WEBVTT - CLASSIC: The Honorary Citizens of the United States 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:04.120 Fellow Ridiculous historians in the United States and abroad. 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:04.640 Uh. 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:08.800 We got to tell you. Sometimes we record an episode 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:15.200 that only becomes increasingly relevant as the years went on. 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:19.400 And I think in this one we were both surprised 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:24.480 that you can become an honorary citizen of the United States. 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:25.000 M hm. 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:28.000 And it ain't easy and it doesn't, at least in 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:30.440 the back in the day, just involve paying a bunch 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:34.960 of money for a gold credit card. Yeah, an honorary citizen, 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:39.400 much like getting an honorary degree from a university, definitely 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:43.279 was a thing that is part of ridiculous history. So 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:46.280 why don't we talk a little bit about the honorary 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:48.640 citizens of the United States. 0:00:51.520 --> 0:01:20.600 Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome Ridiculous Historians. 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:24.680 Thanks for tuning in a little bit of background at 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:27.880 the top of the show. Today we have been gallivanting, 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:32.199 uh hither and yalling. Let's see. Uh No, where were 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:33.360 where were you recently? 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:33.840 Oh? 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:37.000 I was in Mauritania for a little while, and then 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:39.800 before that I went to Fraggle Rock, and then I 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.040 spent a little bit of time down at uh. 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:43.880 In Little Australia. 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:49.600 Yeah, let's see I went to uh Texas, I pursued 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:54.080 some of my old SKA band dreams. 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:56.840 What does that mean? Is Texas like Scott Central? 0:01:57.080 --> 0:01:59.840 No? No, this was after Texas. After Texas, I went 0:01:59.880 --> 0:02:04.200 to Brussels, where my SKA band lives. It's a long story. 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:07.680 And then also, let's see between us, we've got Chicago, 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:13.680 Los Angeles, some other countries again, but we can't mention 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:15.320 those Fraggle Rock. 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:18.040 Was my far my favorite through Those little dozers are adorable. 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.280 I think they're an authoritarian regime. I have serious problems 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.440 with their governments, that's fair, but they're still cut at buttons. 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:30.720 So so despite all of our travels, I gotta say, 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:35.280 it feels so good to be back in good old 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:42.519 Atlanta ga US. We are joined today by our guest producer, 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:49.040 Paul Mission Controlled decad. Let's give it up for him. 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:53.000 In what we said, your name your nol I am 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:54.799 Even if we didn't, I still am. 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:55.799 Okay, and I'm Ben. 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:56.239 Yeah. 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:56.760 Do we get that? 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:58.920 You know, we don't need to have your name said 0:02:58.960 --> 0:02:59.840 for you to have an identity. 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:03.680 So that's true, that's true. But if you want to 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.480 be a citizen of the United States, there is some 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:12.359 paperwork involved, as well as some verbiage. If they're cited oath. 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.000 Got to speak an oath, You gotta put your bloody 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:19.200 thumbprint on a document, sign your name and in blood. 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:22.200 No, well, you know it's changed over time. You still 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:25.520 have to have interviews, you have to take citizenship tests. 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:27.440 Naturalization as what they call it, right mm hmm. 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:32.480 And all three of us recording today and quite a 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:38.440 few of us listening today are citizens of the United States. 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:42.760 What's strange about this is that the United States is 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:47.280 one of the countries that gives you citizenship just for 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:50.320 being born here. Not every country is that way, but 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:54.520 if regardless of what your parents past is, et cetera, 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:57.680 if you were born on US soil typically for most 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:02.040 of history, that makes you a US citizen. However, you 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:07.400 and I started looking into a very a very strange story, 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:14.560 something about honorary citizenship. You know, this means that you're 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:18.359 allowing the US to kind of claim you. They're like, 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:20.839 all right, she or he is one of the good ones, 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.040 but they don't have to actually do anything, and you 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:25.400 don't have to do anything. 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:27.440 Getting an honorary degree, you know, just for being a 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:28.200 good guy. 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:31.000 Like how a professor E. Meredith doesn't teach classes. 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:34.200 Really, yeah, yeah, E Meredith just imply some sort of 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:37.839 like ephemeral kind of like honor, you know, or just 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.840 by virtue of being this luminary in the field, you 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:43.240 get to be this thing. 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:45.680 Yes, exactly, and that sort of applies here as well. 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:48.919 I agree, I agree, and I think that's spot on, 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:54.040 because it would be cool to be an honorary citizen 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.160 of a country like I'd love to be an honorary 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.640 citizen of Baton or Vanuatu, which will show up in 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:03.360 a late episode. But in the case of the US, 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:06.560 we found out that is it is a real thing. 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:09.359 You can't have honorary citizenship if you don't want the 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:13.520 whole kit and kaboodle. The problem is that honorary citizenship 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:17.080 may be one of the most difficult things to achieve 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:18.279 in this country of ours. 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:21.599 That's right. It is granted by an Act of Congress 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:26.560 and the President, and to this day, unless we're missing one, 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:31.760 only eight honorary citizenships have been bestowed the entire time. 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.719 Eight only eight. Here's what the State Department says about 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:40.760 honorary citizenship. Honorary citizenship does not carry with it the 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:44.479 rights and privileges of ordinary citizenship, and such status does 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:48.200 not confer any special entry, travel, or immigration benefits upon 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:51.160 the honorey or the honorees relatives and dependents. 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:53.120 We're in Texas, weren't you, man. 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:57.520 It also does not impose additional duties or responsibilities in 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:00.719 the United States or internationally on the honor read. It 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:04.080 is a strictly symbolic act and no oath is required. 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.400 Aha, So it's not quite so it's literally just like 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:08.360 a wave of the hand and then it happens. 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:09.480 Yeah, it's like a key to. 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:11.680 This saying of the city. It's just like that, and 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:14.839 it's first of all you. Then they can give it 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:16.880 to you without your consent too, can't they. 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.239 Yes, sort of the way that the Church of Louder 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.800 day Saints got in trouble for proxy baptisms. 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:26.160 Right, that's a whole can of worms there. But yeah, 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:26.560 that's the thing. 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:28.440 None of these people are like asking for this as 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:30.080 as some sort of benefit or like it's going to 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:32.680 do something positive for their lives or they're going to 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:35.080 be able to use it in any functional way. It's 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:38.839 a strictly symbolic act that implies that this individual not 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.640 a citizen has done great things to aid our struggle 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:44.920 as a country. It's such an ada boy, And that's 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:48.120 why it's such a thin list, because it has to 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:51.240 be a lot like the burden of you know, do 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:52.760 goodery is quite high. 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:53.960 That's true. That's true. 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.560 So what we wanted to do today was explore the 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:02.320 stories of these eight honorary citizens, many of whom will 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:06.320 be familiar to you, some of whom may be deep cuts. 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:10.880 So let's get started with first and foremost, one of 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:17.280 the most pugnacious, uh, one of the most pugnacious aserbic 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:23.640 characters in modern European history, Winston Churchill, who is His 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:28.480 drunken escapades are worth an episode alone, I would say. 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:33.760 But Winston Churchill was the first foreign national to receive 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:39.040 honorary citizenship in the United States. Eight states this is 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:43.239 interesting had already granted him citizenship, just not the federal government, 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:45.400 which I didn't know was a thing that could happen. 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:48.440 You know, if you're I guess if you're the the 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:52.040 governor of New Mexico, or maybe you're the what's a 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:54.480 different state? What's the state? No one talks about? Delaware? 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.920 Fragile rock still not a state. Man, Well, that's legally 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:02.720 a territory telling you it's because they have tremendous not 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:04.560 human rights abuses, but fragle rights. 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:06.800 You don't think they should get honorary statehood and just 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:08.600 for their contribution to popular culture? 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:12.280 No, man, really, no, those war crimes are really bug 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:12.640 Have you. 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.400 Read the UN report? No? O oh man, they're heavily redacted. 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.120 So yes they are, and they should be. I am 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.000 not a fan of puppet crime, which is why I 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.119 support Sesame Street. 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:26.320 That's fair. 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:27.920 But you can love them both, right, It's not a 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:30.280 pepsi coat thing. So yeah, I did not. I was 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:36.360 not aware that states could individually grant citizenship, but eight 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.640 states had already granted citizenship to Winston Churchill. His mother 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:44.960 was American, and this happened all before JFK and Congress 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:50.160 followed suit. So we have a quote from Kennedy in 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:54.280 his proclamation. Here's what he said about Winston Churchill. 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:59.440 Yeah, this proclamation praised Churchill for his quote, bravery charity 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.280 in Valla both and WAW and peace have been a 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:07.600 flame of inspiration and freedom's darkestall is that? Okay, Kennedy? 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:11.160 I mean, there's probably a Kennedy outside. 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.800 There there's a little bit of Kennedy, Kennedy, and there 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:15.920 was like maybe ten percent Kennedy in Oh. 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:17.839 We got it mixed up. Let's keep it interesting, right, 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:21.840 Like it's like potted meat. It's like potted meat now 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.680 with ten percent Kennedy exactly. I would I would buy 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.360 that at the grocery store. So Churchill is watching this. 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:32.560 He is despite the flagrant abuse he subjected his body 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:34.960 to over the decades, he is still alive. He is 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:37.920 eighty eight years old. He's watching a satellite relay of 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.760 this from his home in London, and his son Randolph, 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:47.520 accepts the honor on his behalf. One other interesting fact, 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.560 One other interesting fact about Churchill. He was also the 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.280 recipient of the nineteen fifty three Nobel Prize for Literature, 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.600 which a lot of people didn't know. But that's him. 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.640 That's that's an easy one. The famous rip roar in 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:06.439 Oh Okay. I can't keep saying Winston Churchill is a 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:10.600 rip roaring drunk unless I do at least one quotew. 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:12.640 Rip and cigar smoking drunk. 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:15.520 Here we go. Yeah, perfect, Let's let's just pull up 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:19.920 one of his weirdest, weirdest drunk quotes a real hum dinger, 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:24.760 a real hum dinger. So, once upon a time, Winston 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:29.040 Churchill is in a conversation with m P Bessie Braddock 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.920 or the Conservative Lady Astor, who is the first female MP, 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.319 and one of them accuses the Prime Minister of being 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:43.920 quote discostingly drunk, to which he responds, my dear, you 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:47.400 are ugly, and what's more, you are disgustingly ugly. But 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.720 tomorrow I shall be soba and you will still be 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:53.080 DISGUSTI leg oh man. 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.520 Jeez, if that didn't get him a swift slap across 0:10:57.559 --> 0:10:59.080 the jowls, I don't know what would. 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:02.480 Good gels that are hard to miss. Sure, So he 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:07.480 wasn't perfect, but he had tremendous influence on the course 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:09.360 of the world in which we live today. And he's 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:10.520 an honorary US citizen. 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.360 Wasn't he also like weirdly eugenic or he did like 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.240 you had some you had some real weird, weird, deep 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:18.000 cut Churchill issues. 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:18.480 Probably. 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:21.000 Yeah, he's not super cool. He's not a cool guy. 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:22.600 But he was just very racist, that's what it was. 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.439 Yeah, against people who lived on the Indian subcontinent. 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:27.840 Yea, Yeah, he was. 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:30.760 Still very much a son of the Empire, as. 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:34.679 In like the colonizer, kind of like mentality. 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:38.400 Star Wars like evil Empire. Yes, yeah, most of most 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:42.440 of the prequel Star Wars films are actually based off 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:43.480 Winston Churchill. 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:45.520 He even kind of sounds like the Emperor. 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:46.200 He does. 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:50.600 Ah, I Winston church the Emperor. 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.119 At the last second. And this is the biggest controversy 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:57.360 about Star Wars. They actually cut out Winston Churchill's character 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:00.920 and replaced him with jar Jar Binks. So if you 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.600 look back next time you watch Star Wars, you remember 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:07.240 how much people disliked jar Jar Binks. Just imagine it 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:13.920 in its original form with Winston Churchill. Bw It's great, 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.400 it's a good, it's a good, it's a good piece 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:24.600 of cinema. So that that was the first one in 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:26.760 the era of JFK. But who was after that? 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:32.400 It wasn't until nineteen eighty one, shockingly, which I guess 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:34.840 makes sense considering how few of these there are in 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:35.960 the grand scheme of things. 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:39.200 But we have Raoul Wallenberger, who is a historical figure. 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.280 I was not aware of it, something of a of 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:43.120 a Oscar Schindler type figure. 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:50.680 Yeah. Yeah, So Hungary fought alongside Germany during World War 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:56.840 Two and passed past anti Semitic discriminatory laws towards Jewish people, 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:03.200 but the Jewish population of Hungary was to a degree 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:09.280 spared the tragic, horrific genocide of the Holocaust. Once Hungary 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:13.520 waivered in the Axis Cause, Hitler ordered the country immediately 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:19.760 occupied and Jewish people living in Hungary were ordered to 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.880 be rounded up and deported, and within the space of 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:28.120 one year, a half million people were murdered by the 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:32.240 German regime. And this is where Raoul Wallenberg comes in 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:35.240 what makes him a shindleresque figure. 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.800 So Wallenberg was a businessman who got sent to the 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:43.840 Swedish embassy in Hungary, and he was an issuer of passports. 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.760 He issued six hundred and fifty passports to Hungarian Jews 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.840 with ties to Sweden and that would offer them protection 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:56.000 from deportation. So when Wallenberg got into this post, he 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:02.480 looked at how massive this humanitarian crisis was and decided 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:07.640 he needed to really take charge and step up his game. 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:12.480 And so, with a little bit of creative paperwork, a 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:16.920 little bit of you know, kind of Maverick like diplomacy, 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:20.960 he was able to protect in the same way that 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:25.120 Schindler shielded Jews with jobs in his factory and kept 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:28.000 them from getting sent to the camps. He was able 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:31.920 to shield them with this paperwork and these passports. 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:40.320 Yeah, and he didn't have the luxury of thinking in 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:42.560 a very long term way about this. This is a 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:46.800 crisis situation. He's just attempting to save innocent lives. The 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:52.400 fascists learn of Wallenberg's operation, they pick up the scent, 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.880 and so they immediately invalidate all the paperwork they can find. 0:14:56.360 --> 0:15:00.600 They round up Jewish people who had escaped with his help, 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:05.800 and they force these people to walk to the Austrian border. 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:11.920 But Wallenberg is undeterred. So he is driving behind this 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.200 forced march and people are pointing guns at him and 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:19.600 he's ignoring it. He's feeding these people, he's bringing water, 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:23.960 he's attempting to do anything he can medicinally, and he 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:31.480 still keeps issuing these documents. So at this point there's 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:34.880 a good argument to make that he has defied death, 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:39.040 that he should have been shot. Right, So let's fast 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.360 forward to the Soviet Union. They occupy Hungary in January 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:45.480 of nineteen forty five, and they take Wallenberg into custody 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.800 and here is where we stumbled across a mystery. Raoul Wallenberg, 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:53.200 you see, was never seen in public again. 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:55.880 Oh that's so, that's so anytime you say that statement, 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:01.160 shivers my friend. And they were never heard from again. 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:04.160 Has to be a pregnant pause before again if he 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:06.840 just leave it as never never heard from And that's 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:08.640 sort of like it's very vague. 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:10.400 It's kind of like, wait, don't mean that they didn't call. 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:11.520 You don't know how you don't call. 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:16.280 They had a throat thing, they couldn't speak. Well, this 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:21.600 was you know, this was Cold War era, so information 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.920 was tightly controlled, and we do not know what happened 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:28.120 to Wallenberg. We know that the Soviet government said that 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.800 he died shortly after being taken into custody, that he 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:34.080 had a heart attack in a prison in Moscow in 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:41.240 nineteen forty seven, but still no official word, no confirmation, 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:45.880 And that is why in nineteen eighty one he was 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:50.480 declared an honorary US citizen, which makes you wonder, you 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:52.200 know how much of that was a propaganda move. 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:55.520 Well, I mean this is clearly has a lot of 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:56.520 propaganda potential. 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:01.280 Right there is the aim Uncle Sam at this point 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:03.600 on the record at least is. They said, you know, 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:06.840 we're going to make him an honorary citizen because this 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:10.760 will pressure the Soviets or the you know, the Reds 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:13.240 or whatever they called him at the time to disclose 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.520 information about Wallenberg. 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.119 It did not work, now, definitely did not work. He 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:25.080 was never heard from again. Gain Gang, Gang, Paul. Can 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:28.480 we get a little a little distant, A ghostly. 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:35.920 Wush felt that Christmas spine? 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:36.560 All right? 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:40.399 Ben? Here we got next? Only a scant two years later. 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.240 A scant two years later, nineteen eighty four. Our third 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:47.880 honorary citizen is William Penn. So this story dates back 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:52.000 to the sixteen eighties. There was a guy named Charles 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:55.240 the Second. He was in charge of a place called Britain. 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:59.560 He owed the Penn family money like Lanister style, you 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.439 know what I mean. So he settled a debt with 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:07.000 them in sixteen eighty one by giving William Penn forty 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:10.960 five thousand square miles of land north of Maryland. 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:11.320 He gave. 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:13.600 He said, you know, I can't pay you the cash, 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:17.040 but here here's all this land. What they call it, 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:22.439 Penn Pennville, Penn Town, Pennyweight, no pennywise, Okay, I like 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.399 that I'm thinking it's something more familiar than we may 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:27.720 have heard it before. Although now that I'm thinking about it, 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:31.080 why why Sylvania? Where I want to know the origin 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.680 of a Pennsylvania. It's like Transylvania. 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:34.560 You think that's what it is. 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:35.840 Sylvan means forest. 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:39.840 That's a good point. So a Sylvania is a Sylvan 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:41.560 region penn forest. 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:42.040 Maybe. 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.200 Yeah, this is what we call real time etymology to 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.000 just we just kind of spitball it out. Probably true, 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:49.520 possibly not true. 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:51.560 This is this is what we call. That's what we 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.159 call speculative edibology, speculative etymology. 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:54.480 I like that. 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:57.600 I'm that's gonna be a It's gonna be my my 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:02.159 new title. I like the validation, gonna gonna get a certificate. 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:04.520 That decreased me to be a speculative etymologist. 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:07.160 I think you deserve that, Ben, And more so, it's 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.600 true Penn's colony, which he dubbed Pennsylvania in honor of 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:14.080 his father, which you know also one could argue in 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:18.679 honor of himself. Hey, hey, now you know he is 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:22.560 his father's son. You know they share the name. But 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.000 it was a religious haven, which you guys do you 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:29.160 guys know about this? For for his fellow Quakers and 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:34.199 settlers of different faiths, and Penn was a huge proponent 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:39.880 of the rights of representative government and also religious freedom 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:44.720 and the ability to receive trial by jury, public education, 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:49.200 a lot of the important tenets of the US Constitution, 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:51.040 and our you know, wonderful country. 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:53.879 Yeah, good looking out, dude. Thank you. On a personal level, 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:57.400 I enjoy all of the things that you are into. 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:01.080 If you can hear me from beyond the great So 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:05.400 the wheels of justice grind slow, but exceedingly fine. And 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.280 thus it comes to pass that more than three hundred 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:13.480 years after Penn first arrived in this colony, he received 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:17.960 honorary citizenship in a country that he never lived to 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:21.560 see established, because the US didn't become a thing until 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:22.760 after Penn's death. 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:27.440 Which leads us to Hannah Callo Hill Penn, who also 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:31.480 received honorary citizenship in that very same year of nineteen 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:35.800 one hundred and eighty four. She lived in Pennsylvania for 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:40.720 only about two years, and she was Penn's second wife. 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:42.640 Twenty four years younger than him. 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:46.199 Okay, I'm okay with that. Now, that doesn't work. That 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:48.399 doesn't actually work out with the with the math. The 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:50.320 math Okay, dating math. 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:52.399 Have you guys heard the Have you guys heard the 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:55.439 dating math? What is it? It's half your age plus 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:58.960 seven seven? Is that the every time I have heard that, 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:05.440 outside of outside of our our irreverent conversations, every time 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:08.479 I've heard somebody say that, seriously, it's a little bit 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:10.679 off putting, you know what I mean. It's like some 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:13.040 guy you don't really know, You're at a bar and 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:15.560 they're telling you about their life and then they refer 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.200 to the math capital T, capital. 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:19.320 M exactly, which also, could you know? 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:21.040 I mean, I would love to believe that that in 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:23.360 that context is some sort of acronym. 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:23.560 That we have. 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:24.040 There we go. 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:26.160 We have yet to fully decode. 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:28.200 The master age technical hierarchy. 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:32.439 I like that? Or how about this the the master 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:37.920 age transgression? Shoot? I want to say grand book gradient. 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:40.400 There's no g inn that would be cool, the math 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:43.800 only only math with a G. What I want to 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:45.879 know is, where's the magic? We've got the math? Now, 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:48.720 where's the magic? Just wait? 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:52.120 You will hear more about that, Yes, you wills episode 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:57.280 so or in one of these episodes. So she's only 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:01.679 lived two years in Pennsylvania, and you know we're joking 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:05.359 about the math or whatever. But you know, if people 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:07.439 are happy and they're not hurting anyone, and let them 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:07.919 be happy. 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:08.200 Right. 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:15.960 She didn't get honorary citizenship because because of her husband, 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:20.520 she in her own right was known to be an 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:25.160 activist and an advocate for espousing the same principles that 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:28.760 William Penn also evangelized for. 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:35.480 Yeah, when William became sick in seventeen twelve, he had 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:37.840 a bunch of strokes. Actually I didn't really realize that, 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:41.960 and gradually became worse and worse and wasn't all there. 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:44.639 She was able to kind of take over it, hit 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:47.359 the business that he had started and carry on that 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:52.320 mantle and really manage the colony's affairs, and she was 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:58.399 sending letters to various officials within the colonial governorship. And 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:03.680 when William passed away seventeen eighteen, she became the essentially 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:05.480 the governor herself. 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:08.600 But that's not what they called it. They called it 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:12.960 sort of an acting proprietor, which I guess is sort 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:15.560 of like being what do you call that when you're 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:20.200 interim governor, like a substitute Yeah, substitute landlord, which is yeah, 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:22.159 it's a little bit diminutive for sure, now it's a 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:23.159 lot of bit diminutive. 0:23:23.560 --> 0:23:26.280