Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. When duty calls, it's hard to keep some
Speaker 1: people away from the fight. They'll ignore any impediments that
Speaker 1: might jeopardize their survival simply out of a desire to
Speaker 1: defend their home or country. But while a bad leg
Speaker 1: or limited eye sight might not seem like a hindrance
Speaker 1: to them, it could put their fellow soldiers in trouble
Speaker 1: at the worst possible moment. Samuel Whitmore, however, didn't care
Speaker 1: about any of that. In fact, on the very first
Speaker 1: day of the Revolutionary War in seventeen seventy five, he
Speaker 1: defied all the odds by charging into battle when he
Speaker 1: should have been at home instead. As the old joke goes,
Speaker 1: Whitmore was born at a young age in Charlestown, Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: After education and marriage, he and his wife started a family. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that domestic life would be turned upside down by international conflict.
Speaker 1: He enlisted with the third Massachusetts Regiment during King George's War,
Speaker 1: where he fought the Crown. In fact, his involvement with
Speaker 1: the forces of Colonel Jeremiah Molton took him all the
Speaker 1: way up to Nova Scotia, where he helped capture the
Speaker 1: fortress of Louisburg from the French. He also managed to
Speaker 1: capture a beautiful ornate saber belonging to a French officer,
Speaker 1: which he took home as a souvenir. Some years later
Speaker 1: he returned to war, this time against Chief Pantiac of
Speaker 1: the Ottawa in the Great Lakes region. Fun unrelated fact,
Speaker 1: I grew up near the Illinois towns of both Pantiac
Speaker 1: and Ottawa. It has no bearing on the story, but
Speaker 1: reading those names compelled me to tell you, and now
Speaker 1: you own, Chief Pontiac. Youcy had taken up arms with
Speaker 1: other Native Americans against the British. He and his men
Speaker 1: objected to the deadly policies put forth by General Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Amherst and attacked a number of English forts in the area,
Speaker 1: killing dozens of colonists in the process. Whitmore and other
Speaker 1: English troops went up against Pontiac, killing many of the
Speaker 1: native warriors. According to legend, he defeated one adversary in
Speaker 1: hand to hand combat and took a pair of dueling
Speaker 1: pistols from the warrior's body afterward. Whitmore eventually moved to
Speaker 1: the town of Monotomy, which exists as part of present
Speaker 1: day Arlington, Massachusetts. He became a farmer and it seemed
Speaker 1: like his fighting days were over. From now on, any
Speaker 1: battles would be those of words, not rifles. In seventeen
Speaker 1: sixty six, following the British repeal of the Stamp Act,
Speaker 1: the town elected Whitmore as part of a committee to
Speaker 1: inform Massachusetts General Court Representative Andrew Boardman on how to vote.
Speaker 1: Whitmore and the other committee members were wary of the
Speaker 1: British and their countless acts and taxes, and even though
Speaker 1: the Stamp Act is repealed this time, they remained suspicious.
Speaker 1: In their instructions to Boardman, the committee told him to
Speaker 1: always be watchful of any further danger coming from Parliament.
Speaker 1: Whitmore was also elected to the Massachusetts Committee of Convention,
Speaker 1: where he voiced his opposition to various revenue acts. He
Speaker 1: also spoke out against the King's requirement that Boston provide
Speaker 1: living quarters for the British soldiers occupying the city. Whitmore's
Speaker 1: uneasiness only grew. A new war was brewing in the colonies,
Speaker 1: and this time, despite fighting for the British before, he
Speaker 1: would defend the people of his province instead. On April
Speaker 1: nineteenth of seventeen seventy five, the British quickly realized that
Speaker 1: they were outgunned against the colonial minutemen and retreated from
Speaker 1: Lexington and conquered to Boston. On their way back to
Speaker 1: the city, they passed by Samuel Whitmore's farm, where he
Speaker 1: was tending his fields. When Whitmore caught sight of them,
Speaker 1: he dropped what he was doing, fetched his musket, and
Speaker 1: opened fire from behind a stone wall. After his first
Speaker 1: shot took out one soldier, he dropped his musket, pulled
Speaker 1: out his twin dueling pistols, and shot two more. By then,
Speaker 1: another group of British soldiers had figured out where he
Speaker 1: was hiding and rushed for him. Before they could reach him,
Speaker 1: he drew his saber and charged towards them, but the
Speaker 1: Red Coats had the upper hand. They shot him in
Speaker 1: the face, then bayonetted him several times before butting him
Speaker 1: with their rifles. Whittemore was left on the ground bleeding
Speaker 1: to death. He was seventy three years old. A group
Speaker 1: of colonial soldiers eventually found him and took him to
Speaker 1: a doctor a few miles away. Things looked grim and
Speaker 1: he wasn't expected to make it through the night, not
Speaker 1: after such a brutal attack, but survive he did. Samuel
Speaker 1: Whitmore was one tough soldier, and he lived for eighteen
Speaker 1: more years, eventually dying in seventeen three at the ripe
Speaker 1: old age of nineties six. He had spent much of
Speaker 1: his life fighting, and he never let his age or
Speaker 1: being stabbed, shot and beaten keep him down, and in
Speaker 1: the process he proved the old saying to be true,
Speaker 1: what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. The Edo
Speaker 1: area of Japanese history is something like a bloody soap
Speaker 1: opera when you really look closely at it. A bunch
Speaker 1: of regional rulers engaged in territorial disputes, striking alliances to
Speaker 1: advance their goals, and very little effort toward anything even
Speaker 1: remotely resembling unification, not to mention the severe class lines
Speaker 1: preventing any sort of merit based advancement and focused entirely
Speaker 1: on bloodlines and birth. It's not exactly the kind of
Speaker 1: stage where you'd expect to see a hammer blow against inequality,
Speaker 1: but that's exactly what we find in the unsuspecting character
Speaker 1: of Daimio Oda Nobanaga. No Banaga was something of a
Speaker 1: visionary with all of the side effects that usually come
Speaker 1: with it, a dacious, daring, perhaps even a bit well unhinged,
Speaker 1: but he had the bold idea to unify Japan, and
Speaker 1: he knew he couldn't do it alone. He also knew
Speaker 1: that in order to accomplish something that had never been
Speaker 1: done before, he'd probably have to try some things that
Speaker 1: had never been tried before, maybe even with some people
Speaker 1: who had never been given a chance before. That included
Speaker 1: giving a peasant like Hideyoshi Toyotomi a chance, and it
Speaker 1: includes seeing past traditional barriers and recognizing the value in
Speaker 1: someone like the man who would be known only as Yasuki.
Speaker 1: When Yasuki arrived in Japan in fifteen seventy nine, he
Speaker 1: must have been quite the site for the local populace,
Speaker 1: arriving alongside a Jesuit named Alessandro Vallegnano Yasuki served as
Speaker 1: bodyguard for the religious man, and an imposing one at that.
Speaker 1: Yasuki boasted a frame that stood over six ft tall,
Speaker 1: with according to onlookers, the strength of ten men, and
Speaker 1: when the average height of a man in Japan at
Speaker 1: the time was around five feet tall, you can see
Speaker 1: how he stood out quite literally. Oda Nobunaga was immediately
Speaker 1: impressed by Yasuki. Perhaps it was just the spectacle of him,
Speaker 1: but being the same man who gave a peasant a chance,
Speaker 1: he extended the opportunity to Yasuki as well to fight
Speaker 1: alongside the man, doing what had never been done before,
Speaker 1: and Yasuki accepted. And while records are scarce as to
Speaker 1: what exactly he did for Nobanaga, it's believed that he
Speaker 1: reprised his role as a bodyguard for the Japanese warlord
Speaker 1: and in the process became quite close with him. In
Speaker 1: Fight two, Nobunaga was caught in an ambush at a temple,
Speaker 1: but rather than face defeats, he took his own life
Speaker 1: through the ritual act known as sappuku. And not only
Speaker 1: was Yasuki in the building with him, he very well
Speaker 1: may have been the one to remove Nobanaga's head to
Speaker 1: save it from falling into enemy hands. This was something
Speaker 1: that only the nearest and dearest vassals would do, and
Speaker 1: of all the vassals Nobanaga had a massed at the time,
Speaker 1: it was Yasuki who had collected the head. It's fair
Speaker 1: to say that yes Suki kept his head in a
Speaker 1: critical moment, so much so that he ended up keeping
Speaker 1: two heads. It's unclear what, if any larger chord Yasuki
Speaker 1: struck in a war stricken Japan after that ambush in
Speaker 1: two there is no record of him whatsoever. He briefly
Speaker 1: served Nobanaga's son, but the younger Daimyo followed his father
Speaker 1: to the grave. The last we hear of Yasuki he
Speaker 1: was taken during a battle and led to a Jesuit camp.
Speaker 1: Perhaps he became a ronan, a masterless samurai, and wandered
Speaker 1: the land, or perhaps he settled into something loosely resembling
Speaker 1: a retirement. But whatever ended up happening to him, he
Speaker 1: would give the world one of its first glimpses at
Speaker 1: what it looks like when you actively engage in that
Speaker 1: simple principle of treating others the way you'd want to
Speaker 1: be treated. You see Yasuki wasn't like other samurai, not
Speaker 1: just because he was not native to Japan, and not
Speaker 1: just because he was six ft tall and strong as
Speaker 1: a bull, but because he was from an African tribe,
Speaker 1: which made him the first her black samurai. I hope
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Speaker 1: Ye