 1: find Fonda on TikTok, where the eighty six year old

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Speaker 1: actress is still performing leglifts with the best of them.

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Speaker 1: Feel the burn, indeed, I'm gay blues yay, and hopefully

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Speaker 1: you now know a little more about history today than

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Speaker 1: you did yesterday. If you'd like to keep up with

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Speaker 1: the show, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and

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Speaker 1: Instagram at TDI HC Show, and if you have any

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Speaker 1: comments or suggestions, feel free to send him my way

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Speaker 1: by writing to This Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks

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Speaker 1: to Kasby Bias for producing the show, and thanks to

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Speaker 1: you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow

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Speaker 1: for another day in History class