1
00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:04,240
Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realists. We are returning with a couple of

2
00:00:04,280 --> 00:00:08,920
Speaker 1: classic episodes as we're on the road and at points

3
00:00:09,039 --> 00:00:18,640
Speaker 1: abroad and domestic guys, remember when we started looking into assassins, Yeah,

4
00:00:19,400 --> 00:00:20,000
Speaker 1: I ever started.

5
00:00:20,400 --> 00:00:25,040
Speaker 2: I mean it's a fascination for sure. Their their creed,

6
00:00:25,280 --> 00:00:28,360
Speaker 2: you know, whatever, whatever you whatever, whatever you've got right

7
00:00:28,520 --> 00:00:28,840
Speaker 2: for real.

8
00:00:29,080 --> 00:00:32,920
Speaker 3: I think anybody who ever got into a singular Assassin's

9
00:00:32,960 --> 00:00:37,320
Speaker 3: Creed game or maybe the entire series, the concept of

10
00:00:37,360 --> 00:00:40,640
Speaker 3: assassins and the way they build the history right throughout

11
00:00:40,680 --> 00:00:44,199
Speaker 3: those games is it's fascinating, and that's one of the

12
00:00:44,240 --> 00:00:46,440
Speaker 3: primary reasons you want to play the game, Like, I

13
00:00:46,479 --> 00:00:48,479
Speaker 3: need to unlock more of this little what is this?

14
00:00:49,040 --> 00:00:51,600
Speaker 2: Who does a fabulous job with some modern kind of

15
00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:54,920
Speaker 2: Assassin's law? Is the John Wick movies with the whole

16
00:00:55,560 --> 00:00:57,720
Speaker 2: the High Table and all of that stuff, Oh your

17
00:00:57,880 --> 00:01:01,280
Speaker 2: marker and coin as dog.

18
00:01:01,600 --> 00:01:05,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, we looked into it, folks, and one of our

19
00:01:06,080 --> 00:01:11,200
Speaker 1: primary questions a few years back was what's the difference

20
00:01:11,520 --> 00:01:16,440
Speaker 1: between an assassination and your garden variety homicide.

21
00:01:17,400 --> 00:01:21,319
Speaker 4: It's all about intent, that's the end of the episode.

22
00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:23,520
Speaker 2: Now, it's got a lot to do with it, and

23
00:01:23,600 --> 00:01:28,000
Speaker 2: also who pays you who is, you know, the one

24
00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:29,000
Speaker 2: putting out.

25
00:01:28,840 --> 00:01:32,720
Speaker 3: The hit m M. And as we find in this episode,

26
00:01:32,720 --> 00:01:35,479
Speaker 3: it goes way back, like well over a thousand years

27
00:01:35,480 --> 00:01:38,679
Speaker 3: ago to where you can find, you know, at least

28
00:01:38,840 --> 00:01:42,399
Speaker 3: the written down origins of an actual thing that we're

29
00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:44,000
Speaker 3: going to learn about in just a moment.

30
00:01:44,040 --> 00:01:46,039
Speaker 2: I guess you don't have to be paid to be

31
00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:50,120
Speaker 2: someone who is doing an assassination. I believe the killer

32
00:01:50,160 --> 00:01:53,640
Speaker 2: of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was acting of his own volition,

33
00:01:54,320 --> 00:01:57,960
Speaker 2: as is well, exactly exactly Matt. But then you know

34
00:01:58,040 --> 00:02:01,560
Speaker 2: the individual who shot John Lennon again, was he though?

35
00:02:01,800 --> 00:02:04,520
Speaker 2: But yeah, as signs point too, it was just somebody

36
00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:06,360
Speaker 2: who kind of got to be in their bonnet about

37
00:02:06,360 --> 00:02:10,839
Speaker 2: that particular dude. But yet that was absolutely considered an assassination.

38
00:02:10,919 --> 00:02:14,760
Speaker 2: If I'm not mistaken, certainly historically referred to as such, you.

39
00:02:14,760 --> 00:02:18,720
Speaker 1: Are not mistaken. It's also not always as we'll see

40
00:02:18,880 --> 00:02:23,400
Speaker 1: about the money now, folks, we're going to join people

41
00:02:23,480 --> 00:02:27,880
Speaker 1: from thousands of years ago in this classic episode. All

42
00:02:27,919 --> 00:02:32,079
Speaker 1: we ask is that you join us in twenty twenty.

43
00:02:32,639 --> 00:02:37,120
Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is

44
00:02:37,200 --> 00:02:41,520
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

45
00:02:41,600 --> 00:02:44,560
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

46
00:02:44,639 --> 00:02:51,480
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

47
00:02:56,600 --> 00:02:59,200
Speaker 3: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,

48
00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:00,400
Speaker 3: my name is Noel.

49
00:03:00,720 --> 00:03:03,359
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our

50
00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:08,320
Speaker 1: super producer Paul, Mission Control decand most importantly, you are you.

51
00:03:08,320 --> 00:03:11,799
Speaker 1: You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't

52
00:03:11,919 --> 00:03:15,960
Speaker 1: want you to know. Today, we're embarking on a two

53
00:03:16,040 --> 00:03:20,480
Speaker 1: part episode, one that travels across time and space from

54
00:03:20,639 --> 00:03:23,920
Speaker 1: the ancient Middle East all the way to the modern day.

55
00:03:24,880 --> 00:03:29,080
Speaker 1: Let's let's start this way without too much too much introduction.

56
00:03:29,800 --> 00:03:35,360
Speaker 1: What is the difference between an assassination and a murder? Well,

57
00:03:35,760 --> 00:03:39,680
Speaker 1: here are the facts. We all kind of know what

58
00:03:39,720 --> 00:03:41,200
Speaker 1: an assassin is, right.

59
00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:44,160
Speaker 3: Yes, at least to an extent, we know that an

60
00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:49,120
Speaker 3: assassin is a murderer. Right, in order to assassinate something

61
00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:53,040
Speaker 3: or someone, you have to murder it or kill it, right.

62
00:03:53,760 --> 00:03:58,839
Speaker 3: Whereas a typical murderer that is out there might commit homicide,

63
00:03:58,880 --> 00:04:02,160
Speaker 3: which is taking the life of another human being for

64
00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:04,560
Speaker 3: any number of reasons. And we have laws on the

65
00:04:04,560 --> 00:04:09,720
Speaker 3: books to differentiate between those types of homicides and degrees.

66
00:04:09,880 --> 00:04:16,280
Speaker 1: Right, there's the Weirdly enough, just from a linguistic standpoint,

67
00:04:16,400 --> 00:04:23,680
Speaker 1: the coolest sounding one, manslaughter is actually lelie yeah, than man,

68
00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:26,279
Speaker 1: than murder in the first degree.

69
00:04:26,360 --> 00:04:29,760
Speaker 2: It's like, whoops, I hit you with my car. That's manslaughter.

70
00:04:30,200 --> 00:04:33,239
Speaker 2: And it's a little sexist, an outdated term. By the way.

71
00:04:33,320 --> 00:04:36,360
Speaker 3: Just want to say, but human death, Yes, you caused

72
00:04:36,400 --> 00:04:37,039
Speaker 3: human death.

73
00:04:37,360 --> 00:04:38,080
Speaker 4: That's good, Matt.

74
00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:44,960
Speaker 1: So it appears that assassination is a genre of homicide,

75
00:04:45,240 --> 00:04:48,880
Speaker 1: and that's correct. But why is it a genre. Well,

76
00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:54,120
Speaker 1: an assassin is defined by their target, their tactics, and

77
00:04:54,160 --> 00:05:00,400
Speaker 1: their motivations. So if we it's interesting because recently this

78
00:05:00,480 --> 00:05:04,240
Speaker 1: year there was a huge hubbub in Western media about

79
00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:08,720
Speaker 1: the use of a word, the word being assassination or assassin.

80
00:05:09,120 --> 00:05:13,720
Speaker 1: Webster's New World College Dictionary, which MPR uses for their

81
00:05:13,839 --> 00:05:17,560
Speaker 1: editorial purposes as their kind of guide for how to

82
00:05:17,560 --> 00:05:22,040
Speaker 1: write reporting, they define an assassin as someone who murders

83
00:05:22,120 --> 00:05:27,279
Speaker 1: a politically important or prominent person, typically by a surprise attack,

84
00:05:27,839 --> 00:05:30,919
Speaker 1: usually for some sort of payment or in the service

85
00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:36,320
Speaker 1: of some sort of ideological belief. And this sounds cold

86
00:05:36,440 --> 00:05:39,000
Speaker 1: when we look at it this way, because that means that,

87
00:05:39,640 --> 00:05:43,360
Speaker 1: let's say, someone knocks over a gas station in a robbery,

88
00:05:43,640 --> 00:05:49,120
Speaker 1: they fatally shoot cashier. That makes that criminal a murderer,

89
00:05:49,480 --> 00:05:52,720
Speaker 1: but not an assassin. An assassin would be someone who

90
00:05:52,960 --> 00:05:57,240
Speaker 1: fatally attacks the president of a country, unless, of course

91
00:05:57,839 --> 00:06:01,840
Speaker 1: they somehow I'm laughing, this is ridiculous, unless of course

92
00:06:01,880 --> 00:06:07,600
Speaker 1: they somehow accidentally kill the president, which which is terrible manslaughter.

93
00:06:07,839 --> 00:06:13,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, by like accidentally giving them coronavirus. Maybe maybe, yeah, maybe, yeah.

94
00:06:13,720 --> 00:06:16,080
Speaker 2: I mean, that person is definitely in for a good

95
00:06:16,120 --> 00:06:19,520
Speaker 2: talking to a stiff. Fine, perhaps, But you know, is

96
00:06:19,560 --> 00:06:22,680
Speaker 2: that going to be considered an assassination? Well, I don't know, right,

97
00:06:22,720 --> 00:06:25,160
Speaker 2: maybe if it was premeditated, that's certainly one of the factors.

98
00:06:25,279 --> 00:06:27,480
Speaker 2: But my question for you, two Ben is like, what

99
00:06:27,640 --> 00:06:31,400
Speaker 2: if say someone was paid to kill a prominent podcaster,

100
00:06:32,120 --> 00:06:34,840
Speaker 2: At what point do you go into the realm of

101
00:06:34,880 --> 00:06:39,359
Speaker 2: like being politically important enough to be assassinated versus just

102
00:06:39,960 --> 00:06:42,360
Speaker 2: oft you know, or or have a hit put out

103
00:06:42,360 --> 00:06:43,000
Speaker 2: on you don't.

104
00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:45,919
Speaker 3: Don't worry, dude. We're off the table for assassinations, are

105
00:06:45,960 --> 00:06:48,720
Speaker 3: you sure? Yeah, because it keeps me up nights. We

106
00:06:49,120 --> 00:06:52,960
Speaker 3: cannot be assassinated murdered, certainly.

107
00:06:52,640 --> 00:06:54,040
Speaker 4: Okay, right, we can.

108
00:06:54,200 --> 00:06:57,640
Speaker 1: I feel better now, stabbed or shot. Yeah, that's interesting

109
00:06:57,680 --> 00:07:01,599
Speaker 1: because to a degree or definition of what counts as

110
00:07:01,640 --> 00:07:06,560
Speaker 1: an assassination is something we arrive at retroactively.

111
00:07:07,080 --> 00:07:07,279
Speaker 3: Right.

112
00:07:07,400 --> 00:07:10,640
Speaker 1: But if you, for instance, someone who may not be

113
00:07:10,760 --> 00:07:15,800
Speaker 1: seen as prominent may be murdered and their death may

114
00:07:15,880 --> 00:07:19,400
Speaker 1: set off a series of events that changes the world,

115
00:07:19,640 --> 00:07:23,280
Speaker 1: and later historians will say it was an assassination for

116
00:07:23,320 --> 00:07:24,280
Speaker 1: that reason.

117
00:07:24,280 --> 00:07:26,000
Speaker 4: Like Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

118
00:07:26,080 --> 00:07:31,880
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, well I would He's already an assassination worthy victim, right,

119
00:07:31,920 --> 00:07:36,520
Speaker 1: because he's an archduke. Right. You see, the question gets complex,

120
00:07:36,640 --> 00:07:41,520
Speaker 1: Like the most one of the weirdest examples of this

121
00:07:41,600 --> 00:07:43,960
Speaker 1: that I could think of was the story of the

122
00:07:43,960 --> 00:07:47,960
Speaker 1: biblical Cain and Abel. Was Kane just a murderer or

123
00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:50,560
Speaker 1: was he an assassin before the term existed? I mean,

124
00:07:50,600 --> 00:07:54,080
Speaker 1: it checks the boxes. He launched a surprise attack on

125
00:07:54,360 --> 00:07:58,600
Speaker 1: a politically and socially important person, and he did it

126
00:07:58,640 --> 00:08:01,800
Speaker 1: because he was driven by zealous beliefs.

127
00:08:02,200 --> 00:08:03,840
Speaker 3: It was his brother though, right.

128
00:08:04,080 --> 00:08:07,120
Speaker 2: Wasn't his jealousy though, because his father liked the other

129
00:08:07,200 --> 00:08:07,840
Speaker 2: brother better.

130
00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:08,720
Speaker 1: I get you.

131
00:08:08,840 --> 00:08:09,880
Speaker 4: I think I think that see what you're doing.

132
00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:13,920
Speaker 2: You're using this as like almost like a microcosmic mini

133
00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:17,480
Speaker 2: story that sort of encapsulates the larger thing because it

134
00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:19,080
Speaker 2: was political because he was.

135
00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:20,000
Speaker 4: Favored by his father.

136
00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:23,240
Speaker 2: Therefore, it was motivated because he wanted to be the

137
00:08:24,280 --> 00:08:24,920
Speaker 2: favorite son.

138
00:08:25,520 --> 00:08:28,680
Speaker 1: Yeah. And the twist with that is with such a

139
00:08:28,720 --> 00:08:33,199
Speaker 1: small cast of characters in that story, everybody is prominent

140
00:08:33,360 --> 00:08:34,720
Speaker 1: and politically and socially.

141
00:08:35,400 --> 00:08:37,079
Speaker 4: That's that's really smart. Ben I like that.

142
00:08:37,240 --> 00:08:42,240
Speaker 2: And then in the end Cain was condemned by God

143
00:08:42,640 --> 00:08:45,760
Speaker 2: and forced to walk the earth like another Caine from

144
00:08:45,880 --> 00:08:46,360
Speaker 2: Kung Fu.

145
00:08:46,400 --> 00:08:48,839
Speaker 4: It just made me realize, maybe that's where that came from.

146
00:08:49,160 --> 00:08:53,120
Speaker 1: And maybe that's where it came from. Yeah, exactly this. Okay,

147
00:08:53,200 --> 00:08:57,520
Speaker 1: So this murder versus assassination thing, it might seem like

148
00:08:57,600 --> 00:09:00,240
Speaker 1: it's a game of semantics, like it doesn't really make

149
00:09:00,280 --> 00:09:04,240
Speaker 1: a big difference calling something an assassination versus calling it

150
00:09:04,280 --> 00:09:07,559
Speaker 1: a murder. Definitely doesn't bring that person back from the dead.

151
00:09:08,280 --> 00:09:12,720
Speaker 1: But the difference, as we'll find, is huge and it's crucial.

152
00:09:13,200 --> 00:09:17,839
Speaker 1: In some cases, it has legal implications, like earlier this year,

153
00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:23,160
Speaker 1: the United States of America targeted a prominent Iranian general,

154
00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:29,440
Speaker 1: Cossam Solomani in January, and news organizations like MPR, FOX,

155
00:09:29,559 --> 00:09:35,240
Speaker 1: CNN all the hits were. They were really concerned about

156
00:09:35,320 --> 00:09:40,200
Speaker 1: how they should describe this, and that's because murder has

157
00:09:40,240 --> 00:09:42,719
Speaker 1: a legal implication, as does assassination.

158
00:09:43,200 --> 00:09:46,199
Speaker 2: Well, it's like the maybe the military jargon would be

159
00:09:46,280 --> 00:09:50,760
Speaker 2: eliminating a high level target or something along those lines.

160
00:09:51,120 --> 00:09:54,079
Speaker 2: But the idea of calling an assassination is a bad look,

161
00:09:54,559 --> 00:09:57,840
Speaker 2: you know. PR wise, It's like, that's where the semantics

162
00:09:57,840 --> 00:10:01,120
Speaker 2: do matter for the optics of this. We don't assassinate people,

163
00:10:01,440 --> 00:10:03,120
Speaker 2: we take out targets.

164
00:10:03,480 --> 00:10:09,959
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, exactly, because when NPR actually labeled this action

165
00:10:10,200 --> 00:10:14,839
Speaker 3: and assassination, it became a big deal and there was

166
00:10:14,880 --> 00:10:19,080
Speaker 3: a lot of outcry from audience members about just again,

167
00:10:19,120 --> 00:10:22,000
Speaker 3: the semantics of it. This was not an assassination. No,

168
00:10:22,080 --> 00:10:23,760
Speaker 3: you can't call it that. Don't call it that.

169
00:10:24,280 --> 00:10:28,000
Speaker 1: We're the good guys, good dams don't attack with daggers

170
00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:29,200
Speaker 1: and drones in the dark.

171
00:10:29,559 --> 00:10:32,400
Speaker 2: But I guarantee you the people in Sulamani's own country

172
00:10:33,320 --> 00:10:35,920
Speaker 2: sure as hell considered an assassination, didn't they.

173
00:10:36,559 --> 00:10:41,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's weird because this strategy, if

174
00:10:41,320 --> 00:10:44,640
Speaker 1: we just objectively look at this strategy, it doesn't matter

175
00:10:44,679 --> 00:10:48,840
Speaker 1: what you call it. It matters what happened, and This

176
00:10:49,320 --> 00:10:53,640
Speaker 1: strategy of assassination is familiar to cultures across the planet

177
00:10:54,440 --> 00:10:59,120
Speaker 1: throughout the ages. I mean just from like from John

178
00:10:59,160 --> 00:11:03,160
Speaker 1: walk Spooth, a famous US based assassin, right he assassinated

179
00:11:03,640 --> 00:11:06,880
Speaker 1: then President Abraham Lincoln. From that guy, all the way

180
00:11:06,920 --> 00:11:10,480
Speaker 1: back to the ancient days with people like Lacousta the Poisoner.

181
00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:14,160
Speaker 1: You don't have to look very far, very deep defined

182
00:11:14,360 --> 00:11:18,120
Speaker 1: historical records of assassins. There's a book. I guess I'll

183
00:11:18,160 --> 00:11:22,400
Speaker 1: just hold it up. We'll do a little disturbing reading

184
00:11:22,480 --> 00:11:24,760
Speaker 1: rainbow here. I don't know if you guys can see this.

185
00:11:24,800 --> 00:11:27,120
Speaker 4: There's a lot of Caravaggio on the cover. I love

186
00:11:27,200 --> 00:11:27,959
Speaker 4: that image.

187
00:11:28,559 --> 00:11:30,280
Speaker 1: Let's see is it yeah?

188
00:11:30,320 --> 00:11:30,800
Speaker 4: I think it is.

189
00:11:30,880 --> 00:11:32,720
Speaker 2: But either way, it's one of those classic Like it

190
00:11:32,720 --> 00:11:34,640
Speaker 2: looks like the cover of a Joy Division album. It's

191
00:11:34,679 --> 00:11:37,400
Speaker 2: like this person dead in the bath with their arm

192
00:11:37,520 --> 00:11:38,880
Speaker 2: kind of draped over the side.

193
00:11:39,040 --> 00:11:39,680
Speaker 4: That classic.

194
00:11:39,720 --> 00:11:43,240
Speaker 2: I believe it's impressionists, but it's you know, caravagi. You

195
00:11:43,240 --> 00:11:46,520
Speaker 2: would be a great example, really high definition, super moody

196
00:11:46,559 --> 00:11:50,360
Speaker 2: and very kind of eerie image. I love those types

197
00:11:50,400 --> 00:11:51,120
Speaker 2: of paintings.

198
00:11:51,280 --> 00:11:51,760
Speaker 4: That's right.

199
00:11:51,840 --> 00:11:57,120
Speaker 3: The Encyclopedia of Assassinations available at any arcane bookstore near you.

200
00:11:56,640 --> 00:12:02,079
Speaker 1: Right by Carl Sificus. This explorer both attempted and successful

201
00:12:02,120 --> 00:12:09,080
Speaker 1: assassinations throughout human history, and interestingly enough, it lists several cases,

202
00:12:09,120 --> 00:12:14,760
Speaker 1: such as that of dag Hammer Scold. Yeah it's a

203
00:12:14,800 --> 00:12:18,600
Speaker 1: cool name. It lists that case as an assassination, but

204
00:12:18,880 --> 00:12:22,560
Speaker 1: that still has not been officially confirmed as such, even

205
00:12:22,600 --> 00:12:25,240
Speaker 1: though the US president at the time dag Hammer Skull

206
00:12:25,360 --> 00:12:29,200
Speaker 1: was in charge of the UN when he was when

207
00:12:29,240 --> 00:12:33,040
Speaker 1: he died in a mysterious airplane accident. We have an

208
00:12:33,080 --> 00:12:38,240
Speaker 1: old YouTube video on that. But the point is this,

209
00:12:38,240 --> 00:12:43,000
Speaker 1: this book is pretty old, but these cases of assassination,

210
00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:46,760
Speaker 1: because of the controversy, they remain very touchy subjects for

211
00:12:46,800 --> 00:12:50,079
Speaker 1: a long long time. And so today in the in

212
00:12:50,120 --> 00:12:54,440
Speaker 1: the first part of our series, we wanted to ask

213
00:12:55,840 --> 00:12:59,400
Speaker 1: where did this come from? Where? Where does the concept

214
00:12:59,600 --> 00:13:04,720
Speaker 1: of an assassin actually originate? We'll tell you after a

215
00:13:04,760 --> 00:13:17,640
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Assassin

216
00:13:18,120 --> 00:13:23,880
Speaker 1: isn't some dramatic, exotic word some hack writer invented to

217
00:13:24,040 --> 00:13:28,439
Speaker 1: just sort of z up an otherwise depressing murder story.

218
00:13:29,360 --> 00:13:30,800
Speaker 3: It's IP for Mobisoft.

219
00:13:31,200 --> 00:13:34,400
Speaker 1: It's IP for movies soft right. In fact, the term

220
00:13:34,440 --> 00:13:39,040
Speaker 1: Assassin refers to an all too real, all too conspiratorial

221
00:13:39,559 --> 00:13:44,479
Speaker 1: organization from ancient history. It's an honest to God's secret society.

222
00:13:45,120 --> 00:13:47,280
Speaker 1: Let's call it the Order of Assassins.

223
00:13:48,240 --> 00:13:53,080
Speaker 3: Ooh, oh my god. Wait, you're saying it's real. That's

224
00:13:53,080 --> 00:13:56,560
Speaker 3: what we're saying. The Order of Assassins is real or was?

225
00:13:56,920 --> 00:13:57,800
Speaker 1: Yeah?

226
00:13:57,600 --> 00:13:58,959
Speaker 3: Uh no, no, no, no, no no.

227
00:14:01,360 --> 00:14:04,080
Speaker 1: Well, we're not saying, you know, we're not saying Assassin's

228
00:14:04,120 --> 00:14:09,240
Speaker 1: Creed should be considered a playable documentary. Although there's a

229
00:14:09,280 --> 00:14:14,360
Speaker 1: lot of great historical research in there. We're we're saying

230
00:14:14,400 --> 00:14:17,000
Speaker 1: there was a real group. We don't know a ton

231
00:14:17,080 --> 00:14:20,840
Speaker 1: about them. This is something that you'll always run into

232
00:14:20,840 --> 00:14:25,440
Speaker 1: when you're looking at controversial institutions in ancient history. The

233
00:14:25,480 --> 00:14:28,680
Speaker 1: fortress of the Assassins, and they did have a real fortress,

234
00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:33,280
Speaker 1: was conquered in twelve fifty six CE. And when they were.

235
00:14:33,080 --> 00:14:34,440
Speaker 4: Conquered, the.

236
00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:40,760
Speaker 1: Castle was raised essentially their library was destroyed. So we

237
00:14:40,840 --> 00:14:46,520
Speaker 1: have no written historical records about the Assassins from the

238
00:14:46,560 --> 00:14:50,520
Speaker 1: Assassins themselves. Still we do know some things.

239
00:14:50,400 --> 00:14:50,880
Speaker 4: That's right.

240
00:14:50,920 --> 00:14:54,280
Speaker 2: Between ten ninety and twelve seventy five, a small Nizari

241
00:14:54,440 --> 00:14:58,000
Speaker 2: Ismaili sect, high in the mountains of Persia and Syria,

242
00:14:58,440 --> 00:15:03,960
Speaker 2: went into the murder for higher business. The Assassins were

243
00:15:03,960 --> 00:15:07,640
Speaker 2: an offshoot of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam, and

244
00:15:07,800 --> 00:15:11,080
Speaker 2: it was founded by Hassan Is Sabah, who referred to

245
00:15:11,080 --> 00:15:15,560
Speaker 2: his followers as I'm gonna oh okay asasi yun a

246
00:15:15,640 --> 00:15:18,440
Speaker 2: s A s I y y u n with some

247
00:15:19,280 --> 00:15:22,520
Speaker 2: underscore characters over the A and the U, and that

248
00:15:22,680 --> 00:15:26,960
Speaker 2: means people who are faithful to the foundation of faith,

249
00:15:27,640 --> 00:15:31,320
Speaker 2: and they were. They had this stronghold fortress called a

250
00:15:31,400 --> 00:15:33,720
Speaker 2: La Mut's Castle that was about one hundred and thirty

251
00:15:33,760 --> 00:15:36,680
Speaker 2: miles from what is today known as Tehran.

252
00:15:37,120 --> 00:15:37,520
Speaker 4: Wow.

253
00:15:37,880 --> 00:15:41,560
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just so cool to me that that's real.

254
00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:47,080
Speaker 3: So the concept here of this group they wanted to

255
00:15:47,160 --> 00:15:53,360
Speaker 3: challenge the Turks who were Sunni Muslims. So we're we're

256
00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:57,600
Speaker 3: talking about Shia and Sunny conflicts back in what did

257
00:15:57,640 --> 00:16:02,760
Speaker 3: we say, the one thousand and ninety CE to twelve

258
00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:10,120
Speaker 3: one hundred seventy five CE, the Sunni Muslims, these Seljuk Turks,

259
00:16:10,120 --> 00:16:12,240
Speaker 3: they were in control of Persia at this time when

260
00:16:12,400 --> 00:16:15,280
Speaker 3: when this group was organized for these purposes, and this

261
00:16:15,400 --> 00:16:18,240
Speaker 3: is when the group first became known as the Hashashen

262
00:16:19,160 --> 00:16:24,760
Speaker 3: another cool word here, but today they're better known as assassins.

263
00:16:24,560 --> 00:16:27,200
Speaker 3: It's a term that was given to them by the

264
00:16:27,360 --> 00:16:32,240
Speaker 3: European crusaders who are rolling through and you know, doing their.

265
00:16:32,120 --> 00:16:36,560
Speaker 2: Thing, those Europeans, just making language work for them, you know.

266
00:16:37,360 --> 00:16:41,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, just kind of a corruption of the phrase, right,

267
00:16:42,120 --> 00:16:45,760
Speaker 1: But that's what you get with a living language. This group,

268
00:16:46,280 --> 00:16:52,000
Speaker 1: known as the Assassins, they actively and covertly murdered first

269
00:16:52,120 --> 00:16:56,520
Speaker 1: Muslim then later Christian leaders throughout the Middle East. And

270
00:16:56,760 --> 00:17:01,440
Speaker 1: they murdered these folks or assassinated these folks when they

271
00:17:01,440 --> 00:17:05,600
Speaker 1: were seen as a threat to this sect, to their society,

272
00:17:05,760 --> 00:17:12,160
Speaker 1: to their geopolitical control. And while the term assassins applies

273
00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:16,879
Speaker 1: to the whole crew, right, there was actually only a

274
00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:22,439
Speaker 1: smaller inner group known as the Fidai that engaged in

275
00:17:22,800 --> 00:17:27,520
Speaker 1: actual conflict in what is sometimes euphemistically referred to as

276
00:17:27,560 --> 00:17:29,960
Speaker 1: direct action. This is important.

277
00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:30,080
Speaker 3: Now.

278
00:17:30,080 --> 00:17:33,000
Speaker 1: We do have to say that none of us are

279
00:17:33,200 --> 00:17:37,800
Speaker 1: fluent Arabic speakers, so thank you in advance for your

280
00:17:37,920 --> 00:17:44,600
Speaker 1: understanding of our pronunciations. We do know that the Nazari

281
00:17:44,760 --> 00:17:49,639
Speaker 1: did not have a standing army, so they relied upon

282
00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:56,399
Speaker 1: these warriors, these operatives to carry out espionage. Why kill

283
00:17:56,480 --> 00:17:58,720
Speaker 1: an why fight an army when you can just kill

284
00:17:58,760 --> 00:18:03,080
Speaker 1: the king or the general. Their preferred method of killing

285
00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:07,000
Speaker 1: was usually going to be through the use of daggers,

286
00:18:07,040 --> 00:18:10,760
Speaker 1: so that means close up to their target, no poison

287
00:18:10,920 --> 00:18:16,680
Speaker 1: drop offs, no arrows, and often they were known for

288
00:18:17,280 --> 00:18:21,240
Speaker 1: being completely okay with dying or being tortured after they

289
00:18:21,280 --> 00:18:27,760
Speaker 1: had committed their murder. They posed a strategic threat to Fatimid,

290
00:18:28,359 --> 00:18:33,879
Speaker 1: Abyssid and Seljuk authority alike, and for almost three hundred

291
00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:37,959
Speaker 1: years we know they killed hundreds and hundreds of people

292
00:18:38,160 --> 00:18:44,320
Speaker 1: important people that era's version of VIPs three colleagues, ruler

293
00:18:44,359 --> 00:18:48,679
Speaker 1: of Jerusalem, tons of other leaders Muslim and Christian alike.

294
00:18:49,200 --> 00:18:52,640
Speaker 1: So despite the fact that we don't have direct accounts

295
00:18:52,720 --> 00:18:56,719
Speaker 1: from like Hassan himself saying I dope these guys up

296
00:18:56,720 --> 00:19:00,320
Speaker 1: and brainwashed them and now we're killing everybody, we have

297
00:19:00,359 --> 00:19:04,680
Speaker 1: accounts from other people who were alive or around at

298
00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:09,240
Speaker 1: the time. Manada, let's see what you think of these.

299
00:19:09,680 --> 00:19:12,399
Speaker 1: One of the first ones comes from a Spanish rabbi

300
00:19:12,600 --> 00:19:17,400
Speaker 1: named Benjamin of Tudela. He traveled through Syria in eleven

301
00:19:17,520 --> 00:19:20,280
Speaker 1: sixty seven. So this is why the group was active.

302
00:19:20,600 --> 00:19:23,800
Speaker 3: And Benjamin, not our Benjamin, the one we just mentioned.

303
00:19:24,119 --> 00:19:28,800
Speaker 3: He told of this mysterious leader that existed named the

304
00:19:28,880 --> 00:19:31,320
Speaker 3: Old Man in the Mountain. That's a the old Man

305
00:19:31,359 --> 00:19:33,960
Speaker 3: in the Mountain. That's what he referred to him as

306
00:19:34,040 --> 00:19:36,560
Speaker 3: Old Man in the Mountain, This old Man in the mountain,

307
00:19:36,840 --> 00:19:39,680
Speaker 3: this Yoda like figure, although he did not have that reference,

308
00:19:39,920 --> 00:19:42,800
Speaker 3: who led a sect of warriors who dwelled in hidden

309
00:19:42,880 --> 00:19:44,120
Speaker 3: mountain fortresses.

310
00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:46,360
Speaker 1: More of a Palpatine, I think.

311
00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:50,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is more of a Palpatine. And it's gosh,

312
00:19:50,040 --> 00:19:51,800
Speaker 3: I can't remember which episode. I think we did one

313
00:19:51,960 --> 00:19:55,800
Speaker 3: on military and Drugs where we talked about the mountain

314
00:19:55,880 --> 00:19:58,760
Speaker 3: fortresses in several parts of the region there and how

315
00:19:58,760 --> 00:20:01,960
Speaker 3: important they were, and then how we saw that reflected

316
00:20:02,040 --> 00:20:05,480
Speaker 3: in the conflicts that the US then went into and

317
00:20:05,840 --> 00:20:09,760
Speaker 3: places around Afghanistan and out in the Middle East, and

318
00:20:09,840 --> 00:20:15,399
Speaker 3: these mountain fortresses that were so difficult to if you

319
00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:17,959
Speaker 3: were an invading force or someone who's trying to attack,

320
00:20:18,119 --> 00:20:22,440
Speaker 3: so difficult to penetrate. But that's an interesting thing, right,

321
00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:25,080
Speaker 3: There's an old man in a mountain and he's he

322
00:20:25,240 --> 00:20:28,239
Speaker 3: is controlling or leading a bunch of these warriors that

323
00:20:28,359 --> 00:20:32,120
Speaker 3: live there. And there's also information quite a bit more

324
00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:37,600
Speaker 3: actually that comes from Syrian Sunni chroniclers, and you know,

325
00:20:38,320 --> 00:20:41,160
Speaker 3: it's there, it exists, which is very nice, but unfortunately

326
00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:45,240
Speaker 3: quite a bit of this information is biased. Again, you

327
00:20:45,320 --> 00:20:48,520
Speaker 3: have to remember that there was conflict there between the

328
00:20:48,520 --> 00:20:52,439
Speaker 3: Shia and the Sunni Muslims, and because of that conflict,

329
00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:57,840
Speaker 3: the Syrian Sunni population really did hate or at least

330
00:20:58,359 --> 00:21:02,040
Speaker 3: some of these prominent writers seem to show anger and

331
00:21:02,119 --> 00:21:06,480
Speaker 3: hatred in the writing or at least writing about them

332
00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:09,800
Speaker 3: from you know, from an enemy's perspective, because they were

333
00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:12,000
Speaker 3: the enemies, and they probably did hate them because they

334
00:21:12,040 --> 00:21:13,320
Speaker 3: did some heinous things.

335
00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:16,240
Speaker 1: Yeah they had, I mean, they had every reason, ye

336
00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:17,960
Speaker 1: to hate the assassins.

337
00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:21,200
Speaker 3: But it just thinks of the historical record, then itself

338
00:21:21,280 --> 00:21:24,480
Speaker 3: becomes this version of it rather than well, let's you know,

339
00:21:24,640 --> 00:21:28,840
Speaker 3: let's actually look at it as equal parts in some

340
00:21:28,960 --> 00:21:31,360
Speaker 3: way or at least in some form.

341
00:21:31,400 --> 00:21:36,919
Speaker 1: And the Crusaders were aware of these chronicles from the

342
00:21:37,359 --> 00:21:43,159
Speaker 1: from the Syrian Sunni population. They said, look, this is

343
00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:48,080
Speaker 1: close enough to the truth. Someone's out here killing everybody,

344
00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:51,440
Speaker 1: so let's just run hogwild. With it. You know, who

345
00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:53,840
Speaker 1: has time to fact check. That's a problem we have

346
00:21:54,040 --> 00:21:56,480
Speaker 1: in the modern day. So as a result, we have

347
00:21:56,560 --> 00:22:00,280
Speaker 1: to treat these stories with skepticism. It's kind of like

348
00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:03,800
Speaker 1: propaganda you would see against the pope by their successors,

349
00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:07,160
Speaker 1: or against royalty, a lot of them.

350
00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:10,680
Speaker 3: Against any army, you know, yeah, armies that the propaganda

351
00:22:10,720 --> 00:22:12,360
Speaker 3: this is produced is intense.

352
00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:15,679
Speaker 1: So yeah, they're gonna say, like, you can read some

353
00:22:15,760 --> 00:22:19,040
Speaker 1: of these things and translations thereof and say, Okay, this

354
00:22:19,080 --> 00:22:22,240
Speaker 1: looks like maybe it was designed to entertain an audience

355
00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:29,120
Speaker 1: or just to character assassinate the assassins themselves. And they

356
00:22:29,160 --> 00:22:33,560
Speaker 1: talked about how powerful, how competent these operatives were, but

357
00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:37,840
Speaker 1: then they also made these pretty crazy claims about how

358
00:22:38,040 --> 00:22:39,840
Speaker 1: they became so successful.

359
00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:44,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, And in the twelfth century, William the Second, who

360
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:47,520
Speaker 2: was a crusader and the Archbishop of Tire believed that

361
00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:50,960
Speaker 2: this whole old Man in the Mountain idea was true

362
00:22:50,960 --> 00:22:54,159
Speaker 2: and that he commanded this individual as many as sixty

363
00:22:54,200 --> 00:22:58,960
Speaker 2: thousand assassins. And he noted that they would do suicide attacks.

364
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:02,119
Speaker 2: They had no regard for their own safety in their

365
00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:04,760
Speaker 2: own lives. They were seeking destroy and if they don't

366
00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:06,520
Speaker 2: make it out alive, so be it. It's all about

367
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:09,960
Speaker 2: the target and getting the job done of.

368
00:23:09,800 --> 00:23:11,480
Speaker 4: This old man in the Mountain figure.

369
00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:15,920
Speaker 2: William the Icond wrote this quote, it is their custom

370
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:19,760
Speaker 2: to install their masters and choose their chief, not by

371
00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:23,159
Speaker 2: hereditary right, but solely by virtue of merit. What a

372
00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:27,320
Speaker 2: novel idea, by the way, disdaining any other title of dignity.

373
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:31,159
Speaker 2: They call him the Elder. The bond of submission and

374
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:33,920
Speaker 2: obedience that binds this people to their chief is so

375
00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:37,200
Speaker 2: strong that there's no task so arduous, difficult or dangerous

376
00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:39,440
Speaker 2: that any one of them would not undertake to perform

377
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:44,399
Speaker 2: it with the greatest zeal and you know, speaking back

378
00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:47,440
Speaker 2: to the propaganda and the war of words and trying

379
00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:50,160
Speaker 2: to smear folks to be taken with a grain of salt.

380
00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:53,440
Speaker 2: But there there were reports about this group that they

381
00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:57,680
Speaker 2: God forbid ate pork and married their sisters.

382
00:23:57,720 --> 00:24:03,560
Speaker 1: Which were to unpack that that quotation from William the Second.

383
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:08,160
Speaker 1: He's not saying meritocracy is a good thing. He's pointing

384
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:11,760
Speaker 1: it out as a criticism. He's implying their barbaro because

385
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:16,480
Speaker 1: they don't because they respect people's talents over their genetic

386
00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:17,639
Speaker 1: lottery whichever.

387
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:22,080
Speaker 2: So counterinto it if fascinating and like a product of

388
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:24,200
Speaker 2: the time, you know what I mean, what they.

389
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:29,040
Speaker 4: Don't have a royal pure bloodline, the lineage sending directly

390
00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:31,840
Speaker 4: to God, you know, for shame.

391
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: Like they hire people based on their skills, they promote

392
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 1: them based on their skills, They eat pork, and they're

393
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:43,440
Speaker 1: sleeping with their siblings. All three of those things were

394
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:44,160
Speaker 1: just terrible.

395
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:47,560
Speaker 3: And somehow the people who join up are willing to

396
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:50,320
Speaker 3: do things for their leaders.

397
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:55,119
Speaker 1: Willing to right right right. It's almost like the chance

398
00:24:55,119 --> 00:25:00,280
Speaker 1: of being promoted makes people better at their jobs. That's

399
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 1: a very that's Please don't make that the main takeaway

400
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:08,879
Speaker 1: from today's episode, but yeah, you're right. The fact is

401
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: they that this guy noticed these people were not the

402
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 1: type of individuals to turn away from a task, even

403
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:20,439
Speaker 1: if it meant that they would be killed in completing

404
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:23,719
Speaker 1: it or captured and tortured afterwards. In some ways, this

405
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:29,200
Speaker 1: was seen as noble in this community. So these rumors

406
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:33,240
Speaker 1: are around. It's kind of a an urban legend. It's

407
00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:37,960
Speaker 1: kind of a conspiracy theory, and there's proof in you know,

408
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:41,720
Speaker 1: in terms of dead bodies of important people. They keep

409
00:25:41,800 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 1: showing up at weird times in history. It gets really

410
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:51,399
Speaker 1: popular and mischaracterized in Western Europe thanks to one of

411
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:54,440
Speaker 1: the best selling books of the medieval era, the Travels

412
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 1: of Marco Polo. It's this book alone spread so many

413
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:02,400
Speaker 1: claims about the order, and if we read it through

414
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:05,359
Speaker 1: the lens of the modern day, it sounds like Marco

415
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:10,560
Speaker 1: is telling us the Assassins are a cult. There's this

416
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:14,199
Speaker 1: idea that the elder, the old man in the mountain,

417
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 1: starting with Hassan himself, has been brainwashing his followers, has

418
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 1: been doping them with some sort of substance. Again, we

419
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:28,160
Speaker 1: don't know the exact nature of that substance, but hashisham

420
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: assassins Hashish the rumor is, or at least what he

421
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,359
Speaker 1: says in the book is that the old Man of

422
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 1: the Mountain is giving his followers a drugged potion during

423
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 1: their training, right, and this is breaking down the usual

424
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:52,240
Speaker 1: human moral qualms with things like assassination. And then before

425
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 1: he sets them off on an assassination mission, he gives

426
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 1: them some version of this. Again, so it has a

427
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 1: lot in common think about it with reports of like

428
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:10,159
Speaker 1: Manchurian candidates, people who are through systematic psychological tactics and

429
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:16,440
Speaker 1: through the ingestion of substance, they're turned into zombies, you know, or.

430
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:19,280
Speaker 3: You know, here's the deal is it? Are we saying

431
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 3: we think, at least according to that book, we think

432
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 3: it might be hashish is that and that is cannabis

433
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:28,400
Speaker 3: and weed? Right, mm hmm.

434
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:33,199
Speaker 2: It's It's basically like, it's the stuff that's the sticky

435
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 2: crystal stuff that sticks to.

436
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 4: The outside of cannabis.

437
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:37,679
Speaker 2: When it's cured, they can shake it off and you

438
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:40,360
Speaker 2: essentially make it into like you press it and make

439
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 2: it into a resinous kind of material that is able

440
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 2: to be smoked.

441
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:49,359
Speaker 3: So I've heard, but we're saying, we're saying, or the

442
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:54,399
Speaker 3: travels of Marco Polo is saying that that's the substance

443
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:59,360
Speaker 3: that made them in some way become a Manchurian candidate,

444
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:00,760
Speaker 3: like the when out of their minds about.

445
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:04,880
Speaker 2: Huh.

446
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:11,879
Speaker 1: It's interesting though, because so Hashishim Hashisham is the nickname

447
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: for the sect that was used by a lot of

448
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 1: its enemies or uh in casual conversation about this group,

449
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:23,200
Speaker 1: and it was believed to have derived from the Arabic

450
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:27,880
Speaker 1: word hashish, So naturally you can see how that didn't

451
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 1: come directly from Marco Polo's book that was already around.

452
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:36,640
Speaker 1: But when Marco Polo mentioned this drugged potion, it cemented

453
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 1: the image of this order in the zeitgeist of the time.

454
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 1: So they were like, these are shadowy, drug crazed fanatics.

455
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 1: They may have powers that the average undrugged human being

456
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: doesn't have, you know what I mean? And to a

457
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 1: degree psychologically that might be accurate. But you could say

458
00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 1: that about any number of any number of groups who

459
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 1: institute systematized suicide attacks.

460
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 3: Wow, hey man, look we're all the same. But I

461
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 3: just gotta assassinate you, bro.

462
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 4: I'm sorry. Yeah, here hit this verse. It'll make you

463
00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:15,640
Speaker 4: way more.

464
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 3: Chill exactly, more crazed in assassiny.

465
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 1: So if this is true, think about it. If this

466
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: is true, it boggles the mind. How is this not

467
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,920
Speaker 1: brought up more often, especially during these moral panics. I

468
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 1: love that you mentioned reefer madness nol because if again,

469
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 1: if this is true, it's one of the best PSAs

470
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 1: against the use of cannabis in human history, right, Like

471
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 1: smoke a joint and then go kill the king.

472
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 4: That's a mindless murder machine.

473
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 1: Right right? And I love that that rhymes. Thank you.

474
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 1: This there's a reason. I guess there's one reason that

475
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 1: this didn't show up in a lot of psash. Well, first,

476
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:02,440
Speaker 1: most people and be familiar with this story. But secondly,

477
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 1: it turns out that Marco Polo is the primary propagator

478
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 1: for this hash claim. If you look at the sources

479
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 1: from the Islamic world, even among the Assassin's enemies, even

480
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 1: among the Seljukes and the Syrians who hated them, they

481
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 1: don't they don't really mention the use of hashish. So

482
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 1: maybe a more convincing explanation for that nickname comes from

483
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: the Egyptian Arabic word hashashien, and that that means something

484
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:37,520
Speaker 1: totally different. It's a little silly. It means like noisy

485
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 1: people or the troublemakers.

486
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 2: Wasn't Marco Polo known to be a bit of an

487
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 2: exaggerator too, and possibly inventing some stuff just like out

488
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 2: a whole cloth to make himself look like more of

489
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:49,800
Speaker 2: a badass explorer.

490
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's true. It's a curated version

491
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: of reality, right, But a lot of a lot of

492
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: the things he says didn't bear up the scrutiny. Still,

493
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 1: it was the best information people had at the time,

494
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 1: So this is why modern scholars, people like Bernard Lewis,

495
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 1: who is a Middle Eastern historian and expert on the assassins,

496
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 1: believes that hashishi or hashishm was a popular Syrian pejorative.

497
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:24,479
Speaker 1: It was a term of abuse. We're discrediting these people.

498
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 1: You know, sure they're effective killers, but they're drug addicts,

499
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:32,600
Speaker 1: and you know it's the devil's tobacco. It's the jazz

500
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 1: cigarettes and the left hand smokes that are making them

501
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 1: such effective monsters. So you can see already that the

502
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 1: image people have of assassins in the modern day, and

503
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 1: the image people had of assassins when they were around

504
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 1: kind of became larger than life. They were living legends.

505
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:55,080
Speaker 1: There was a lot of disinformation about them, and we

506
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 1: can only assume they probably used it to their credit,

507
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:02,200
Speaker 1: because it's the kind of pr you can't buy. But

508
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 1: this is just one of the misconceptions. So I propose

509
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 1: we take a break for our sponsor, try our best

510
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 1: not to get assassinated, and come back and explore some

511
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 1: of those misconceptions in just a moment. What do you

512
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:14,520
Speaker 1: guys think?

513
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:18,280
Speaker 3: It sounds great? Everybody cross your fingers and hope that

514
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 3: it's a CBD sponsor Okay, cool, that's good.

515
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: And we've returned misconceptions about a group of killers in

516
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 1: ancient Persia slash Syria. This is the slightly awkward part

517
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:44,320
Speaker 1: where we defend their character.

518
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 4: I'm here for it.

519
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 1: But so, a lot of medieval Europeans knew about the Order,

520
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 1: especially once the travels of Marco Polo were published. They

521
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 1: believe that this group was specifically targeting Christians. So this

522
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: is fuel to the fire for the Crusades and for

523
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:13,520
Speaker 1: other campaigns. Right now, we're fighting to protect good Christian

524
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 1: people against this threat.

525
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 4: Make you a cog in our Holy war kind of.

526
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:23,480
Speaker 1: Situation, right, But this thing was not entirely true. In fact,

527
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 1: it turns out this happens all the time in the

528
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 1: world of politics. It turns out these people who are

529
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:32,959
Speaker 1: like publicly enemies to each other, behind closed doors, they

530
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 1: would not infrequently get together and be like, hey, you

531
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:39,000
Speaker 1: know what, man, I know, I guess there's a lot

532
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 1: of stuff going on. It's the bridge under the water,

533
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: are you guys high? Don't worry about it. Let's just

534
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 1: let's work something out. Maybe we can make an alliance.

535
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 3: You know, well, you know that we're about to talk

536
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:53,720
Speaker 3: about something here coming up, which is another part of

537
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 3: the misconceptions. But there are some realities that this group

538
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 3: faced that makes me one if there was use of

539
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:05,720
Speaker 3: cannabis or some other drug like that, if it didn't

540
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:09,239
Speaker 3: have more to do with their situation and less to

541
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 3: do with tactics for battle. It's a bit of a spoiler,

542
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:13,879
Speaker 3: but we'll keep going here.

543
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 1: No, I think it's I think it's foreshadowing, Matt. So

544
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 1: we wanted to pull one example of times that Christian

545
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: forces and Assassin forces got together. Right in twelve fifty one,

546
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:31,840
Speaker 1: the King of France, Louis the ninth, sent some invoys

547
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 1: to meet the assassins, to go and find the Old

548
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:41,200
Speaker 1: Man or the elder of the legends, and this meeting.

549
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: They took the meeting because it suited their diplomatic needs

550
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:49,759
Speaker 1: at the time. Otherwise it seems like the sect was

551
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: they were Yeah, they were killing people when they had

552
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 1: to or when they wanted to, but they were largely

553
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 1: uninterested in Christians, at least at that time. They were

554
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 1: primarily focused on all the crazy changes happening in the

555
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:12,839
Speaker 1: Muslim world and the events that had shaped them. They

556
00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:16,800
Speaker 1: were also shaping these events in turn, and that's because

557
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 1: of their assassination tactics. Let's go to what you said, Matt,

558
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 1: about not just the rumors of drug use, but about

559
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 1: how these tactics it came to be. It wasn't so

560
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 1: much a matter of religious belief or what is the

561
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:37,319
Speaker 1: moral right way to kill someone. It was necessity. It

562
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:43,160
Speaker 1: was desperation. Even if you take that sixty thousand number

563
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:45,640
Speaker 1: in good faith, we have to remember only a few

564
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:50,359
Speaker 1: people in the Assassin's order were actually killing folks, were

565
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:55,759
Speaker 1: actually going out on these missions. Hassan was outgunned and

566
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:57,800
Speaker 1: outnumbered the whole time.

567
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 3: He was outgunned, outmanned, out numbered, out planned.

568
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 1: I guess, yes, yes, yes, he was very much so.

569
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 1: And he was also I guess everybody was out gunned

570
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:13,279
Speaker 1: at that time.

571
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 4: Knives probably, this is like the knife age, right.

572
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:21,200
Speaker 1: These guys are using knives. Yeah, they're using daggers to kill.

573
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:23,320
Speaker 1: Arrows are around, swords are round.

574
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 3: But yeah, they come they come out of their arms

575
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:27,319
Speaker 3: like that. That's that's how they were.

576
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, they pop out from the wrists. Uh. Yes, So

577
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:35,200
Speaker 1: he knew. He knew that there was no way they

578
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:38,080
Speaker 1: could wage what we would call like conventional war of

579
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:39,720
Speaker 1: the time. They didn't have the numbers.

580
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:43,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we had to resort to being more crafty,

581
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 2: and we're talking about some James Bond level here, guerrilla warfare, espionage, spying,

582
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 2: targeted killings, assassinations. There would be sleeper agents that would

583
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 2: basically travel in disguise and you know, pose as members

584
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 2: of the community in which they were trying to infiltrate

585
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:04,320
Speaker 2: to get a better beat on their targets and insert

586
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:08,799
Speaker 2: themselves into these very important strategic positions so that they

587
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 2: could have the upper hand, right.

588
00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it may sound familiar again, like we

589
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:19,320
Speaker 3: just dropped a reference to the Revolutionary War, a version

590
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 3: of a telling of the Revolutionary War. But yeah, whenever

591
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 3: I think this is a commonality, whenever you have a

592
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 3: small force that needs to operate effectively.

593
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:35,080
Speaker 4: Wasn't Hercules Mulligan a spy? Wasn't that his deal.

594
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 1: Spoilers? Right? Yeah?

595
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:40,360
Speaker 3: I think I think so that.

596
00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:46,479
Speaker 1: No, like Hercules Mulligan is a real guy, was a spy.

597
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 4: He also got firebars, dude.

598
00:37:50,239 --> 00:37:53,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that was his first love. I think that

599
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 1: and being a tailor and then you know Third America.

600
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:01,319
Speaker 1: But but think of that, you know, we always think

601
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:05,319
Speaker 1: of sleeper agents in the context of I guess like

602
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 1: the Cold War here in the West, right, that was

603
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:11,359
Speaker 1: the worry deep cover sleeper agents from the US going

604
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 1: into the USSR and vice versa. But they existed in

605
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:18,320
Speaker 1: these ancient times. These guys would say, Okay, we're gonna

606
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:23,240
Speaker 1: kill this person. We're going to do it in two years.

607
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 1: So tonight, I'm going to travel with this caravan and

608
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 1: I'm going to set up shop and I'm just gonna

609
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just I'm gonna sell trinkets and Choschki's

610
00:38:33,239 --> 00:38:37,719
Speaker 1: for a while until the time comes. That's why I

611
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:40,799
Speaker 1: break out my drugged potion, break out my dagger. About

612
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:42,839
Speaker 1: a being about a boom, they did not say about

613
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 1: it being about a boom, We're pretty.

614
00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 4: Did they say drugs potion?

615
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 2: Though? Because God, I love that phrase. It just sounds

616
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 2: like a good good time, a drugs potion, I.

617
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:55,440
Speaker 1: Want to breathe. We should refer to things as potions

618
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:58,719
Speaker 1: more often, right, I know there's some like there are

619
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 1: probably some craft brewery that use the phrase alixir. But

620
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 1: let's bring back potion.

621
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:06,239
Speaker 2: Oh well, remember Philip Seymour Hoffman's character and the Paul

622
00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 2: Thomas Anderson movie The Master. He was really taken by

623
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 2: Freddie Joaquin Phoenix is kind of unhinged, like you know

624
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 2: that character, because he would make this hoots out of

625
00:39:18,080 --> 00:39:23,320
Speaker 2: rocket fuel and like you know, photography, chemicals and and

626
00:39:23,320 --> 00:39:25,799
Speaker 2: and this character of Phil tim Hoffin's character refers to

627
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 2: it as give me another taste of that delectable potion,

628
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 2: love it or something.

629
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:37,920
Speaker 1: About pots bring back potions. Uh, that's okay. So so

630
00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:41,880
Speaker 1: we've mentioned this special core. The people were actually doing

631
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:45,680
Speaker 1: the assassinations. They're sometimes also known as the Fedayin.

632
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:46,319
Speaker 2: Uh.

633
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:50,239
Speaker 1: They they were very very effective, and they were very

634
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:57,000
Speaker 1: very selective. They the name translates to those who sacrificed themselves.

635
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 1: They were drilled to this is the most mind blowing part.

636
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 1: So they weren't just drilled to accept the possibility of

637
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:11,720
Speaker 1: death or the possibility of torture. They were taught to

638
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:16,719
Speaker 1: find and eliminate their target and then wait to be

639
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 1: discovered and then willingly submit to torture execution. That's terrible

640
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 1: for the individual, but imagine how amazing that is for

641
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:25,680
Speaker 1: the order.

642
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:29,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, setting a precedent that this is going to

643
00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 3: this is what's going to happen. You know who did it,

644
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 3: and you don't get any information out of them and

645
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 3: you can torture them until they die. And oh god,

646
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 3: how many are there? Wait, there are a lot of

647
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:41,600
Speaker 3: them like this.

648
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:46,359
Speaker 1: We'll send another one. Yeah, exactly, and a lot of assassination,

649
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:48,799
Speaker 1: as we'll see in part two of this series, is

650
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:51,600
Speaker 1: about sending a message, and that's what they were doing.

651
00:40:52,239 --> 00:40:56,920
Speaker 1: So we would today consider this a kind of asymmetrical warfare.

652
00:40:57,360 --> 00:41:00,080
Speaker 1: Why do you fight an entire network? Why do you

653
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 1: attempt to go against an entire system when you can

654
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 1: pop one link in the chain, right, you can get

655
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:10,320
Speaker 1: that individual dot at the top of the command structure,

656
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 1: and you can create all the results you aimed to achieve.

657
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:20,680
Speaker 1: You sow discord, you make the opponent squander their resources,

658
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:26,319
Speaker 1: and you make them expect even more terrible things from

659
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:29,440
Speaker 1: you in the future, and you put them on the defensive.

660
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 1: So there. I don't know, it can play out one

661
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:35,560
Speaker 1: hundred different ways. But one example of this comes to

662
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:37,920
Speaker 1: us in ten ninety two. Just to give you an

663
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:42,240
Speaker 1: actual snapshot of how this group successfully conspired and carried

664
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:44,319
Speaker 1: out these murders.

665
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:49,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this example comes to us from ten ninety two.

666
00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:55,080
Speaker 3: This is when this group of assassins murdered or assassinated

667
00:41:56,080 --> 00:42:00,720
Speaker 3: the visier Nizam al Mulk. He was a powerful member

668
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 3: of the Soljuk Sultanate, and the records that were available

669
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:11,839
Speaker 3: from that time they say that Nasari disguised himself as

670
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:17,040
Speaker 3: a Sufi mystic and was able to infiltrate, get in close,

671
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 3: close enough to stab this person and kill them.

672
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 1: Pray with me, my son.

673
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:34,839
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, it's intense. And this assassination had a real

674
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:37,360
Speaker 3: domino effect, as we've been describing.

675
00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:40,319
Speaker 1: Exactly because shortly after the murder of Nazam al Muk,

676
00:42:40,880 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 1: who was sort of think of him like if the

677
00:42:46,560 --> 00:42:50,520
Speaker 1: sultan is the president, this guy is one of the

678
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:54,399
Speaker 1: secretaries of the cabinet kind of, so it's as if

679
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 1: a secretary of the cabinet was murdered. People are freaking out.

680
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:03,560
Speaker 1: And then at little bit later, the sultan himself, Sultan

681
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 1: Malik Shah, is murdered. And at this point historians argue

682
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:10,839
Speaker 1: back and forth over whether that second murder was the assassins,

683
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:15,959
Speaker 1: but it doesn't matter because this domino effect goes into

684
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:20,520
Speaker 1: play very quickly. The Seljuks and chaos. Who is supposed

685
00:43:20,560 --> 00:43:25,839
Speaker 1: to be in charge here there are people wearing disguises

686
00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:30,440
Speaker 1: and killing us like I can't trust anyone. You know,

687
00:43:30,719 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: what about that guy, how long has he been in town? Well,

688
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:36,640
Speaker 1: that guy says he grew up here, but is that true?

689
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:46,719
Speaker 1: And then the attacks continued. The assassins started killing more rulers, generals, governors, clerics,

690
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:52,480
Speaker 1: anyone anyone who was seen in their eyes as an enemy.

691
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:56,480
Speaker 1: And they seemed to be everywhere and nowhere. You know

692
00:43:56,520 --> 00:43:59,000
Speaker 1: what I mean. There's not an official uniform. It could

693
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 1: be the mystic next to you, It could be the

694
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:05,080
Speaker 1: merchant two stalls down in the marketplace. So people got

695
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:10,319
Speaker 1: really paranoid, right, They started hiring bodyguards even if they

696
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: thought they might not be the number one target. They

697
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:17,319
Speaker 1: wanted to also wear chain mail under their clothing, like

698
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 1: think about these are terroristic tactics.

699
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:23,480
Speaker 3: You know, Ben, It's really this is very reminiscent to

700
00:44:23,560 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 3: the fear that permeated the United States, and I would

701
00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:28,040
Speaker 3: say a lot of the Western world and probably the

702
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 3: entire world following the September eleventh attacks of two thousand

703
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 3: and one, where it felt like anybody could be a target, right.

704
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:38,240
Speaker 2: Even folks that were separated from like big urban centers

705
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:42,120
Speaker 2: like in Middle America really felt vulnerable in that way

706
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:44,279
Speaker 2: where maybe there's a sense of oh, we're away from

707
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:46,759
Speaker 2: all the big cities, we're somehow safe or not on

708
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:49,560
Speaker 2: the radar. But that whole kind of comfort level really

709
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:50,320
Speaker 2: went out the window.

710
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for very good reason. You know. I mean,

711
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:55,799
Speaker 1: humans back then aren't that different from humans today. We

712
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:59,200
Speaker 1: just have more toys. We're talking about the assassins in

713
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 1: the past tense at least this group, this origin story,

714
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:07,560
Speaker 1: because eventually they did fall. They were active and effective

715
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 1: for the better part of three centuries, and they continued

716
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:14,520
Speaker 1: after the death of their founder. The Old Man in

717
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:18,240
Speaker 1: the Mountain died in eleven twenty four sometime around then,

718
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:21,799
Speaker 1: and the sect continued without him. In eleven thirty eight,

719
00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:28,600
Speaker 1: his successor, one buzurg Umid died died as well. I'm

720
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 1: laughing because we know the date of his death thanks

721
00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 1: to their big fans, the Sunni chroniclers. One Sunny chronicler

722
00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 1: described his death in the following way. He says, brazog

723
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:46,959
Speaker 1: Omed died crushed under the heel of perdition, so hell

724
00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 1: was heated by the fuel of his carcass.

725
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:54,440
Speaker 2: Oh man, the sick burn very very literally hah, very

726
00:45:54,560 --> 00:45:59,120
Speaker 2: very visual. Wow, what a what a wonderful wonderfully hateful

727
00:45:59,160 --> 00:45:59,880
Speaker 2: way of referring to this.

728
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very I spit on your grave style, as

729
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:09,280
Speaker 1: obituaries go. But the order continued on, and that means

730
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 1: that the murders, especially of high ranking Sunni figures, continued.

731
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:17,600
Speaker 1: In the eleven sixties, leadership fell to Hassan the second

732
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:22,320
Speaker 1: Hassan too. He took the branch in a different theological direction.

733
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:24,840
Speaker 1: Now this is really interesting. Remember we talked about the

734
00:46:24,920 --> 00:46:29,879
Speaker 1: propaganda saying, look, implying heavily like, look, these guys aren't

735
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:34,840
Speaker 1: even real Muslims. They pork, they're marrying their siblings. Don't

736
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:40,040
Speaker 1: fall for the hype. But Hassan two did something interesting.

737
00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:43,600
Speaker 1: He said, you know, if you're a true believer, if

738
00:46:43,640 --> 00:46:47,160
Speaker 1: you're willing to die for this cause, you are relieved.

739
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:51,319
Speaker 1: You are absolved from moral customs, pray when you can

740
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:54,000
Speaker 1: where you can. If you can't turn the direction of Mecca,

741
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:57,520
Speaker 1: that's fine. You can do things they're regarded as openly

742
00:46:57,600 --> 00:47:02,000
Speaker 1: sinful as well, because you were ultimately in service of,

743
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 1: wait for it, the greater good.

744
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:06,560
Speaker 4: Snap.

745
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:09,239
Speaker 3: I didn't realize it was the greater good that this

746
00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 3: whole thing was about.

747
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:12,880
Speaker 1: Okay, cool, well, changes everything, right? I mean, it's the

748
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:16,919
Speaker 1: greater good. It's not the regular good anyway, that it's

749
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:20,200
Speaker 1: the next level good, it's the most goodest.

750
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:22,520
Speaker 4: But that's such an Argument's it's just a.

751
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 2: Common argument for doing terrible things throughout history, in politics

752
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:29,359
Speaker 2: and war, and it's, oh, it's for the greater good. Yeah,

753
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:32,200
Speaker 2: we got to murder all these people, but it's okay

754
00:47:32,239 --> 00:47:35,799
Speaker 2: because you know, the greater good will benefit. So don't

755
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:38,279
Speaker 2: think about this thing, think about the big picture. It's

756
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 2: just it's a way of pivoting responsibility from the you know,

757
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:43,879
Speaker 2: the people that are actually doing the bad, the bad

758
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:47,760
Speaker 2: stuff to I don't know, like it's it's it's interesting

759
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:51,000
Speaker 2: because the greater good too, is also very very subjective, right,

760
00:47:51,080 --> 00:47:51,960
Speaker 2: what that even means?

761
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:52,760
Speaker 1: Yeah?

762
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:55,479
Speaker 3: But why why why isn't it the greatest good?

763
00:47:56,840 --> 00:48:00,640
Speaker 4: The goodest is called the best? It's for the best.

764
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:02,279
Speaker 4: That people didn't say that too, don't they.

765
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:04,759
Speaker 2: It's for the best, but it means something different, doesn't it?

766
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:08,120
Speaker 2: For the best just means well, come see comes uh. Yeah,

767
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:09,680
Speaker 2: it's just that's just the way it went, and it

768
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:11,719
Speaker 2: was for it was for the best. It's a lie

769
00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:14,480
Speaker 2: we tell ourselves, which I believe, so is the greater good.

770
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:17,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I maybe we should Maybe we should

771
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:20,279
Speaker 1: think about it as we'll just make up a word here,

772
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:23,319
Speaker 1: will churchify a little? Maybe we should think about it as, uh,

773
00:48:24,440 --> 00:48:29,000
Speaker 1: the good osity, the speed and direction of a given good. Right,

774
00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 1: because yes, so you know your mileage may vary in

775
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:38,000
Speaker 1: terms of where you what direction you feel is good,

776
00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:41,520
Speaker 1: and what speed you feel is good. That's a weird one,

777
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:46,680
Speaker 1: but it is important for this episode, this period, you know, like, hey,

778
00:48:47,640 --> 00:48:49,920
Speaker 1: throw some of the rules out of the window. We

779
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:53,840
Speaker 1: can cut some corners, because ultimately we have to remember

780
00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:55,360
Speaker 1: we're the good guys.

781
00:48:55,920 --> 00:48:58,840
Speaker 4: Uh, this is probably what are we the goodest guys?

782
00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:00,920
Speaker 1: But are we the goodest guys? What's our good osity?

783
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:06,319
Speaker 1: But this probably influenced Marco Polo as a matter of fact,

784
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:10,799
Speaker 1: it certainly influenced what he wrote later. And then Europeans

785
00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:15,440
Speaker 1: read that, and it didn't matter. Remember we print retractions

786
00:49:15,600 --> 00:49:17,880
Speaker 1: in the back of the paper, right, it didn't matter

787
00:49:18,440 --> 00:49:24,160
Speaker 1: that later the sect went back to a more strict

788
00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:28,440
Speaker 1: or austere interpretation of Islam. The damage was done, and

789
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:31,600
Speaker 1: everybody who didn't like these folks, Christian and Muslim alike,

790
00:49:32,040 --> 00:49:36,879
Speaker 1: was able to say, well, are they really some sort

791
00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:40,400
Speaker 1: of religious warriors. They don't even bother following the rules

792
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 1: at home, you know, which is a great argument to make,

793
00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:45,919
Speaker 1: and that's part of why no one came to help

794
00:49:45,960 --> 00:49:51,400
Speaker 1: in the thirteenth century when Mongol invaders breached the stronghold.

795
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:55,200
Speaker 1: They breached Alamuk Castle in twelve fifty six, and they

796
00:49:55,239 --> 00:49:58,919
Speaker 1: put an end to the Nazari the Assassins, at.

797
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:05,040
Speaker 3: Least that's what we believe, right exactly.

798
00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:09,760
Speaker 2: Guys, do you have any favorite assassin sects from pop culture?

799
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:13,840
Speaker 2: From video games, from movies, TV series, books. I really

800
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:16,759
Speaker 2: like the Faceless Men from Game of Thrones. I think

801
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:20,880
Speaker 2: that's one of the coolest assassin sects in literature in

802
00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:22,360
Speaker 2: a lot of ways. I'm wondering if you guys have

803
00:50:22,400 --> 00:50:25,000
Speaker 2: any other cool references for folks to check out.

804
00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 3: For me, is the Elder Scrolls one Ben, remind me

805
00:50:28,680 --> 00:50:33,000
Speaker 3: what that is? The the Dark Brotherhood. Yeah, Dark Brotherhood.

806
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:34,680
Speaker 3: I dig that they're great.

807
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:38,520
Speaker 1: They have the same taste in logos as us as well. Yeah,

808
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:42,520
Speaker 1: then there's of course the Assassins and Assassin's creed. They're

809
00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:45,839
Speaker 1: more of like an anti hero kind of vibe. And

810
00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:51,920
Speaker 1: then I would say Faceless Men is great assassin groups.

811
00:50:52,360 --> 00:50:56,239
Speaker 1: I guess you could say, you know, it's weird. Is

812
00:50:57,200 --> 00:50:58,600
Speaker 1: James Bond in Assassin?

813
00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:04,040
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, eat as he is, he contains multitudes. Yeah,

814
00:51:04,080 --> 00:51:06,080
Speaker 4: he definitely does assassinate people for sure.

815
00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:09,520
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like the Kingsman's vibe, you know what I mean.

816
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:13,279
Speaker 1: I like the gadgets in the suits. And these are

817
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:17,960
Speaker 1: all these are all cultural artifacts or cultural descendants of

818
00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:22,239
Speaker 1: this real life group, the Assassins, because even after they

819
00:51:22,280 --> 00:51:25,960
Speaker 1: were wiped out, the word assassin had passed into the

820
00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:29,120
Speaker 1: common parlance in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and you

821
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:33,040
Speaker 1: can trace it through fiction and entertainment all the way

822
00:51:33,080 --> 00:51:35,440
Speaker 1: to the modern day. And I think is that part

823
00:51:35,440 --> 00:51:37,359
Speaker 1: of what you're getting at here a little bit?

824
00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:41,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean for sure, it's certainly something that has

825
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:45,319
Speaker 2: captured the imagination of folks that are into this sort

826
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:48,400
Speaker 2: of thing, you know, fantasy and fiction, because there is

827
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:52,400
Speaker 2: this sense of, like like you said, Matt, the Assassin's

828
00:51:52,440 --> 00:51:54,239
Speaker 2: cree character is almost an anti hero, but at the

829
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:57,480
Speaker 2: same time you root for them, you know, so the

830
00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:00,279
Speaker 2: Assassins will always have to be the bad guy. But

831
00:52:00,360 --> 00:52:02,279
Speaker 2: one thing I think the interesting about Assassins that we

832
00:52:02,320 --> 00:52:05,759
Speaker 2: haven't really touched on is that by nature they're sort

833
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:10,000
Speaker 2: of not a moral but like they are a tool,

834
00:52:10,200 --> 00:52:13,440
Speaker 2: especially the faceless men. They don't take a stance politically.

835
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:16,759
Speaker 2: They just do whatever they're paid to do, which I

836
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 2: think is a really interesting facet of being an assassin.

837
00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 2: It's like we talked about having a political motivation or

838
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:27,799
Speaker 2: you know, some zealoty, you know, zelotry kind of driven ideology,

839
00:52:28,080 --> 00:52:30,600
Speaker 2: But aren't assassins usually kind of just a tool of

840
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:33,560
Speaker 2: whoever's paying them and they don't really have a stance.

841
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:37,799
Speaker 3: Well see that's where you bring things like the assassins

842
00:52:38,239 --> 00:52:41,600
Speaker 3: that exist in John Wick in the John Wick universe.

843
00:52:41,719 --> 00:52:44,080
Speaker 4: Right, that's a that's I love that.

844
00:52:44,280 --> 00:52:47,680
Speaker 3: I love those, But yeah, you pay for a job, right,

845
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:51,520
Speaker 3: I mean they're hit men, right, more so than political

846
00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:54,680
Speaker 3: tools or something like that. I don't know.

847
00:52:54,719 --> 00:52:58,840
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, we started off the episode talking about semantics,

848
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:01,560
Speaker 2: and I think we're still hovering in this gray area

849
00:53:01,600 --> 00:53:02,760
Speaker 2: of like what is an assassin?

850
00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:03,719
Speaker 4: What is a hit man?

851
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:06,160
Speaker 2: We know what a murderer is, we know what manslaughter

852
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:09,120
Speaker 2: is or human murder, what would you call it?

853
00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 3: It's human death. But it's it's defined, I mean, it

854
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:17,280
Speaker 3: is pretty clearly defined at least in the common usage

855
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:22,200
Speaker 3: in English usage as a political killing, right, I mean

856
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:25,279
Speaker 3: or killing of importance.

857
00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:28,719
Speaker 1: In the modern day. You know, but think about like

858
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:32,760
Speaker 1: it's it's weird because the motivation can be spread across

859
00:53:32,880 --> 00:53:37,160
Speaker 1: multiple individuals. Right. I am the owner and CEO of

860
00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:45,040
Speaker 1: United coum Quats Global Incorporated, LLC, whatever, And I am

861
00:53:45,360 --> 00:53:50,920
Speaker 1: so tired of the government that of the government that

862
00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:54,560
Speaker 1: rules the land where most of my common quat plantations are.

863
00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:58,239
Speaker 1: And so I am motivated to kill them and have

864
00:53:58,320 --> 00:54:02,480
Speaker 1: them replaced with a government that's more pro kum quat

865
00:54:02,719 --> 00:54:05,319
Speaker 1: or pro pro my organization.

866
00:54:05,080 --> 00:54:07,960
Speaker 4: More sympathetic to the kum quat lobby, right.

867
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:13,720
Speaker 1: And so my motivation, my motivation is financial gain and power.

868
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:17,560
Speaker 1: So I enlist the help of a let's say, a

869
00:54:17,719 --> 00:54:24,000
Speaker 1: religious sect or offshoot of secessionists in that country, and

870
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:27,200
Speaker 1: they kill the prime minister or the president for me.

871
00:54:27,880 --> 00:54:30,000
Speaker 1: They may be doing it because they're getting paid. They

872
00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:32,920
Speaker 1: may be doing it because they believe their religion will

873
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:37,400
Speaker 1: be better represented by a different government. So the thing is,

874
00:54:37,440 --> 00:54:39,360
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, the prime minister is

875
00:54:39,440 --> 00:54:43,440
Speaker 1: dead and the villains walk away happy.

876
00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, and United kum Quat is victorious. I got really

877
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:50,080
Speaker 3: I felt in coverall every time we said that word.

878
00:54:50,200 --> 00:54:50,560
Speaker 1: I love it.

879
00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:51,640
Speaker 2: Isn't that like?

880
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:54,480
Speaker 4: Is that a tiny orange? Isn't that what a kumquat is?

881
00:54:54,480 --> 00:54:56,440
Speaker 4: It's like a little tiny or what do you even

882
00:54:56,520 --> 00:54:57,719
Speaker 4: do with them? Do you just eat them? With the

883
00:54:57,800 --> 00:54:58,920
Speaker 4: skin on and everything?

884
00:54:59,000 --> 00:54:59,120
Speaker 3: Like?

885
00:54:59,560 --> 00:55:01,360
Speaker 2: It seems like an awful lot to peel such a

886
00:55:01,400 --> 00:55:03,560
Speaker 2: tiny fruit. I would imagine you would just pop it

887
00:55:03,640 --> 00:55:04,360
Speaker 2: right in your mouth.

888
00:55:04,680 --> 00:55:08,239
Speaker 1: It's like the size of an olive. Yeah, but it's

889
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:12,000
Speaker 1: like it's citral. It looks like an orange and shape

890
00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:15,160
Speaker 1: and color. I don't know. I just chose it as

891
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:16,080
Speaker 1: a memorable.

892
00:55:16,120 --> 00:55:17,000
Speaker 4: No, it's a beautiful word.

893
00:55:17,160 --> 00:55:20,600
Speaker 2: So could we maybe say that not all hits are assassinations,

894
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:22,320
Speaker 2: but all assassinations are hits.

895
00:55:22,719 --> 00:55:25,279
Speaker 3: Perhaps that's kind of what we said at the top.

896
00:55:25,480 --> 00:55:28,560
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, just to just to leave it with that

897
00:55:28,600 --> 00:55:31,719
Speaker 2: from my own, you know, Clariff clarity, I think this

898
00:55:31,760 --> 00:55:33,399
Speaker 2: is so fascinating. But I think it's interesting how there's

899
00:55:33,440 --> 00:55:35,799
Speaker 2: that intersection, because it all depends on the prominence and

900
00:55:35,840 --> 00:55:40,600
Speaker 2: perhaps the end result, you know, as to whether it

901
00:55:40,719 --> 00:55:42,279
Speaker 2: qualifies as an assassination.

902
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:46,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, And speaking of end results, here we are we

903
00:55:46,600 --> 00:55:50,160
Speaker 1: know that the military might of this group or what

904
00:55:50,680 --> 00:55:55,000
Speaker 1: or the assassinatory might of this group faded over time,

905
00:55:55,480 --> 00:56:00,320
Speaker 1: but it's important to note the faith itself survived and

906
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:03,960
Speaker 1: doesn't have anything to do with assassinations, So we want

907
00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:07,960
Speaker 1: to be very careful not to vilify this religious community.

908
00:56:08,320 --> 00:56:12,240
Speaker 1: You can find Ismaili in twenty five different countries today,

909
00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:15,759
Speaker 1: at least Central and South Asia, Africa, the Middle East.

910
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:20,960
Speaker 1: The reputation of the group we refer to as assassins nowadays,

911
00:56:21,040 --> 00:56:24,480
Speaker 1: I think we built a pretty good case. It was

912
00:56:24,520 --> 00:56:28,640
Speaker 1: founded on some exaggerations by their enemies, right, some propaganda,

913
00:56:29,120 --> 00:56:33,040
Speaker 1: but their tactics were effective and it's strange to realize

914
00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:35,480
Speaker 1: that such a small group of people could have such

915
00:56:35,520 --> 00:56:41,120
Speaker 1: a profound impact on history. More importantly, it's disturbing to

916
00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:46,400
Speaker 1: realize just how much influence and inspiration they gave to

917
00:56:46,960 --> 00:56:51,879
Speaker 1: their imitators ever since. And that's where we end today's episode.

918
00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:56,440
Speaker 1: How much of an impact do you think, fellow conspiracy realists,

919
00:56:56,680 --> 00:56:59,919
Speaker 1: that the Assassins had on the world in their time,

920
00:57:00,440 --> 00:57:05,200
Speaker 1: and how much of that impact, if any, remains with

921
00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:06,719
Speaker 1: us in the modern day.

922
00:57:07,680 --> 00:57:10,799
Speaker 3: That's a great question, and can't wait to hear what

923
00:57:10,880 --> 00:57:16,240
Speaker 3: you all think this is going to conclude this episode

924
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:21,800
Speaker 3: of assassins, but guess what, there's another one coming. We're

925
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:26,160
Speaker 3: going to delve into more modern day assassins. We're going

926
00:57:26,200 --> 00:57:29,040
Speaker 3: to get closer to the present. Are there still people

927
00:57:29,200 --> 00:57:34,480
Speaker 3: out there in groups that are specifically designed and operated

928
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:38,320
Speaker 3: to commit assassinations? I bet you know the answer to that,

929
00:57:38,880 --> 00:57:40,520
Speaker 3: at least a little bit. We're going to tell you

930
00:57:40,600 --> 00:57:42,520
Speaker 3: all about it next episode.

931
00:57:42,720 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 2: In the meantime, right as tell us your favorite assassin

932
00:57:45,920 --> 00:57:50,200
Speaker 2: groups or individuals Lone Wolf assassins from pop culture. We'd

933
00:57:50,240 --> 00:57:51,800
Speaker 2: love to hear all about it. You can find us

934
00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:54,280
Speaker 2: on the usual social media spots. I think our preferred

935
00:57:54,600 --> 00:57:57,560
Speaker 2: place on the Internet are Our happy place is the

936
00:57:57,640 --> 00:57:59,919
Speaker 2: Here's where it Gets Crazy Facebook group. You can join

937
00:57:59,920 --> 00:58:03,880
Speaker 2: the conversation there. I'm sure this is gonna generate some

938
00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:07,320
Speaker 2: great memes and posts from you and your fellow conspiracy realist,

939
00:58:07,400 --> 00:58:09,760
Speaker 2: So check that out Here's where it Gets Crazy on Facebook.

940
00:58:09,800 --> 00:58:12,200
Speaker 2: Just name one of anybody involved in the show some

941
00:58:12,240 --> 00:58:14,000
Speaker 2: reference to let us know that you're a real human

942
00:58:14,040 --> 00:58:15,000
Speaker 2: being and you are.

943
00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:20,080
Speaker 1: In And if you don't care to communicate via social media,

944
00:58:20,360 --> 00:58:25,320
Speaker 1: unless you use really up twosemeans like the Lake City

945
00:58:25,400 --> 00:58:28,800
Speaker 1: Quiet pills. Guys, then go ahead and just give us

946
00:58:28,800 --> 00:58:32,920
Speaker 1: a phone call, you know, loop ma bell into this conversation.

947
00:58:33,560 --> 00:58:38,120
Speaker 1: Hit us up. We're one eight three three std WYTK.

948
00:58:38,360 --> 00:58:42,200
Speaker 1: You've got three minutes. You'll just hear a voicemail and

949
00:58:42,880 --> 00:58:45,160
Speaker 1: it'll set you up. Let us know your thoughts about

950
00:58:45,160 --> 00:58:48,440
Speaker 1: anything related to this episode, suggestions for a future episode

951
00:58:48,480 --> 00:58:51,800
Speaker 1: you think your fellow listeners would enjoy, and most importantly,

952
00:58:52,160 --> 00:58:54,840
Speaker 1: let us know whether or not you are comfortable with

953
00:58:54,920 --> 00:58:57,600
Speaker 1: us using your name and or voice on air.

954
00:58:58,040 --> 00:59:02,600
Speaker 3: Don't forget to head over to YouTube slash conspiracy stuff.

955
00:59:03,040 --> 00:59:06,640
Speaker 3: It's the channel that's been around for many, many a

956
00:59:06,720 --> 00:59:11,640
Speaker 3: year and we are uploading videos again with these conversations

957
00:59:11,680 --> 00:59:16,680
Speaker 3: with our faces. You know, hopefully you're into that. We

958
00:59:17,040 --> 00:59:23,840
Speaker 3: think it's okay. Yeah, well, please subscribe. Let other people know,

959
00:59:23,920 --> 00:59:26,120
Speaker 3: if you know, share that stuff out if you if

960
00:59:26,160 --> 00:59:28,640
Speaker 3: you feel inclined. One other thing, if you want to

961
00:59:28,720 --> 00:59:32,440
Speaker 3: and you feel inclined, please leave a review on Apple

962
00:59:32,520 --> 00:59:35,120
Speaker 3: Podcasts for this show. It really does help us out,

963
00:59:35,360 --> 00:59:38,560
Speaker 3: makes us a little more visible to uh, to everybody

964
00:59:38,640 --> 00:59:41,280
Speaker 3: else and uh. If you don't want to do any

965
00:59:41,320 --> 00:59:44,400
Speaker 3: of that stuff, but you still want to connect with us,

966
00:59:44,840 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 3: send us a good old fashioned email.

967
00:59:47,080 --> 01:00:08,560
Speaker 2: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

968
01:00:08,800 --> 01:00:10,840
Speaker 3: Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production

969
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:15,479
Speaker 3: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

970
01:00:15,560 --> 01:00:19,040
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.