Speaker 1: Fellow Ridiculous historians in the United States and abroad.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: We got to tell you. Sometimes we record an episode
Speaker 1: that only becomes increasingly relevant as the years went on.
Speaker 1: And I think in this one we were both surprised
Speaker 1: that you can become an honorary citizen of the United States.
Speaker 2: M hm.
Speaker 3: And it ain't easy and it doesn't, at least in
Speaker 3: the back in the day, just involve paying a bunch
Speaker 3: of money for a gold credit card. Yeah, an honorary citizen,
Speaker 3: much like getting an honorary degree from a university, definitely
Speaker 3: was a thing that is part of ridiculous history. So
Speaker 3: why don't we talk a little bit about the honorary
Speaker 3: citizens of the United States.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome Ridiculous Historians.
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in a little bit of background at
Speaker 1: the top of the show. Today we have been gallivanting,
Speaker 1: uh hither and yalling. Let's see. Uh No, where were
Speaker 1: where were you recently?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: I was in Mauritania for a little while, and then
Speaker 3: before that I went to Fraggle Rock, and then I
Speaker 3: spent a little bit of time down at uh.
Speaker 2: In Little Australia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's see I went to uh Texas, I pursued
Speaker 1: some of my old SKA band dreams.
Speaker 2: What does that mean? Is Texas like Scott Central?
Speaker 1: No? No, this was after Texas. After Texas, I went
Speaker 1: to Brussels, where my SKA band lives. It's a long story.
Speaker 1: And then also, let's see between us, we've got Chicago,
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, some other countries again, but we can't mention
Speaker 1: those Fraggle Rock.
Speaker 2: Was my far my favorite through Those little dozers are adorable.
Speaker 1: I think they're an authoritarian regime. I have serious problems
Speaker 1: with their governments, that's fair, but they're still cut at buttons.
Speaker 1: So so despite all of our travels, I gotta say,
Speaker 1: it feels so good to be back in good old
Speaker 1: Atlanta ga US. We are joined today by our guest producer,
Speaker 1: Paul Mission Controlled decad. Let's give it up for him.
Speaker 2: In what we said, your name your nol I am
Speaker 2: Even if we didn't, I still am.
Speaker 1: Okay, and I'm Ben.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do we get that?
Speaker 2: You know, we don't need to have your name said
Speaker 2: for you to have an identity.
Speaker 1: So that's true, that's true. But if you want to
Speaker 1: be a citizen of the United States, there is some
Speaker 1: paperwork involved, as well as some verbiage. If they're cited oath.
Speaker 2: Got to speak an oath, You gotta put your bloody
Speaker 2: thumbprint on a document, sign your name and in blood.
Speaker 1: No, well, you know it's changed over time. You still
Speaker 1: have to have interviews, you have to take citizenship tests.
Speaker 2: Naturalization as what they call it, right mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And all three of us recording today and quite a
Speaker 1: few of us listening today are citizens of the United States.
Speaker 1: What's strange about this is that the United States is
Speaker 1: one of the countries that gives you citizenship just for
Speaker 1: being born here. Not every country is that way, but
Speaker 1: if regardless of what your parents past is, et cetera,
Speaker 1: if you were born on US soil typically for most
Speaker 1: of history, that makes you a US citizen. However, you
Speaker 1: and I started looking into a very a very strange story,
Speaker 1: something about honorary citizenship. You know, this means that you're
Speaker 1: allowing the US to kind of claim you. They're like,
Speaker 1: all right, she or he is one of the good ones,
Speaker 1: but they don't have to actually do anything, and you
Speaker 1: don't have to do anything.
Speaker 2: Getting an honorary degree, you know, just for being a
Speaker 2: good guy.
Speaker 1: Like how a professor E. Meredith doesn't teach classes.
Speaker 3: Really, yeah, yeah, E Meredith just imply some sort of
Speaker 3: like ephemeral kind of like honor, you know, or just
Speaker 3: by virtue of being this luminary in the field, you
Speaker 3: get to be this thing.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, and that sort of applies here as well.
Speaker 1: I agree, I agree, and I think that's spot on,
Speaker 1: because it would be cool to be an honorary citizen
Speaker 1: of a country like I'd love to be an honorary
Speaker 1: citizen of Baton or Vanuatu, which will show up in
Speaker 1: a late episode. But in the case of the US,
Speaker 1: we found out that is it is a real thing.
Speaker 1: You can't have honorary citizenship if you don't want the
Speaker 1: whole kit and kaboodle. The problem is that honorary citizenship
Speaker 1: may be one of the most difficult things to achieve
Speaker 1: in this country of ours.
Speaker 2: That's right. It is granted by an Act of Congress
Speaker 2: and the President, and to this day, unless we're missing one,
Speaker 2: only eight honorary citizenships have been bestowed the entire time.
Speaker 1: Eight only eight. Here's what the State Department says about
Speaker 1: honorary citizenship. Honorary citizenship does not carry with it the
Speaker 1: rights and privileges of ordinary citizenship, and such status does
Speaker 1: not confer any special entry, travel, or immigration benefits upon
Speaker 1: the honorey or the honorees relatives and dependents.
Speaker 2: We're in Texas, weren't you, man.
Speaker 1: It also does not impose additional duties or responsibilities in
Speaker 1: the United States or internationally on the honor read. It
Speaker 1: is a strictly symbolic act and no oath is required.
Speaker 3: Aha, So it's not quite so it's literally just like
Speaker 3: a wave of the hand and then it happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a key to.
Speaker 2: This saying of the city. It's just like that, and
Speaker 2: it's first of all you. Then they can give it
Speaker 2: to you without your consent too, can't they.
Speaker 1: Yes, sort of the way that the Church of Louder
Speaker 1: day Saints got in trouble for proxy baptisms.
Speaker 2: Right, that's a whole can of worms there. But yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the thing.
Speaker 3: None of these people are like asking for this as
Speaker 3: as some sort of benefit or like it's going to
Speaker 3: do something positive for their lives or they're going to
Speaker 3: be able to use it in any functional way. It's
Speaker 3: a strictly symbolic act that implies that this individual not
Speaker 3: a citizen has done great things to aid our struggle
Speaker 3: as a country. It's such an ada boy, And that's
Speaker 3: why it's such a thin list, because it has to
Speaker 3: be a lot like the burden of you know, do
Speaker 3: goodery is quite high.
Speaker 2: That's true. That's true.
Speaker 1: So what we wanted to do today was explore the
Speaker 1: stories of these eight honorary citizens, many of whom will
Speaker 1: be familiar to you, some of whom may be deep cuts.
Speaker 1: So let's get started with first and foremost, one of
Speaker 1: the most pugnacious, uh, one of the most pugnacious aserbic
Speaker 1: characters in modern European history, Winston Churchill, who is His
Speaker 1: drunken escapades are worth an episode alone, I would say.
Speaker 1: But Winston Churchill was the first foreign national to receive
Speaker 1: honorary citizenship in the United States. Eight states this is
Speaker 1: interesting had already granted him citizenship, just not the federal government,
Speaker 1: which I didn't know was a thing that could happen.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're I guess if you're the the
Speaker 1: governor of New Mexico, or maybe you're the what's a
Speaker 1: different state? What's the state? No one talks about? Delaware?
Speaker 1: Fragile rock still not a state. Man, Well, that's legally
Speaker 1: a territory telling you it's because they have tremendous not
Speaker 1: human rights abuses, but fragle rights.
Speaker 3: You don't think they should get honorary statehood and just
Speaker 3: for their contribution to popular culture?
Speaker 2: No, man, really, no, those war crimes are really bug
Speaker 2: Have you.
Speaker 1: Read the UN report? No? O oh man, they're heavily redacted.
Speaker 1: So yes they are, and they should be. I am
Speaker 1: not a fan of puppet crime, which is why I
Speaker 1: support Sesame Street.
Speaker 2: That's fair.
Speaker 1: But you can love them both, right, It's not a
Speaker 1: pepsi coat thing. So yeah, I did not. I was
Speaker 1: not aware that states could individually grant citizenship, but eight
Speaker 1: states had already granted citizenship to Winston Churchill. His mother
Speaker 1: was American, and this happened all before JFK and Congress
Speaker 1: followed suit. So we have a quote from Kennedy in
Speaker 1: his proclamation. Here's what he said about Winston Churchill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this proclamation praised Churchill for his quote, bravery charity
Speaker 2: in Valla both and WAW and peace have been a
Speaker 2: flame of inspiration and freedom's darkestall is that? Okay, Kennedy?
Speaker 1: I mean, there's probably a Kennedy outside.
Speaker 2: There there's a little bit of Kennedy, Kennedy, and there
Speaker 2: was like maybe ten percent Kennedy in Oh.
Speaker 1: We got it mixed up. Let's keep it interesting, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's like potted meat. It's like potted meat now
Speaker 1: with ten percent Kennedy exactly. I would I would buy
Speaker 1: that at the grocery store. So Churchill is watching this.
Speaker 1: He is despite the flagrant abuse he subjected his body
Speaker 1: to over the decades, he is still alive. He is
Speaker 1: eighty eight years old. He's watching a satellite relay of
Speaker 1: this from his home in London, and his son Randolph,
Speaker 1: accepts the honor on his behalf. One other interesting fact,
Speaker 1: One other interesting fact about Churchill. He was also the
Speaker 1: recipient of the nineteen fifty three Nobel Prize for Literature,
Speaker 1: which a lot of people didn't know. But that's him.
Speaker 1: That's that's an easy one. The famous rip roar in
Speaker 1: Oh Okay. I can't keep saying Winston Churchill is a
Speaker 1: rip roaring drunk unless I do at least one quotew.
Speaker 2: Rip and cigar smoking drunk.
Speaker 1: Here we go. Yeah, perfect, Let's let's just pull up
Speaker 1: one of his weirdest, weirdest drunk quotes a real hum dinger,
Speaker 1: a real hum dinger. So, once upon a time, Winston
Speaker 1: Churchill is in a conversation with m P Bessie Braddock
Speaker 1: or the Conservative Lady Astor, who is the first female MP,
Speaker 1: and one of them accuses the Prime Minister of being
Speaker 1: quote discostingly drunk, to which he responds, my dear, you
Speaker 1: are ugly, and what's more, you are disgustingly ugly. But
Speaker 1: tomorrow I shall be soba and you will still be
Speaker 1: DISGUSTI leg oh man.
Speaker 2: Jeez, if that didn't get him a swift slap across
Speaker 2: the jowls, I don't know what would.
Speaker 1: Good gels that are hard to miss. Sure, So he
Speaker 1: wasn't perfect, but he had tremendous influence on the course
Speaker 1: of the world in which we live today. And he's
Speaker 1: an honorary US citizen.
Speaker 3: Wasn't he also like weirdly eugenic or he did like
Speaker 3: you had some you had some real weird, weird, deep
Speaker 3: cut Churchill issues.
Speaker 2: Probably.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's not super cool. He's not a cool guy.
Speaker 2: But he was just very racist, that's what it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, against people who lived on the Indian subcontinent.
Speaker 2: Yea, Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: Still very much a son of the Empire, as.
Speaker 2: In like the colonizer, kind of like mentality.
Speaker 1: Star Wars like evil Empire. Yes, yeah, most of most
Speaker 1: of the prequel Star Wars films are actually based off
Speaker 1: Winston Churchill.
Speaker 2: He even kind of sounds like the Emperor.
Speaker 1: He does.
Speaker 2: Ah, I Winston church the Emperor.
Speaker 1: At the last second. And this is the biggest controversy
Speaker 1: about Star Wars. They actually cut out Winston Churchill's character
Speaker 1: and replaced him with jar Jar Binks. So if you
Speaker 1: look back next time you watch Star Wars, you remember
Speaker 1: how much people disliked jar Jar Binks. Just imagine it
Speaker 1: in its original form with Winston Churchill. Bw It's great,
Speaker 1: it's a good, it's a good, it's a good piece
Speaker 1: of cinema. So that that was the first one in
Speaker 1: the era of JFK. But who was after that?
Speaker 2: It wasn't until nineteen eighty one, shockingly, which I guess
Speaker 2: makes sense considering how few of these there are in
Speaker 2: the grand scheme of things.
Speaker 3: But we have Raoul Wallenberger, who is a historical figure.
Speaker 3: I was not aware of it, something of a of
Speaker 3: a Oscar Schindler type figure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So Hungary fought alongside Germany during World War
Speaker 1: Two and passed past anti Semitic discriminatory laws towards Jewish people,
Speaker 1: but the Jewish population of Hungary was to a degree
Speaker 1: spared the tragic, horrific genocide of the Holocaust. Once Hungary
Speaker 1: waivered in the Axis Cause, Hitler ordered the country immediately
Speaker 1: occupied and Jewish people living in Hungary were ordered to
Speaker 1: be rounded up and deported, and within the space of
Speaker 1: one year, a half million people were murdered by the
Speaker 1: German regime. And this is where Raoul Wallenberg comes in
Speaker 1: what makes him a shindleresque figure.
Speaker 3: So Wallenberg was a businessman who got sent to the
Speaker 3: Swedish embassy in Hungary, and he was an issuer of passports.
Speaker 3: He issued six hundred and fifty passports to Hungarian Jews
Speaker 3: with ties to Sweden and that would offer them protection
Speaker 3: from deportation. So when Wallenberg got into this post, he
Speaker 3: looked at how massive this humanitarian crisis was and decided
Speaker 3: he needed to really take charge and step up his game.
Speaker 3: And so, with a little bit of creative paperwork, a
Speaker 3: little bit of you know, kind of Maverick like diplomacy,
Speaker 3: he was able to protect in the same way that
Speaker 3: Schindler shielded Jews with jobs in his factory and kept
Speaker 3: them from getting sent to the camps. He was able
Speaker 3: to shield them with this paperwork and these passports.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he didn't have the luxury of thinking in
Speaker 1: a very long term way about this. This is a
Speaker 1: crisis situation. He's just attempting to save innocent lives. The
Speaker 1: fascists learn of Wallenberg's operation, they pick up the scent,
Speaker 1: and so they immediately invalidate all the paperwork they can find.
Speaker 1: They round up Jewish people who had escaped with his help,
Speaker 1: and they force these people to walk to the Austrian border.
Speaker 1: But Wallenberg is undeterred. So he is driving behind this
Speaker 1: forced march and people are pointing guns at him and
Speaker 1: he's ignoring it. He's feeding these people, he's bringing water,
Speaker 1: he's attempting to do anything he can medicinally, and he
Speaker 1: still keeps issuing these documents. So at this point there's
Speaker 1: a good argument to make that he has defied death,
Speaker 1: that he should have been shot. Right, So let's fast
Speaker 1: forward to the Soviet Union. They occupy Hungary in January
Speaker 1: of nineteen forty five, and they take Wallenberg into custody
Speaker 1: and here is where we stumbled across a mystery. Raoul Wallenberg,
Speaker 1: you see, was never seen in public again.
Speaker 2: Oh that's so, that's so anytime you say that statement,
Speaker 2: shivers my friend. And they were never heard from again.
Speaker 3: Has to be a pregnant pause before again if he
Speaker 3: just leave it as never never heard from And that's
Speaker 3: sort of like it's very vague.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like, wait, don't mean that they didn't call.
Speaker 2: You don't know how you don't call.
Speaker 1: They had a throat thing, they couldn't speak. Well, this
Speaker 1: was you know, this was Cold War era, so information
Speaker 1: was tightly controlled, and we do not know what happened
Speaker 1: to Wallenberg. We know that the Soviet government said that
Speaker 1: he died shortly after being taken into custody, that he
Speaker 1: had a heart attack in a prison in Moscow in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven, but still no official word, no confirmation,
Speaker 1: And that is why in nineteen eighty one he was
Speaker 1: declared an honorary US citizen, which makes you wonder, you
Speaker 1: know how much of that was a propaganda move.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean this is clearly has a lot of
Speaker 2: propaganda potential.
Speaker 1: Right there is the aim Uncle Sam at this point
Speaker 1: on the record at least is. They said, you know,
Speaker 1: we're going to make him an honorary citizen because this
Speaker 1: will pressure the Soviets or the you know, the Reds
Speaker 1: or whatever they called him at the time to disclose
Speaker 1: information about Wallenberg.
Speaker 4: It did not work, now, definitely did not work. He
Speaker 4: was never heard from again. Gain Gang, Gang, Paul. Can
Speaker 4: we get a little a little distant, A ghostly.
Speaker 2: Wush felt that Christmas spine?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: Ben? Here we got next? Only a scant two years later.
Speaker 1: A scant two years later, nineteen eighty four. Our third
Speaker 1: honorary citizen is William Penn. So this story dates back
Speaker 1: to the sixteen eighties. There was a guy named Charles
Speaker 1: the Second. He was in charge of a place called Britain.
Speaker 1: He owed the Penn family money like Lanister style, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So he settled a debt with
Speaker 1: them in sixteen eighty one by giving William Penn forty
Speaker 1: five thousand square miles of land north of Maryland.
Speaker 2: He gave.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, I can't pay you the cash,
Speaker 1: but here here's all this land. What they call it,
Speaker 1: Penn Pennville, Penn Town, Pennyweight, no pennywise, Okay, I like
Speaker 1: that I'm thinking it's something more familiar than we may
Speaker 1: have heard it before. Although now that I'm thinking about it,
Speaker 1: why why Sylvania? Where I want to know the origin
Speaker 1: of a Pennsylvania. It's like Transylvania.
Speaker 2: You think that's what it is.
Speaker 1: Sylvan means forest.
Speaker 3: That's a good point. So a Sylvania is a Sylvan
Speaker 3: region penn forest.
Speaker 1: Maybe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is what we call real time etymology to
Speaker 2: just we just kind of spitball it out. Probably true,
Speaker 2: possibly not true.
Speaker 1: This is this is what we call. That's what we
Speaker 1: call speculative edibology, speculative etymology.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: I'm that's gonna be a It's gonna be my my
Speaker 1: new title. I like the validation, gonna gonna get a certificate.
Speaker 1: That decreased me to be a speculative etymologist.
Speaker 2: I think you deserve that, Ben, And more so, it's
Speaker 2: true Penn's colony, which he dubbed Pennsylvania in honor of
Speaker 2: his father, which you know also one could argue in
Speaker 2: honor of himself. Hey, hey, now you know he is
Speaker 2: his father's son. You know they share the name. But
Speaker 2: it was a religious haven, which you guys do you
Speaker 2: guys know about this? For for his fellow Quakers and
Speaker 2: settlers of different faiths, and Penn was a huge proponent
Speaker 2: of the rights of representative government and also religious freedom
Speaker 2: and the ability to receive trial by jury, public education,
Speaker 2: a lot of the important tenets of the US Constitution,
Speaker 2: and our you know, wonderful country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good looking out, dude. Thank you. On a personal level,
Speaker 1: I enjoy all of the things that you are into.
Speaker 1: If you can hear me from beyond the great So
Speaker 1: the wheels of justice grind slow, but exceedingly fine. And
Speaker 1: thus it comes to pass that more than three hundred
Speaker 1: years after Penn first arrived in this colony, he received
Speaker 1: honorary citizenship in a country that he never lived to
Speaker 1: see established, because the US didn't become a thing until
Speaker 1: after Penn's death.
Speaker 3: Which leads us to Hannah Callo Hill Penn, who also
Speaker 3: received honorary citizenship in that very same year of nineteen
Speaker 3: one hundred and eighty four. She lived in Pennsylvania for
Speaker 3: only about two years, and she was Penn's second wife.
Speaker 1: Twenty four years younger than him.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm okay with that. Now, that doesn't work. That
Speaker 3: doesn't actually work out with the with the math. The
Speaker 3: math Okay, dating math.
Speaker 1: Have you guys heard the Have you guys heard the
Speaker 1: dating math? What is it? It's half your age plus
Speaker 1: seven seven? Is that the every time I have heard that,
Speaker 1: outside of outside of our our irreverent conversations, every time
Speaker 1: I've heard somebody say that, seriously, it's a little bit
Speaker 1: off putting, you know what I mean. It's like some
Speaker 1: guy you don't really know, You're at a bar and
Speaker 1: they're telling you about their life and then they refer
Speaker 1: to the math capital T, capital.
Speaker 2: M exactly, which also, could you know?
Speaker 3: I mean, I would love to believe that that in
Speaker 3: that context is some sort of acronym.
Speaker 2: That we have.
Speaker 1: There we go.
Speaker 2: We have yet to fully decode.
Speaker 1: The master age technical hierarchy.
Speaker 2: I like that? Or how about this the the master
Speaker 2: age transgression? Shoot? I want to say grand book gradient.
Speaker 2: There's no g inn that would be cool, the math
Speaker 2: only only math with a G. What I want to
Speaker 2: know is, where's the magic? We've got the math? Now,
Speaker 2: where's the magic? Just wait?
Speaker 1: You will hear more about that, Yes, you wills episode
Speaker 1: so or in one of these episodes. So she's only
Speaker 1: lived two years in Pennsylvania, and you know we're joking
Speaker 1: about the math or whatever. But you know, if people
Speaker 1: are happy and they're not hurting anyone, and let them
Speaker 1: be happy.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: She didn't get honorary citizenship because because of her husband,
Speaker 1: she in her own right was known to be an
Speaker 1: activist and an advocate for espousing the same principles that
Speaker 1: William Penn also evangelized for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when William became sick in seventeen twelve, he had
Speaker 3: a bunch of strokes. Actually I didn't really realize that,
Speaker 3: and gradually became worse and worse and wasn't all there.
Speaker 3: She was able to kind of take over it, hit
Speaker 3: the business that he had started and carry on that
Speaker 3: mantle and really manage the colony's affairs, and she was
Speaker 3: sending letters to various officials within the colonial governorship. And
Speaker 3: when William passed away seventeen eighteen, she became the essentially
Speaker 3: the governor herself.
Speaker 2: But that's not what they called it. They called it
Speaker 2: sort of an acting proprietor, which I guess is sort
Speaker 2: of like being what do you call that when you're
Speaker 2: interim governor, like a substitute Yeah, substitute landlord, which is yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a little bit diminutive for sure, now it's a
Speaker 2: lot of bit diminutive.
Speaker 3: And then she passed away in seventeen twenty six, and
Speaker 3: she was the longest serving woman in control of a
Speaker 3: British colony.
Speaker 1: A very important colony as well, Hannah Calo Hill Penn
Speaker 1: that she is, I would say, one of the more
Speaker 1: upstanding people on our list, speaking of speaking of controversy,
Speaker 1: which I've foreshadowed just a bit here, fun we'll see.
Speaker 1: Our next one is Mother Teresa. Her first name was Agnes,
Speaker 1: but everybody called her mother Teresa. And if you grew
Speaker 1: up around the time that Nola and I grew up,
Speaker 1: then you have you heard about her as a kid.
Speaker 1: She was hot, she was big, yeah yeah, and the scene. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was a real she was a real, guaranteed headline. Right,
Speaker 1: you have a Mother Teresa headline. Boom papers are selling
Speaker 1: out back when people used to read physical newspapers. Agnes
Speaker 1: goncha bojaksu. Uh. That's g o n x h a
Speaker 1: b o j x h.
Speaker 2: I U not gonna lie. We had to google that
Speaker 2: one pronunciation, Yeah, yeah we did.
Speaker 1: Uh. She, like Churchill, was named an honorary citizen while
Speaker 1: she was still alive. Get this, She and Winston Churchill
Speaker 1: were the only people so far to be named honorary
Speaker 1: citizens while they're still alive. It makes me think of currency,
Speaker 1: you know, like here in the US, you don't get
Speaker 1: your face on currency or coin until well after your death.
Speaker 2: So so mother Terresa was an Albanian, she was an
Speaker 2: Albanian nun, and she'd already received tons of the highest
Speaker 2: US accolades in terms of the Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential
Speaker 2: Medal of Freedom. And the funny thing is is she
Speaker 2: didn't really spend a whole lot of time in the
Speaker 2: United States to begin with. She worked with soup kitchens
Speaker 2: under the Missionaries of Charity that she founded in nineteen fifty,
Speaker 2: had emergency shelters, nursing homes, after school programs. I almost said,
Speaker 2: after school specials. That's something different, it would be great,
Speaker 2: that's a little more fragile rock. Really it's very much so.
Speaker 3: And she, you know, she just founded all of these
Speaker 3: really really important nonprofits essentially that were designed to help
Speaker 3: and nurture the poor and the homeless and just the
Speaker 3: less fortunate. And when she did receive that honor ray
Speaker 3: citizenship when she was eighty six years old, the Ambassador
Speaker 3: to India, which is the country where she first started
Speaker 3: doing all of these good deeds good works, called her
Speaker 3: quote a daughter of a man America, and she had
Speaker 3: done a lot of work in Calcutta, which was known.
Speaker 2: For its poverty.
Speaker 3: And she actually went on to be canonized as well
Speaker 3: and received sainthood in twenty sixteen. But this is a
Speaker 3: really interesting story and the process that goes into canonizing
Speaker 3: someone within the Catholic Church is fascinating to me, and
Speaker 3: some things that I was not aware of.
Speaker 1: Right, for a long time, the Vatican had a step
Speaker 1: in the canonization process that required someone literally deemed as
Speaker 1: a devil's advocate, and their entire role was to argue
Speaker 1: against beautification and canonization, to say this person doesn't qualify
Speaker 1: as a saint for the following reasons. You know, there
Speaker 1: were no snakes in Ireland to begin with, right, something
Speaker 1: like that. It was abolished in the eighties, but the
Speaker 1: Vatican still still flutzed around with the idea, and Christopher Hitchins,
Speaker 1: the famously militant atheist, testified as her devil's advocate.
Speaker 2: How did he get involved in the proceedings if he's
Speaker 2: not even a believer.
Speaker 1: I think he just likes to stir up that pot,
Speaker 1: and I has to poke that bear. He likes to
Speaker 1: bag that badger. I guess he said he represented the
Speaker 1: devil pro bono. A little bit more on Mother Teresa. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was canonized on September fourth, twenty sixteen, and she
Speaker 1: still had some controversy throughout throughout her life and afterwards
Speaker 1: because certain people would would study her clinics and say, hey,
Speaker 1: they received millions of dollars in donations, but they don't
Speaker 1: have medical care, good diagnoses, systems, necessary nutrition and so on,
Speaker 1: and three Canadian academics actually said that she was purposely
Speaker 1: allowing people to suffer. Specifically, they said Mother Teresa believed
Speaker 1: the sick must suffer like Christ on the Cross. And
Speaker 1: then Christopher Hitchins was one of Mother Teresa's most outspoken
Speaker 1: critics for for a long, long, long long time. He
Speaker 1: he said she was not a friend to the poor,
Speaker 1: that she saw poverty as a necessary gift of suffering
Speaker 1: from God. So he had stake in the game. Next
Speaker 1: we arrive at one of my favorite rappers, one of
Speaker 1: my favorite recent rappers, I should say, Nellie No, the
Speaker 1: Marquis de Lafayette.
Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, of course, he's from the Hamilton Musical.
Speaker 1: Played by Davy Diggs, who has a great who has
Speaker 1: a great hip hop group. I want to say on
Speaker 1: the West Coast, maybe they're called Clipping with a period
Speaker 1: in front. They're great.
Speaker 3: He's also going to be blind Spotting, which is quiet good. Yes, Yes,
Speaker 3: I believe he wrote that.
Speaker 1: I think he did. He co wrote it.
Speaker 2: He was on movie Crush with Chuck, him and his
Speaker 2: co writer for that movie. We're on movie Crush talking
Speaker 2: about I can't remember what their favorite movie was, but
Speaker 2: you should check it out.
Speaker 1: Was it Police Academy for it.
Speaker 2: Had to have been. That should be everyone's favorite movie,
Speaker 2: because otherwise I'm cult classic.
Speaker 1: Otherwise, you know, Chuck and Air great friends. But I'm
Speaker 1: not going to listen to it.
Speaker 2: That's fair. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So there's an article on mental mental flaws that goes
Speaker 3: through eight of these honorary citizens and they make the
Speaker 3: point that I think is completely valid that the United
Speaker 3: States would not exist had it not been for the
Speaker 3: Marquis de la Fayette.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen them. I'm not going to do no spoilers.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen the musical. I don't know really any
Speaker 3: of the music.
Speaker 1: Oh just listen to the soundtrack.
Speaker 2: I should. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. It's pretty it's solid.
Speaker 1: I would. I would say, you know, if you're like
Speaker 1: folden laundry or something, it's good. Or you're on a
Speaker 1: long walk, maybe a plane. I don't know, got it.
Speaker 1: I do have a flight tomorrow. We'll check it out.
Speaker 3: But yeah, he was the French general who was in
Speaker 3: charge of divisions in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So a lot of the story you might
Speaker 1: hear in Hamilton is true. This guy came in supporting
Speaker 1: the ideas of liberty, equality and so on, and he
Speaker 1: really didn't have to have a stake in this game.
Speaker 1: But he is primarily the reason that France came to
Speaker 1: aid the US colonies against Great Britain. And then later
Speaker 1: when he went back to France, he introduced the Declaration
Speaker 1: of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen before
Speaker 1: the National Constituent Assembly, and he co wrote this with
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson, you may remember from previous episodes, because no
Speaker 1: one's heard of Thomas Jefferson until they listened to Ridiculous History.
Speaker 2: Right, I certainly hadn't been I certainly hadn't.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: What's weird is the way the way statistics work. There's
Speaker 1: probably someone named Thomas Jefferson right now, and they're probably
Speaker 1: mad that their parents named them Thomas.
Speaker 3: I agree. Yeah, it's definitely like sort of that name
Speaker 3: sort of been ruined. I mean, okay, one could argue
Speaker 3: that name has been lifted up and elevated.
Speaker 1: It's taken.
Speaker 2: It's totally it's taken.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like Michael Bolton right right right, or
Speaker 1: or you know, there are two Nick Caves. I remember
Speaker 1: that always. That always astounded me. Well, there's the artist
Speaker 1: Nick Cave. But but people typically think of Nick Cave
Speaker 1: in the bad seats.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, but the artist Nick Cave is
Speaker 2: equally awesome in his own right. It makes sound suits
Speaker 2: and you know the he actually did a performance here
Speaker 2: at the building where we.
Speaker 1: Did a documentary.
Speaker 2: They did very very cool.
Speaker 1: Paul, did you work on that documentary? Paul's given us
Speaker 1: the nod. Michigan Control worked on it, so it's got
Speaker 1: his stamp of approval. But uh, names aside, You're right,
Speaker 1: there is a tremendous argument to be made aid that
Speaker 1: this country would not exist without the efforts of lafa Atte,
Speaker 1: And I would say he really earned this honorary citizenship.
Speaker 1: When he died, the US House and Senate draped the
Speaker 1: chambers in black. They knew we owed this guy. But
Speaker 1: when did he When did he become an honorary citizen?
Speaker 1: It was after his death, right.
Speaker 3: Two thousand and two, quite a bit after his death,
Speaker 3: during a joint resolution.
Speaker 2: Yes, he was given that citizenship.
Speaker 1: But that was the federal citizenship because he was given
Speaker 1: a citizenship via Maryland before then, right while he was
Speaker 1: still alive.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's what we're talking about the top of the show,
Speaker 3: This who Little the Many citizenship. Yeah, yeah, that seems
Speaker 3: like a stretch, doesn't it. I mean, I would you
Speaker 3: think of it this way?
Speaker 1: If one province of Canada gave you citizenship and you know,
Speaker 1: you could travel there or something, but you were still
Speaker 1: a were an entity in any of the other provinces.
Speaker 1: That's weird, you know what I mean? Well, like, what
Speaker 1: if Utah gave you honorary citizenship? Now you gotta get
Speaker 1: into and out of Utah. It's tough.
Speaker 2: Seriously, I think it was gonna air drop you in there.
Speaker 2: This didn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, anyway, it's it's obviously a symbolic act on
Speaker 3: on all fronts here.
Speaker 2: But that's an interesting one to me. Uh so, what
Speaker 2: do we have next?
Speaker 1: We have Kazimir Pulaski. So, Kazimir Pulaski also set sail
Speaker 1: for North America to help the American side in the
Speaker 1: War for Independence, right, he wanted to fight for the
Speaker 1: continental cause. He did a bunch of stuff. Famously, during
Speaker 1: the Battle of Brandywine, he led a cavalry charge that
Speaker 1: saved the life of George Washington. He was promoted to
Speaker 1: a general who organized mounted soldiers. He even wrote the
Speaker 1: book on cavalry tactics. Literally, he wrote a book about it.
Speaker 2: Was that, like, that's like mounted attacks huh yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's all about formation, huh, formation, strategy, flanking, yeah, no
Speaker 2: one when to hold him, when to fold him, yeah,
Speaker 2: when to charge them, when to scold him, when to
Speaker 2: scold him and say, hey, buddy, you're not riding that
Speaker 2: horse very well. You're doing a bad job.
Speaker 1: And when to mold them.
Speaker 2: Get what it's all about, molding them. It's all an
Speaker 2: excellent cavalryman, yes, yes, uh yeah. He's one of the
Speaker 2: fathers of American cavalry.
Speaker 1: And for a century or so, his death has been
Speaker 1: a holiday or a day of remembrance.
Speaker 2: Pulaski Day, Yeah, is that a thing?
Speaker 1: I guess so it's you and I must be a
Speaker 1: horrible patriots, Paul, have you ever heard of Pulaski Day,
Speaker 1: Casimir Pulaski.
Speaker 3: Paul is saying that it's a Sufi and Stephens song
Speaker 3: and I, to which I replied, it is probably bigger
Speaker 3: in Michigan. Okay, let's let's actually incorrect.
Speaker 2: It's it's in big in Chicago, which was the second
Speaker 2: Sufi on Stevens State based album.
Speaker 1: There we Go.
Speaker 2: Feel the Illinoise come on, I feel.
Speaker 1: I hope he gets the other ones. I hope he
Speaker 1: does it. One day. I keep thinking about that. That
Speaker 1: bugs me. I stay up at night thinking about you
Speaker 1: and your albums. Souf, I call him Souf uh So
Speaker 1: Pulaski Day, which we have to celebrate in October eleventh.
Speaker 1: Let's let's get up to Chicago. He's one of Illinois's
Speaker 1: favorite sons. Here's some malort. Well, celebrate Pulaski Day. We'll
Speaker 1: get a get a Chicago dog. We'll go see a
Speaker 1: Cubs game in Wrigleyville. Drop by Second City, Oh man
Speaker 1: see what they have going on Plascu. Wise, since that's
Speaker 1: a big celebration. Uh yeah, yeah, so it is a holiday.
Speaker 1: And he said he sounded like a superhero coming in.
Speaker 1: So he's a Polish military officer. When he arrives in America,
Speaker 1: he looks at Washington and he says, I came here
Speaker 1: where freedom is being defended, to serve it and to
Speaker 1: live or die for it.
Speaker 3: Hard as nails, really tough, tough guy, tough sounding dude,
Speaker 3: like the cut of his gym.
Speaker 1: And so we come to the last, but not least,
Speaker 1: honorary Citizen of the US.
Speaker 2: Bestowed in twenty fourteen to Bernardo de Galvez.
Speaker 1: In seventeen seventy seven, Colonel Bernardo of Galvez was made
Speaker 1: the interim governor of Louisiana, and at the time Louisiana
Speaker 1: was under Spanish control. Galvez hated the British, so he
Speaker 1: helped smuggle supplies to the Continental forces through the port
Speaker 1: city of New Orleans. He also orchestrated a campaign against
Speaker 1: the Red Coats, defeating them in several battles, including Baltin Rouge.
Speaker 1: And he became general like you do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's when he won some pretty significant battles
Speaker 3: in the Battle of Fort Charlotte, and he took mobile
Speaker 3: away from the British.
Speaker 2: Finally, I know.
Speaker 3: You wonder back after all these years, loathed these many years,
Speaker 3: And that's when Washington really praised Galvez as being a
Speaker 3: deciding factor in the outcome of the Revolutionary War. And
Speaker 3: then in twenty fourteen when this resolution was drafted that
Speaker 3: made Galvez an honorary citizen, that was quoted and put
Speaker 3: in the in the.
Speaker 2: Paperwork and the documentation.
Speaker 3: He's also you know, this is the most contemporary honorary
Speaker 3: citizenship that we've got on the books.
Speaker 2: Who knows, Who knows what's next? Ben Who knows who
Speaker 2: will come next?
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe someone listening today, It could be you.
Speaker 2: It could be you want to be a citizen of
Speaker 2: the United States. You don't want to do the work.
Speaker 2: Just become a key military lynchpin in some really important
Speaker 2: conflict that changes everything, or or you know.
Speaker 1: Do something that people will appreciate two hundred years after.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: True. Interesting facts about Galvez. He is, although he's little
Speaker 1: known today, he is the namesake of Galveston, Texas, which
Speaker 1: I didn't know.
Speaker 2: I thought that sounded familiar.
Speaker 1: Rights it's weird because he played such an instrumental role
Speaker 1: but is relatively little known, but.
Speaker 2: Didn't play any instruments the accordion.
Speaker 1: Perhaps I don't know accordions a lot to haul with you.
Speaker 1: Maybe he Yeah, because he wasn't the father of Calvary.
Speaker 1: He's no Pulaski. Pulaski being both from Poland and riding
Speaker 1: on horses all the time. Surely he's my accordion pick
Speaker 1: I like it. I don't want a pigeonhole or stereotype.
Speaker 1: I just think he's more likely to have an accordion,
Speaker 1: And I think about that a lot when we're doing
Speaker 1: this show. I think which of these historical figures is
Speaker 1: most likely to have an accordion.
Speaker 2: And to have accordion chops?
Speaker 1: So how did he die? Spoiler alert?
Speaker 2: He's dead. Yeah, he definitely died, and his remains are
Speaker 2: lost to history.
Speaker 1: Yep, we're doing our own sound effects. But while his
Speaker 1: bodily remains may be lost to history, his legacy is not.
Speaker 1: The bar is very high when it comes to honorary citizenship,
Speaker 1: and while many of these people on this list are
Speaker 1: controversial for one action or another, the truth remains that
Speaker 1: they did fundamentally huge things for the US and in
Speaker 1: the case of Mother Teresa, for people who are suffering
Speaker 1: in other parts of the world.
Speaker 3: That's right, So our hats off, our collective hats off
Speaker 3: to all these folks because they really did make a
Speaker 3: big impact, enough so that we were able to grant
Speaker 3: them citizenship. In these days, the citizenship is becoming more
Speaker 3: and more of a divisive thing, so it's sort of
Speaker 3: like almost the highest honor that you can. You know,
Speaker 3: it's not easy to get citizenship, and it's becoming even
Speaker 3: more difficult to get citizenship and to become a naturalized citizen.
Speaker 3: So hats off to all of these players players.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And we want to hear your deep cuts. Folks.
Speaker 1: Who do you think is deserving of honorary citizenship today?
Speaker 2: And more importantly, who do you think you are? Let
Speaker 2: us know. You can write to us at Ridiculous at
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, that's a little confrontational. Hey man, you know,
Speaker 1: are you punchy? Are you punching?
Speaker 2: I'm not punchy. I'm just punching. Okay, I'm punching. I'm
Speaker 2: punching above my weight class, oh boy, and below the belt.
Speaker 2: At the same time you can.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram, you can find us
Speaker 1: on Twitter. You can find our favorite part of the show,
Speaker 1: your fellow listeners on our Facebook page or Ridiculous Historians,
Speaker 1: and you can follow our own strange adventures. I am
Speaker 1: at Ben Bollen on Instagram.
Speaker 2: I am at how Now Noel Brown on Instagram as well.
Speaker 1: Big, big, big thanks to Alex Williams, who composed the
Speaker 1: track and recently appeared on an episode of Ridiculous History
Speaker 1: with us. Do tune into that if you haven't checked
Speaker 1: it out. Paul, Mission Control Decket, I'm making eye contact
Speaker 1: with you outside the studio to thank you so much. Dude,
Speaker 1: Casey is pursuing his double life.
Speaker 2: He is as LaBouche, as Lebouche and La France yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, where he wears a leather jacket, has a single
Speaker 1: ear ring, single dangly cross earring, and we think he
Speaker 1: has two secret families that don't know about each other.
Speaker 2: And lots of other secret stuff.
Speaker 1: Did we mention this on air?
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, okay, I think we mentioned it at the
Speaker 2: top of the show during the the Fmerald episode without great.
Speaker 1: Well, hats off to you, La Bouche. You are missed.
Speaker 1: And thinks so as always, to Gabe, our research associate.
Speaker 1: Thanks to you Ben.
Speaker 2: Thanks to you Pal, you really make it easy. We'll
Speaker 2: see you next time.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.