Speaker 1: Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff you should know from House Stuff, Work Stops
Speaker 1: dot Com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant Um so Chuck. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have a story. All right, it's here. It come back
Speaker 1: with me way back machine. Sure, okay, a couple of
Speaker 1: hours ago. So here we are. It's December. Something really
Speaker 1: bad is about to happen. And sit down in front
Speaker 1: of this TVA, our good friend and hero, Peter Brady,
Speaker 1: is trying out for the school play. It's a story
Speaker 1: of the American Revolution. He tries out for George Washington,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't get it. And in fact, the name
Speaker 1: of this episode that we're sitting here watching on this
Speaker 1: nice brown and orange shag carpeting is called Everybody Can't
Speaker 1: Be George Washington. Peter doesn't get the part of George Washington,
Speaker 1: but he does get another very important part, the part
Speaker 1: of Benedict Donald. Well, at first he's like, hey, it's
Speaker 1: a part, it's a speaking part. I'm pretty happy. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do my best. That was a tree in my
Speaker 1: last six place, right, This is a huge step up
Speaker 1: for him, um, until his classmates point out that Benediccdonald
Speaker 1: was a trader, and since Peter's playing a trader, he
Speaker 1: must be some sort of trader too. So basically the
Speaker 1: whole school turns on him because he's playing Benedictdonald. It's
Speaker 1: really kind of silly. It is silly. And of course
Speaker 1: Peter tries to get out of the play again and again, um,
Speaker 1: affecting laryngitis, pretending as a limp um all of this stuff,
Speaker 1: first saying he forgets his lines, Yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: remember that, and finally successful, and then his dad points
Speaker 1: out that he has turned into a trader. Now Peter
Speaker 1: against the whole class of the whole cast, don't tell me.
Speaker 1: He had a lesson for him, and he sat him
Speaker 1: down and had a talking to. It was a good one.
Speaker 1: It was a good one, um. And so Peter goes
Speaker 1: in and plays Bennedictdonald and knocks it out of the
Speaker 1: park and learned a lesson in the process. But the
Speaker 1: the the whole premise of this episode of Brady Bunch
Speaker 1: is that Peter was suffering from a smear campaign started
Speaker 1: two years before by George Washington, and it was so
Speaker 1: successful that even today, you can get a rise out
Speaker 1: of somebody by calling on Benedict Donald if they've done
Speaker 1: something traitorous. Yeah, and we've learned there are quite a
Speaker 1: few uh synonyms with trader that were in fact notorious traders,
Speaker 1: like if you call someone to Judas or McDonald or what. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that might be popular in some parts of the world.
Speaker 1: But right, but this is the USA. Sure, so we
Speaker 1: called people Benned McDonald's. That's right. Um, well, let's talk
Speaker 1: about this. Let's talk about benediccdonald to start. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, first of all, we should point out that
Speaker 1: this is a curated show from our buddy Sam tea Garden.
Speaker 1: This is the Summer of Sam. Then, yeah, we're continuing
Speaker 1: into our second summer of Sam. And for those of
Speaker 1: these don't know, Sam is a local fan of ours
Speaker 1: and uh a good kid and he's he's actually on
Speaker 1: our TV show. He was in an episode to make
Speaker 1: an episode. Yah is one of our softball teammates. And uh,
Speaker 1: Sam's a good guy and he sends in great ideas,
Speaker 1: so we like to highlight them when we uh do them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, the summer Sam, Hey Sam, hope you're doing well, buddy. Um,
Speaker 1: where we about Benned Iccdonald and why there was such
Speaker 1: a smear campaign against him, and turns out rightfully so,
Speaker 1: although possibly I think a lot of Arnold's side of
Speaker 1: the story has been lost to history. Well. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: coincidentally or not coincidentally, some of these traders that we're
Speaker 1: going to mention today, history is born out that they
Speaker 1: may not have been traders, but been an eternal definitely was.
Speaker 1: So he was a documented trader and as traitorous and
Speaker 1: treasonous as you can get, as as far as in
Speaker 1: the context of war. Yeah. So, early on in life
Speaker 1: things started out pretty well. He was born into some
Speaker 1: wealth um, but his family um, specifically his father squandered
Speaker 1: their fortune with some bad business dealings. Apparently he was
Speaker 1: quite a drinker. He turned into the town drunk. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: that'll do it. They lost their family estate because they
Speaker 1: lost their dough. Three of his sisters are sorry siblings
Speaker 1: died from yellow fever. He had to drop out of school.
Speaker 1: He became an apothecary. Yeah, so things weren't like Rosie
Speaker 1: for the guy, although he did quite well later on
Speaker 1: in the military. Well, he did quite well even before
Speaker 1: or that as a merchant and actually by the age
Speaker 1: of twenty two, was able to buy back his family's estate,
Speaker 1: which he then turned around and sold it a profit.
Speaker 1: Well good for him. So I guess he wasn't the
Speaker 1: sentimental type for this the state. Yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: wasn't that he wanted his his family's a state back.
Speaker 1: He just didn't want to lose out on the potential
Speaker 1: profit from it, I guess. Yeah. And he seemed like
Speaker 1: he may have been like a d D before there
Speaker 1: was a d D. Yeah. Yeah, from the sounds of
Speaker 1: reading his thing, I was just like, man, he this
Speaker 1: kid had a d D. He was always in trouble.
Speaker 1: He's getting kicked out of school, but it was just
Speaker 1: because he was like busy. Yeah, he wasn't like a
Speaker 1: bad kid. It seemed like he was just always had
Speaker 1: something going on. He finally, I guess, found his niche
Speaker 1: and it did become quite a businessman, um and fabulously wealthy.
Speaker 1: But he wasn't wealthy enough in his opinion, and in
Speaker 1: fact joined the Sons of Liberty, the revolutionary group in
Speaker 1: New England. Um because he was mad that his riches
Speaker 1: were being taxed by England. Yeah, he liked the dough
Speaker 1: he did, and uh, he did have a pretty remarkable
Speaker 1: military career, and Jefferson and in Washington were big supporters
Speaker 1: of him for a while. Yeah, but he also suffered um.
Speaker 1: Apparently there are a lot of petty jealousies that they
Speaker 1: don't talk about among the founding fathers in the second
Speaker 1: and third echelons. Of all these guys, um, and apparently
Speaker 1: Bennedicdonald frequently suffered um. Yes, he slighted a lot, a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he missed out on honors and stuff like that, and
Speaker 1: he doesn't seem like the type to let things go,
Speaker 1: nor was he the type to air his his feelings,
Speaker 1: so he just kind of sat there and stewed. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw most of the times he was slighted, he
Speaker 1: like fought really hard to get either reassigned or reappointed
Speaker 1: to the position he was going for. And so you're right,
Speaker 1: he couldn't let it go. He needed therapy. But instead
Speaker 1: he was appointed to run West Point, not the military academy,
Speaker 1: the four right. Yeah, this is pretty I guess they
Speaker 1: probably named it for that, didn't they. I think it
Speaker 1: turned into the Middle Terry Catty, but I think this
Speaker 1: was before it was an academy. Yeah, it was definitely um,
Speaker 1: and so he, you know, went Benedict Donald on everyone,
Speaker 1: and little did he know he was being a Benedict Donald.
Speaker 1: But he sold secrets to uh, to the British um
Speaker 1: like plans, war secrets, armament locations for about three million bucks.
Speaker 1: I think it was ten thousand pounds at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he um. He. The reason he did this ostensibly
Speaker 1: was a because he'd been slided, but also, and this
Speaker 1: is what it's been lost to history, is that he
Speaker 1: he came to believe that the revolution had lost steam,
Speaker 1: that people running the show didn't really know what they
Speaker 1: were doing and probably wouldn't form a very good post
Speaker 1: revolutionary government if successful. So did he genuinely think the
Speaker 1: Brits were going to do a better job. Supposedly that's
Speaker 1: what historians say, but again he didn't really. He may
Speaker 1: have been the type to just kind of say that's
Speaker 1: what he was thinking too, and that's what what what
Speaker 1: somebody wrote down at some point, But he ultimately said this,
Speaker 1: the colonies are better back in the hands of England again.
Speaker 1: So not only am I gonna try to sell the
Speaker 1: map to West Point, I'm gonna join the British Army,
Speaker 1: which he did and led at least two raids against
Speaker 1: the American Revolutionary forces, so he really switched side. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in in seventeen eighty. I can't believe whoever wrote this
Speaker 1: article put that. Uh, when the plot was intercepted, he
Speaker 1: went from zero he wrote a zero. I know, I know,
Speaker 1: I was all of a sudden, I was in like
Speaker 1: US magazine ers or like a Springer show. But that's
Speaker 1: what happened. Uh. He was convicted of treason and um
Speaker 1: his name was a race from the record books. And
Speaker 1: England promised him. They're like, hey, if you defect over here,
Speaker 1: we're gonna give you land in Canada. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: give you land here. We'll give you land in Canada
Speaker 1: some money, and we'll promise your family pensions and you're
Speaker 1: gonna be a British provincial to your general. And he's
Speaker 1: like that sounds pretty great. But um, as it turned out,
Speaker 1: he didn't get that many great assignments in the military
Speaker 1: in in England. He was even sort of I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone likes a trader's yeah, yeah, that comes up
Speaker 1: again and again, like even the side that you're to
Speaker 1: or whatever. Um, they yeah, they're like, you're a trader. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's because basically you're just a big liar,
Speaker 1: You're treacherous. Yeah, and so people are like, how can
Speaker 1: I trust you? Thanks for doing that, but can you
Speaker 1: go with in Canada? But it does pop up again
Speaker 1: and again. Anybody who's ever turned trader and expected some
Speaker 1: sort of glory has been sorely disappointed. Yeah. So in
Speaker 1: England he was sort of poop pooed. Then he moved
Speaker 1: to Canada, they didn't like him, and then he moved
Speaker 1: back to England and died there without ever like making
Speaker 1: a whole lot of money or getting any important military action.
Speaker 1: Sort of a sad ending, it really is. And today,
Speaker 1: if you go to West Point, there's I guess twelve
Speaker 1: plaques of some of like the head revolutionary generals, and
Speaker 1: his name is literally wiped from the record. It has
Speaker 1: the year of his birth and um, I think the
Speaker 1: town of his birth. His name is not on the
Speaker 1: plaque any longer, just says it's a smeared or there's
Speaker 1: a sharpie through it. Um. All right, So that's been
Speaker 1: at journald. Let's go a little further back. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: go way back. I'm talking like maybe forty four BC.
Speaker 1: Cassius and Brutus. Yeah. Uh, Marcus Junius Brutus the younger,
Speaker 1: I'm glad do you look that up? Yeah, I'm sure
Speaker 1: he had a fuller name. Yeah, Brutus. It's like it's
Speaker 1: like a whole country of share or something. Uh. And
Speaker 1: here's the thing with these guys. They were definitely traders
Speaker 1: as well, but they're also singled out clearly killed Caesar
Speaker 1: we all know in the oddes of March, which is
Speaker 1: Caesar the Senator and dfl dictator for life, which self
Speaker 1: declared um. But they're like sixty dudes that took part
Speaker 1: in this. Yeah. And see, Caesar was self declared Caesar
Speaker 1: for a civil war one informed a triumvirate with the
Speaker 1: people that he vanquished, so he wasn't entirely dictatorial, although
Speaker 1: as like popular opinion started to swell around him, he's like,
Speaker 1: maybe I will just be leader for life. Let's let's
Speaker 1: save all those voting days and I'll just be leader
Speaker 1: for the rest of the time. I'm alive. And Cassius
Speaker 1: and Brutus had both fought against Caesar in the civil war,
Speaker 1: and despite that, Caesar um pardon both of them and
Speaker 1: gave them positions of power in his new government and
Speaker 1: brand new knives. And they said right, and they said
Speaker 1: still not enough. Well, Cassius especially apparently he was very
Speaker 1: envious of Caesar and his power. He was the rebel
Speaker 1: rouser and that that was ultimately his motive. Although he
Speaker 1: used the concept of the Republic of Rome turning into
Speaker 1: a dictatorship to lead them the assassination against Caesar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and even cooked up evidence and like letters of support
Speaker 1: to show Brutus because Brutus was much friendlier with Caesar.
Speaker 1: They were buds and uh, but he was swayed by
Speaker 1: Cassius and said, you know what, this is gonna be
Speaker 1: good for our country or our kingdom or whatever they
Speaker 1: were calling at the time. And um took part. But
Speaker 1: they weren't like that the lead. I mean, maybe they
Speaker 1: cooked it up, but they weren't the initial aggressors. Um.
Speaker 1: I thought Brutus was the first one to stab Caesar. No,
Speaker 1: this dude, Tillius Simber came out and like pulled down
Speaker 1: his tunic first of all. Yeah, I guess he said
Speaker 1: pulled it down, But I don't know what that means
Speaker 1: if he imagined he was pulling it either pantst him
Speaker 1: or no, tunics like a shirt thing, so I thought
Speaker 1: he pulled it over his head like a hockey player
Speaker 1: might not fight. It's like reverse pants, the reverse pants him,
Speaker 1: and Caesar was like, you know, what is this violence
Speaker 1: going on? And then another dude, um Casca, he came
Speaker 1: at him with a knife and Caesar blocked him away
Speaker 1: and defended himself and was like, basically, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: And then that's when everyone sixty guys descended upon him.
Speaker 1: Among you know, Brutus might have been the lead of
Speaker 1: that pack though yeah, okay, okay, well they stabbed the
Speaker 1: crap out of him, so I knew I thought Brutus
Speaker 1: was the first one to stab him. I knew that
Speaker 1: some other guy was the first one to strike him,
Speaker 1: and it may have been the guy who reversed pants
Speaker 1: to him. Yeah, you, me and I were at Pompeii.
Speaker 1: Who actually walked around Pompeii and there's a table there
Speaker 1: and it belonged to that guy. And I guess somebody
Speaker 1: in Pompeii like bought the table of the first guy
Speaker 1: to strike Caesar and had it in their via and
Speaker 1: it's still there today, and did you eat at it now?
Speaker 1: We stared at it Okay, we looked at it from
Speaker 1: like three meters away. You have the same meters because
Speaker 1: it's in Italy. That's obnoxious. Um. And apparently only one
Speaker 1: of the stabs. He was stabbed twenty three times and
Speaker 1: might continue to be stabbed even after he was on
Speaker 1: the floor dead, but only one of them was a
Speaker 1: fatal blow. Um. He was a like the second stab
Speaker 1: I think went through his heart and the rest were
Speaker 1: just you know. But before that, when Brutus stabbed him,
Speaker 1: Caesar very famously said a to brute, which literally means
Speaker 1: and you Brutus or what the hell Brutus? Yeah, you too,
Speaker 1: And supposedly you kind of gave up at that point,
Speaker 1: like it killed his spirit when he saw Brutus was involved.
Speaker 1: But yeah, supposedly he didn't want to live in a
Speaker 1: less world, in a world where even Brutus could assassinate him,
Speaker 1: so he resigned himself to dying and hence became a hero.
Speaker 1: It's very sad. It was on my birthday, is it fifteenth?
Speaker 1: But not of Mark that's right? Uh so? Oh also too,
Speaker 1: apparently that was the first autopsy report, first postmortem death
Speaker 1: report was made on Caesar. The Greeks man if that's
Speaker 1: true the Romans. Whatever. I'm really glad I caught that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably anything else on these two traders. Um no, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: Dante had a special hatred for um Brutus and Cassius,
Speaker 1: and in his Inferno he says that, uh, they are
Speaker 1: being perpetually eaten by two of Lucifer's three months, and
Speaker 1: the third mouth is reserved for the next guy we'll
Speaker 1: talk about, a little guy named Judas is carrying Oh really, yeah,
Speaker 1: Satan's third month, So lucy first three months or eating Cassius,
Speaker 1: Brutus and Judas. All right, Judas is one of these that. Um.
Speaker 1: Recent evidence has emerged where he may not have been
Speaker 1: such a traitor, but we'll get into that. But but
Speaker 1: then that was refuted as well. Um. Everyone obviously knows
Speaker 1: the Judas kiss very famously. Judas betrayed Jesus his uh,
Speaker 1: he was one of the disciples. He'd betrayed Jesus with
Speaker 1: a kiss, and it was actually a signal to the
Speaker 1: guards to come and grab him. I guess he was
Speaker 1: identifying him. Yeah, apparently the the Romans didn't know who
Speaker 1: this Jesus was, at least by sight, and Judas went
Speaker 1: and said, hey, you guys want this Jesus, what do
Speaker 1: you give me? And the signal was like, well, you
Speaker 1: kissed the guy that's Jesus, and we'll come get him
Speaker 1: and we'll give you thirty pieces of silver. Thirty pieces
Speaker 1: of silver. I mean the west Egg inflation calculator doesn't
Speaker 1: go back you know that that date. But I can
Speaker 1: imagine it's still probably wasn't that much thirty pieces of silver.
Speaker 1: I have no idea. Well, apparently it was used later
Speaker 1: on to buy a field to turn into a potter's
Speaker 1: field to bury unclaimed dead, but I mean it's field.
Speaker 1: How much it couldn't have been that much. How much
Speaker 1: was land going for back then in Middle East? They
Speaker 1: had tons of land? Um? Okay, So Judas betrays Jesus.
Speaker 1: He was um. We didn't know much about his life
Speaker 1: at the time, But recently there has been I think
Speaker 1: in two thousand one of the gospel, a new gospel
Speaker 1: was was revealed, the Gospel of Judas colon my story,
Speaker 1: my side of things, uh. And it was of course
Speaker 1: the Papyrus document dating to the second century a d.
Speaker 1: And it was written about in a book called the
Speaker 1: Lost Gospel, and it portrays this Judas is more of
Speaker 1: a facilitator of what Jesus wanted. Basically, Jesus was like, hey,
Speaker 1: turn me in because this is my destiny. UM, like,
Speaker 1: sacrifice yourself. I sacrifice myself and we all go on
Speaker 1: to live in heaven and you know, fulfill our destinies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which a lot of people were like, Okay, I kind
Speaker 1: of like this different view of Judas, you know, and
Speaker 1: it makes Jesus even more prescient than he appears in
Speaker 1: the Bible, because you know, he's betrayed by someone he
Speaker 1: thought was his friend. In this he Um is commanding Judas,
Speaker 1: he's asking him to to do this. So it's just
Speaker 1: an all around like great view of the story. When
Speaker 1: when But unfortunately, Um apparently there's some problems that a
Speaker 1: lot of scholars, um Gnostic scholars have with the translation,
Speaker 1: and that if you just tweak a few things to
Speaker 1: the way that the Gnostic scholars think it should be translated,
Speaker 1: that all just goes right out the window. And actually
Speaker 1: Judas is not only a horrible treacher traitor, he's actually
Speaker 1: a demon from the level of being. Yeah, So quite
Speaker 1: two different stories all by changing a few words in
Speaker 1: this uh Coptic text, which isn't the easy stuff to translate,
Speaker 1: like it's tough, you know, it's not like and even
Speaker 1: the person that poo pooed the original translation was like,
Speaker 1: this is a very hard job. You know. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying they necessarily did it on purpose, but um, that's
Speaker 1: not what I think it says. And so and that
Speaker 1: was April Deconic, a professor of biblical studies at Rice University.
Speaker 1: And I don't know did other people come out and
Speaker 1: support that. I can really find much. I don't know.
Speaker 1: And apparently actually in the Bible it's hinted at that
Speaker 1: Jesus could have known about it, but um, well doesn't
Speaker 1: he say like one of you will betray me? I
Speaker 1: mean at least definitely said that the Last Temptation of Christ.
Speaker 1: Who Harvey Kite tell those a pretty good Jesus or
Speaker 1: a Judas? Yeah, yeah, yeah that was Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: a good movie. But um yeah that was how I
Speaker 1: when I, like every anything I'd ever heard, I was
Speaker 1: thought like Jesus knew. It was just never as explicit
Speaker 1: as this Gospel of Judas, right, and then Gospel of
Speaker 1: Judas say even claimed that Jesus even asked Judas like, hey,
Speaker 1: will you do this for me a solid, so UM
Speaker 1: kiss me and put one right here. Right. So Judas
Speaker 1: realize is what he's done. It feels horribly guilty, tries
Speaker 1: to give the silver back the high priests that he's
Speaker 1: sold Jesus out to UM won't take the money. UM,
Speaker 1: and so he throws it on the temple floor. They
Speaker 1: end up figuring out that it can be used for
Speaker 1: a potter spiel, and they used that thirty pieces is
Speaker 1: over for that UM. And then Judas goes off and
Speaker 1: hangs himself. Yeah. And I don't think we said Jesus
Speaker 1: was crucified. I thought that went without saying. But in case,
Speaker 1: there's like one person out there was like, what happened
Speaker 1: to Jesus? Right, whatever became a Jesus, that's what happened. Um.
Speaker 1: And then Judas supposedly fell headlong and his body opened up.
Speaker 1: And there, if you go back and read some scholarly translations,
Speaker 1: they think that, um, his body opened up means that
Speaker 1: he was left at his body was left hanging for
Speaker 1: a while out in the heat, and when it finally fell, uh,
Speaker 1: like a branch broker or whatever, and it fell, it
Speaker 1: kind of ruptured. Where'd you find that out? I don't
Speaker 1: remember somewhere online. Yeah it was. Yeah, they were talking
Speaker 1: about how he went headlong, he became headlong, and they
Speaker 1: were saying, like, if you just switch out like a
Speaker 1: couple of letters, headlong becomes swollen, and then that would
Speaker 1: explain why his body opened up. Uh. And now Judas
Speaker 1: and Judas Kiss are both part of the lexicon. And
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of betrayals, you know, treacherous. I know,
Speaker 1: thanks Sam, how about Chuck? I know you've seen this movie.
Speaker 1: I love this movie. Uh, the assassination of Jesse James
Speaker 1: by the cow Cow Robert Ford. Yeah, we've talked about it.
Speaker 1: Is a good movie, very good movie, written and directed
Speaker 1: by Andrew Dominic and has Paul Schneider and my buddy
Speaker 1: Paul Schnyder. Schneid's right, he listens, Oh, hey, was he
Speaker 1: he's in it? Yeah, he's he's one of the gang.
Speaker 1: And uh, he's he's a great actor. He's We've since
Speaker 1: become like email pals. So, uh, that was an excellent movie.
Speaker 1: I'm sure Snyder did fantastic in it. Great Schneids Schneid um.
Speaker 1: And it seems to me I don't know a lot
Speaker 1: about the whole saga of Jesse James, especially his demise.
Speaker 1: But it seemed to be pretty true to everything I've
Speaker 1: ever heard about it. Yeah, I think the movie was
Speaker 1: pretty accurate and it was great, like gorgeous to look
Speaker 1: at beautifully film. Uh, and not just because Brad Pitt
Speaker 1: was in it, but Casey A. Fleck as Robert Ford
Speaker 1: was amazing. He really so. Anyway, if you haven't see them,
Speaker 1: if we go out and see it in the meantime,
Speaker 1: we'll spoil it for you. I think he was nominated
Speaker 1: for an Academy. I can't imagine how he wasn't. And
Speaker 1: he was so creepy. So what's the deal with Jesse James. Well,
Speaker 1: Jesse James was a member of the James Gang, a
Speaker 1: full partner. Well, I think he and his brother Frank
Speaker 1: were kind of co leader. That's the impression I have
Speaker 1: like Frank still Yeah, and um, they were very successful
Speaker 1: at robbing trains, robbing people, robbing banks, robbing everything, and
Speaker 1: they became outlaw folk heroes everybody loved to hate. But
Speaker 1: he also still loved. Well, they didn't kill people, no,
Speaker 1: not until the second to last robbery by Jesse James. Uh,
Speaker 1: they botched it and a couple of people died, most
Speaker 1: of the James gang was caught, and Jesse and Frank
Speaker 1: went off and assembled a new gang that included Robert Ford. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was pretty new. Um, he had long tried to
Speaker 1: get into James gang. And um, we'll sort of shun
Speaker 1: is uh a little weird and like not the most
Speaker 1: skilled robber and gunman, and it wasn't taken very seriously,
Speaker 1: which always bothered him. So, Um, Jesse James pulls off
Speaker 1: one last train robbery in eighteen seventy and decides to retire.
Speaker 1: Frank James retires and Robert Ford kind of tangs along
Speaker 1: with Jesse James the rest of his life. And um,
Speaker 1: the Governor of Missouri put a bounty on Jesse James
Speaker 1: head of I believe ten thousand dollars, which is pretty
Speaker 1: substantial for eighteen seventy. And in eighteen eighty two, Robert
Speaker 1: Ford took the Governor of Missouri up on this, apparently
Speaker 1: met with him and not only said I'm gonna do this.
Speaker 1: I want this reward, I'm gonna split it with my
Speaker 1: brother here, but I also want to be I want
Speaker 1: immunity from my crimes. Yeah, well, he was supposedly just
Speaker 1: supposed to capture him, and Um did the shooting on
Speaker 1: his own volition. And and there's a wood cutting in
Speaker 1: this article coal of Jesse James dropping a feather duster
Speaker 1: just like he does in the UM movie. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he's He stands on a chair in his own home
Speaker 1: to dust a picture and Probert Ford shoots him in
Speaker 1: the back of the head. Yeah, and kills him just
Speaker 1: right there, very like low key and anticlimactic with his
Speaker 1: wife home and everything. And then they leave. And so
Speaker 1: Robert Ford kind of like I think Bennedictdonald, expected to
Speaker 1: be considered something of a hero, and he was considered
Speaker 1: a zero. Yeah, yeah, he was. Actually he and his
Speaker 1: brother were both indicted, found guilty, sentenced to hang, and
Speaker 1: pardoned in a single day. Well that's a heck of
Speaker 1: a day. Yeah, pretty like emotional roller coaster going on there.
Speaker 1: And they became an ostracized socially. Um, Robert Ford just
Speaker 1: became the butt of many jokes. And then finally, Um,
Speaker 1: one day he was confronted by a man who sought
Speaker 1: him out because he wanted to kill Robert Ford for
Speaker 1: to gain his own acclaim. Yeah, Edward O'Kelly brought a
Speaker 1: shotgun into it. He was a bar owner I think
Speaker 1: at the time Robert Ford was. And after by the way,
Speaker 1: they toured in a touring production like recreating the Murders. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Sam Rockwell Yeah, and um so Edward O'Kelly goes in
Speaker 1: the bar with a shotgun, says hello, Bob. He turns
Speaker 1: around and shoots him in the throat, and he gets
Speaker 1: a sentence commuted after a petition in his pardoned for
Speaker 1: killing Robert Ford. Yeah. Back then the prairiebu definitely had
Speaker 1: like a ground hold. Yeah. I don't know what that is,
Speaker 1: but I think I got my point across. Yeah. They
Speaker 1: were like, he was a coward and you shot him,
Speaker 1: so that makes you a good guy. Thanks. Uh so
Speaker 1: that's Robert Ford. You got anything else? Should we move
Speaker 1: on to Mata Hatti? Yeah, I knew next to nothing
Speaker 1: about Mata Hary. Yeah. Same here. She turned out to
Speaker 1: be a pretty fascinating woman. Possibly not a trader at all. Yeah, actually,
Speaker 1: probably not a trader at all. Yeah, let's let's talk
Speaker 1: about her. Well, um, she was a very sexual being.
Speaker 1: She was very close to her father apparently, who doted
Speaker 1: on her, and she has been described as um sex
Speaker 1: as being her driving force, and she was said to
Speaker 1: have an insatiable longing for male attention her entire life
Speaker 1: and for the time period early nineteen hundreds, she really
Speaker 1: really slept around. Yeah, and she didn't just like you,
Speaker 1: the sex with the men. She liked them to buy
Speaker 1: her stuff. Oh yeah, well she used as a means
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah. She Um. She flew through a lot
Speaker 1: of guy's money, right, and Um, I just love to
Speaker 1: live lavishly, racked up tons of debt and um became
Speaker 1: something of a toast among Parisian society, European society. Actually
Speaker 1: she was Dutch, we should point out. Yeah, her real
Speaker 1: name was Um Margarita Zelli. Yeah, but she looked like
Speaker 1: Indian and she tried to remake herself as this Indian
Speaker 1: exotic Indian dancer. I read Indonesian Indonesian. Yeah, because Mata
Speaker 1: Hari is Um Malaysian I of the dawn, which means sunrise.
Speaker 1: So her name was Sunrise, the stripping dancer. Well, and
Speaker 1: she she didn't just dance like. This was at a
Speaker 1: time when the Mulan rouge was like they were like
Speaker 1: pulling their skirts up a little bit and showing some
Speaker 1: ankle and some knickers, and she was like taking it
Speaker 1: to you know, another level. Apparently in people's living rooms,
Speaker 1: private dances like traveling dancing, um, like really erotic and
Speaker 1: exotic stuff for the time. So from what I understand,
Speaker 1: she was also a sometime prostitute. Um when things were
Speaker 1: really bad, sure, um and then she but ultimately she
Speaker 1: just kind of went through succession of of lovers around Europe.
Speaker 1: And at one point she found her self in um
Speaker 1: in Amsterdam and was approached by a German officer and said, hey,
Speaker 1: we want you to spy for us. Here's twenty thousand
Speaker 1: francs and some invisible ink, and um, you're now a
Speaker 1: German spy. And she's like, whatever mine air, thanks for
Speaker 1: the money, sucker, and threw away the invisible ink. Supposedly
Speaker 1: and never spied for Germany, but she still had a
Speaker 1: code name H one, and as far as Germany was concerned,
Speaker 1: she was a spy for them, even though she didn't
Speaker 1: take it seriously. Apparently never carried out any spying activities.
Speaker 1: So she had a reputation as a German spy, yeah,
Speaker 1: without actually spying yet. And uh she was as uh,
Speaker 1: this one writer puts it, she was traveling alone, she
Speaker 1: was wealthy, she was an excellent linguist and very foreign
Speaker 1: and very educated and admitted to having lovers and like
Speaker 1: all of this stuff for the time just meant we
Speaker 1: don't trust you, even if we don't have evidence. This
Speaker 1: makes you untrustworthy, right so um, At some point the
Speaker 1: French decided that they were going to recruit her to
Speaker 1: become a French spy. This is during World War One,
Speaker 1: even though they already suspected she was a German spy.
Speaker 1: She was sent around um to try to get to
Speaker 1: I don't remember what country they were trying to get
Speaker 1: her into. Of hotel oh, she went to Russia. She
Speaker 1: ended up going there for a little while in exchange
Speaker 1: for becoming a French spy. Agreeing to spy for the French.
Speaker 1: She ended up in Spain and came across this German
Speaker 1: officer and apparently he suspected her of being a spy.
Speaker 1: So when she started asking him questions, he gave her
Speaker 1: old information. Well they went to bed together as well.
Speaker 1: Sure we should mention this thing is just right with
Speaker 1: sex and um, he gave her some old information. This
Speaker 1: the frenchman who the French intelligence officer who recruited her
Speaker 1: as a spy, but still suspect her as a German
Speaker 1: spy finally said, know what, I think that what you
Speaker 1: were really doing was giving French secrets to the German.
Speaker 1: You're a double agent, and we're going to arrest you.
Speaker 1: And she was arrested in France again no evidence, no
Speaker 1: evidence whatsoever, and tried for treason and convicted. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: um basically Thunder knows that the whole experience, and was like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hold my head high, I'm gonna blow you
Speaker 1: a kiss right before you shoot me in the firing squad.
Speaker 1: Well supposedly it wasn't the firing squad. It was two
Speaker 1: nuns that she became friends with and her lawyer who
Speaker 1: also she had slept with. That's who she blew kisses too.
Speaker 1: But she refused to O that's what it said in
Speaker 1: this article that I saw elsewhere. It was like to
Speaker 1: the nuns, she JUSTO slept with her headmaster when she
Speaker 1: was sixteen, Yeah, and got kicked out of school for it.
Speaker 1: So she refuses a blindfold. In the end, she's all
Speaker 1: dressed up and everything for her execution. She's standing ankle
Speaker 1: deep in mud on a coal October day in nineteen seventeen.
Speaker 1: She refuses to be tied to the pole behind her,
Speaker 1: She refuses a blindfold and is executed by firing squad.
Speaker 1: So the weird thing is about thirty years later, one
Speaker 1: of the prosecutors in France admitted, quote they didn't have sorry,
Speaker 1: here's the quote. There was quote not enough evidence to
Speaker 1: flog a cat that she very very likely did not
Speaker 1: ever spy for Germany, made that one half hearted attempt
Speaker 1: in France for France to make some money and was
Speaker 1: executed and still didn't protest. I wonder if there's been
Speaker 1: a good movie on her, surely there, I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's been a recent one. She was tall too,
Speaker 1: she was like almost six ft tall. Yes, she looks
Speaker 1: very long. Yeah, look at her. It's hard to like.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's tough to look at pictures from back then
Speaker 1: and see the attraction, you know. Yeah, it's just a
Speaker 1: different time period. I think it was the fact that
Speaker 1: she took off her clothes and was real sexy and
Speaker 1: tall with everybody. So Mata Hary probably was not a trader,
Speaker 1: and they really had a lot of trouble trying to
Speaker 1: prove that another famous trader was actually a trader and
Speaker 1: that woman was I have a togury. Yeah, yeah, she was.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it.
Speaker 1: She was not a spy and she was not a
Speaker 1: treasonous trader um because it was proven so, and she
Speaker 1: was pardoned by Gerald Ford. Right, so she was born.
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna take her off the list. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll finish the story though. Yeah, so it's a worthwhile story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a toegury. She was born in America in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, UM and had a degree in zoology from
Speaker 1: u c l A. And in one she traveled to
Speaker 1: Tokyo to take care of an ailing aunt her family
Speaker 1: center over there. Despite the fact that she didn't really
Speaker 1: speak Japanese, Jim been raised in Japanese culture. Apparently there
Speaker 1: was a lot of culture shock, but she still went
Speaker 1: over to take care of her aunt nonetheless, And while
Speaker 1: she was there she got two jobs. Once she was
Speaker 1: typing for one new service, and she got a second
Speaker 1: job as a typist for UM, the one of the
Speaker 1: radio stations. Yeah, and they're like, hey, you're American, Japanese American,
Speaker 1: and you have a great voice, and you're perfect for
Speaker 1: this new thing that we're gonna do. It's UM American
Speaker 1: rock and roll music and we're gonna play it for
Speaker 1: the morale of the troops, and well to deteriorate the morale. Well,
Speaker 1: but she they told her a different story at first though.
Speaker 1: They told her it was to boost the morale. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think she knew what she was getting into.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. Why would the Japanese boost the morale of
Speaker 1: the American troops in the Pacific. Well, it was later
Speaker 1: said that it did, in fact boost the morale. They
Speaker 1: said Americans love the music and thought the Tokyo Rose
Speaker 1: banter was funny and it looked at her spirits. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so if they were really trying to do that, it
Speaker 1: did a pretty poor job of it. Okay. But nonetheless,
Speaker 1: she was reporting on things like um ships being sunk.
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Yeah, she called that. Well that's what
Speaker 1: she was eventually the one thing that they pinned on her. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: then that didn't actually happen. Yeah, okay, So well let's
Speaker 1: let's get back to the story. World War two goes along,
Speaker 1: she um right, it ends and she tries to get
Speaker 1: back to America, and as she's doing that, apparently the
Speaker 1: Japanese government identified her as Tokyo Rose. Yeah, she was
Speaker 1: Orphan and was her radio name in Tokyo Rose was
Speaker 1: just sort of the name of the operation as a
Speaker 1: whole and not a single person, even though they tied
Speaker 1: her to that name, which led to some great confusion
Speaker 1: apparently because they were trying to get her as Tokyo Rose,
Speaker 1: even though her she called herself Orphan Aan and there
Speaker 1: were like twelve women including her that we're all Tokyo
Speaker 1: Rose collectively. Yeah, okay um. So the Japanese government says,
Speaker 1: that's Tokyo Rose, and uh, she said, I'm morph An Ann.
Speaker 1: The American Intelligence Services of the Army investigated her and
Speaker 1: could find no evidence that she had committed any form
Speaker 1: of treason, and they were going to let her in
Speaker 1: the country, back in their place of birth. Um, because
Speaker 1: she traveled without a passport and now that she's trying
Speaker 1: to get back in she needed a passport. Um. Apparently
Speaker 1: a lot of veterans groupture like you can't let Tokyo
Speaker 1: Rose into the US. It was just one guy kind
Speaker 1: of started the charge and was successful. The reporter had Bundridge. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: apparently he got a couple of Japanese guys to commit
Speaker 1: perjury and and present false evidence against Um Tokyo Rose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the two most damaging witnesses actually like just completely lied, right.
Speaker 1: The FBI put him up to it, coached them and
Speaker 1: said you're gonna get tried for treason if you don't
Speaker 1: do this. So she ended up being tried and convicted
Speaker 1: for treason UM and sentenced to ten years. And she
Speaker 1: got out in ninety six, and they tried to deport
Speaker 1: her and Um. She successfully battled deportation and moved to Chicago.
Speaker 1: She worked at a retail store until two thousand six.
Speaker 1: Two thousand six, she was working in a retail store
Speaker 1: at ninety years old, and nobody even people didn't like
Speaker 1: come in there to see Tokyo Rose, like she was
Speaker 1: just a worker. Yeah, isn't that weird, Like such a
Speaker 1: prominent figure in history. It just bringing people up, like
Speaker 1: you said, Ford Pardner, Yeah, Gerald Ford. Then he fell down.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the quizzling briefly. Yeah. The quizzling is
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, is another name. If you live in
Speaker 1: perhaps Norway or maybe other parts of Europe, you might
Speaker 1: be called a quizzling if you're a trader because of
Speaker 1: Vidkan Quisling. Yeah, he was. He basically tried to seize
Speaker 1: power after buddying up with Hitler in nine and said,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna use this as
Speaker 1: an opportunity two make Norway my own. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: did so for a very very short time. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: invited the Nazis to come invade Norway. They did. He
Speaker 1: Um made a power grab and said I'm now the
Speaker 1: ruler of Norway, and the Nazis let that slide for
Speaker 1: about a week. They're like, sure, sure, here ruler, and
Speaker 1: then they installed their own guy as the head of
Speaker 1: Norway and demoted Quizzling to uh president minister president and
Speaker 1: uh apparently he went to work sentencing Norwegian Jews to
Speaker 1: concentration camps. Uh. He really bad guy. Yeah. He was
Speaker 1: very much anti union. He was a fascist, and he
Speaker 1: was trying to make Norway fastest and he did so.
Speaker 1: He became the first person to ever announce a kudata
Speaker 1: on television. That's how he made his power grab. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I was television, it seems early, so maybe
Speaker 1: he was radio. By guess he became the first one
Speaker 1: to announce it over him podcast, right, So Um, after
Speaker 1: the Nazis were defeated. He was like, oh no, yeah
Speaker 1: the film this is gonna end up bad for me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he was convicted of treason, sentenced to death, and
Speaker 1: executed by firing squad. And you are a quizzler, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: quizzling if you collude. Yeah, if you're in Norway and
Speaker 1: your trader, you're a quizzling. Yeah. It's like the Benedict
Speaker 1: Donald of Norway. So Chuck, you got anything else? No,
Speaker 1: And it's per usual. This is a top ten that
Speaker 1: we do about six of and encourage people to go
Speaker 1: read the rest, including uh Robert Hansen, who we talked about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: um as were pound as we talked about in the
Speaker 1: Insanity defense and the Cambridge five, not the Seattle seven
Speaker 1: or the Jackson five or the Jackson five. And did
Speaker 1: we skip another one was at it? I don't remember.
Speaker 1: Oh the intro we didn't mention, um the Cleveland Cavaliers
Speaker 1: ire Braun against Lebron, which I just think that's weird. Well,
Speaker 1: I think I went berserk. That's sort of has passed,
Speaker 1: and there's rumors of him going back to Cleveland anyway
Speaker 1: next really maybe his contracts up, and they think that
Speaker 1: he might love nothing more than to go back there
Speaker 1: and win a championship. Huh. Well, we'll see, Yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: see what happens. Uh. If you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about traders, you can type that word into the search
Speaker 1: bar at house to works dot com and will bring
Speaker 1: up this article. And since I said search part, it
Speaker 1: means it's time for message break. Uh. Now, Chuck, it's
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. Uh. This is cap Grass. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for doing the cap Grass syndrome episode.
Speaker 1: It was amazing. Timing came out right around Father's Day
Speaker 1: and my father suffers from the syndrome. It's been very
Speaker 1: painful to watch. Yeah. During my marriage, we have never
Speaker 1: lived very close to my parents, but just under three
Speaker 1: years ago we moved close enough for day trips. About
Speaker 1: the same time, my dad had a fairly significant stroke
Speaker 1: and it made the slow progress of vascular dementia Alzheimer's
Speaker 1: that he also suffers from significantly. Works started visiting my
Speaker 1: dad on a weekly basis. I would spend the day
Speaker 1: with him while my mom and brother would get the
Speaker 1: Monday rush orders out. Apparently Dad ran a mail order business.
Speaker 1: When I first started these visits, Dad knew who I was.
Speaker 1: We talked and I shared photos and stories of my kids.
Speaker 1: But within just six months the cap grass really took effect.
Speaker 1: We had to work our way through who this strange
Speaker 1: lady was, who lived there now my mom? And why
Speaker 1: did Linda my mom leave him? And watched his absolute
Speaker 1: fear when she would walk into the room. Uh. He
Speaker 1: eventually forgot who my brother and I were, as well
Speaker 1: as well as our spouses and kids. Although I had
Speaker 1: to giggle a little bit during the small amount of
Speaker 1: time when my husband was only one of us, he
Speaker 1: knew because cap grass affects those closest to you and
Speaker 1: then works his way out so the husband wouldn't around
Speaker 1: him as much. So one point he was the only
Speaker 1: person that he recognized, and the white thought that was
Speaker 1: kind of funny. Now, the dementia and alzheimer to progress
Speaker 1: to a point of living in the past and not
Speaker 1: even remembering moment to moment, let alone day to day.
Speaker 1: He still doesn't know why his family has abandoned him,
Speaker 1: even though we're all around him all the time. Uh,
Speaker 1: I know he lives a very fearfilled and lonely life
Speaker 1: among strangers. I liken it to living in a nightmare
Speaker 1: every moment of the day. Um, and it sounds really sad,
Speaker 1: but she's she was fairly upbeat in the email like that.
Speaker 1: We corresponded, but just still like people are up there
Speaker 1: and crying and stuff. Thanks for doing the podcast. When
Speaker 1: I talk about how dad is doing, it's tough to
Speaker 1: explain what he's going through. And now I can just
Speaker 1: send people to the podcast to learn more about it.
Speaker 1: So who's really helped that is Jill Overturf in Republic, Missouri.
Speaker 1: Well thanks a lot, Joe. We appreciate you sharing that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I you know, I hope things can prove for
Speaker 1: your father. Yeah, for sure. Um, if you have a
Speaker 1: story about something we've talked about ever, we want to
Speaker 1: hear it, especially if we've helped you explain that to
Speaker 1: other people. We like that kind of thing. Um. You
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s y ESK podcast. You
Speaker 1: can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff
Speaker 1: Podcast at Discovery dot com, and you can always check
Speaker 1: out our website Stuff you Should Know dot com for
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is It
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com