Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, it's Josh and for this week's Select, I've
Speaker 1: chosen our twenty thirteen episode on History's Greatest Traders. Turns
Speaker 1: out history is rife with treacherous people, and if there's
Speaker 1: any lesson to learn from this episode, it's be careful
Speaker 1: who you cross, because once your name is associated with treachery,
Speaker 1: it turns out that that stays pretty sticky. It's tough
Speaker 1: to get rid of.
Speaker 2: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast on Josh Clark. There's
Speaker 1: Charles w Chuck Bryant. So, Chuck, Yeah, I have a
Speaker 1: story for you.
Speaker 3: All right, let's hear it. Come back with me, wayback machine.
Speaker 4: Sure, okay, A couple hours ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so here we are. It's December twenty second, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two. Oh yeah, something really bad is about to happen.
Speaker 1: It sit down in front of this TV.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: Our good friend and hero, Peter Brady is trying out
Speaker 1: for the school play. Yeah, it's a story of the
Speaker 1: American Revolution. I remember that 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 Arnold. 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: going to do my best.
Speaker 3: I was a tree in my last six plays, right,
Speaker 3: This is.
Speaker 1: A huge step up for him, until his classmates point
Speaker 1: out that Benedict Donald was a trader, and since Peter's
Speaker 1: playing a trader, he must be some sort of trader too.
Speaker 1: So basically the whole school turns on him because he's
Speaker 1: playing Benedict.
Speaker 3: Donald, which is really kind of silly.
Speaker 1: It is very silly. And of course Peter tries to
Speaker 1: get out of the play again and again, yeah, affecting laryngitis,
Speaker 1: pretending he has a limp all of this stuff, saying
Speaker 1: he forgets his lines.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I remember that.
Speaker 1: And finally successful, and then his dad points out that
Speaker 1: he has turned into a trader. Now Peter against the
Speaker 1: whole cast.
Speaker 3: Don't tell me. He had a lesson for him, and
Speaker 3: he sat him down and had a talking to.
Speaker 1: It was a good one. Yeah, it was a good one.
Speaker 1: And so Peter goes in and plays Benedict Donald and
Speaker 1: knocks it out of.
Speaker 3: The park and learned a lesson in the process.
Speaker 1: But the whole premise of this episode of Brady Bunch
Speaker 1: is that Peter was suffering from a smear campaign started
Speaker 1: two hundred years before by George Washington, and it was
Speaker 1: so successful that even today, you can get a rise
Speaker 1: out of some by calling them Benedict Donald if they've
Speaker 1: done something traitorous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we've learned there are quite a few synonyms
Speaker 3: with trader that were in fact notorious traders, Like if
Speaker 3: you call someone a Judas or a Benedict Donald or
Speaker 3: what quisling? Yeah, that might be popular in some parts
Speaker 3: of the world.
Speaker 1: Right, this is the USA. Sure, so we call people
Speaker 1: Benedict Donald's.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about this. Let's talk about Benedict Donald
Speaker 1: to start.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, you know, first of all, we should point
Speaker 3: out that this is a curated show from our buddy
Speaker 3: Sam t Garden.
Speaker 1: This is the Summer of Sam.
Speaker 3: Then, yeah, we're continuing into our second Summer of Sam.
Speaker 3: And for those of you that don't know. Sam is
Speaker 3: a local fan of ours and a good kid, and
Speaker 3: he's actually on our TV show.
Speaker 1: He was in an episode, the Make It Rain episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is one of our softball teammates. And Sam's a
Speaker 3: good guy and he sends in great ideas, so we
Speaker 3: like to highlight them when we do them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, so summer Sam, Hey, Sam, hope you're
Speaker 1: doing well. Buddy. Were talking about bened mac donald and
Speaker 1: why there was such a smear campaign against him, and
Speaker 1: it turns out rightfully so, although possibly I think a
Speaker 1: lot of Arnold's side of the story has been lost
Speaker 1: to history.
Speaker 3: Well. Yeah, and coincidentally or not coincidentally, some of these
Speaker 3: traders that we're going to mention today, history is born
Speaker 3: out that they may not have been traders. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: been an Donald definitely was.
Speaker 1: So he was a document and trader. Yeah, as traitorous
Speaker 1: and treasonous as you can get, as far as in
Speaker 1: the context of war.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So early on in life things started out pretty well.
Speaker 3: He was born into some wealth, but his family, specifically
Speaker 3: his father, squandered their fortune with some bad business dealings.
Speaker 3: Apparently he was quite a drinker.
Speaker 1: Oh, you turned into the town drunk.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that'll do it.
Speaker 1: They lost their family estate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they lost their dough. Three of his sisters are sorry,
Speaker 3: siblings died from yellow fever. He had to drop out
Speaker 3: of school.
Speaker 1: He became an apothecary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so things weren't like Rosie for the guy, although
Speaker 3: he did quite well later on in the military.
Speaker 1: Well, he did quite well even before that as a merchant.
Speaker 1: And actually, by the age of twenty two, was able
Speaker 1: to buy back his family's estate. Oh really, which he
Speaker 1: then turned around and sold it a profit.
Speaker 3: Well, good for him.
Speaker 1: So I guess he wasn't the sentimental type flipped this estate. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it wasn't that he wanted his family's to
Speaker 1: state back. He just didn't want to lose out on
Speaker 1: the potential profit from it, I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And he seemed like he may have been like
Speaker 3: add before there was add.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, from the sounds of reading his thing, I was
Speaker 3: just like, man, this kid had add. He was always
Speaker 3: in trouble. He's getting kicked out of school. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: it was just because he was like busy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: He wasn't like a bad kid, it seemed like, but
Speaker 3: he was just always had something going on.
Speaker 1: He finally, I guess found his niche and he did
Speaker 1: become quite a businessman and fabulously wealthy, but he wasn't
Speaker 1: wealthy enough in his opinion, and in fact joined the
Speaker 1: Sons of Liberty, the revolutionary group in New England, because
Speaker 1: he was mad that his riches were being taxed by England.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he liked the dough, he did, and he did
Speaker 3: have a pretty remarkable military career in Jefferson and Washington
Speaker 3: were big supporters of him for a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he also suffered. Apparently there are a lot
Speaker 1: of petty jealousies that they don't talk about among the
Speaker 1: founding fathers and the second and third echelons of all
Speaker 1: these guys, and apparently Benedict Donald frequently suffered.
Speaker 3: Yes, he was slighted a lot, a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he missed out on honors and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And 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.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw most of the times he was slighted.
Speaker 3: He fought really hard to get either reassigned or reappointed
Speaker 3: to the position he was going for. And so you're right,
Speaker 3: he couldn't let it go. He needed therapy. But instead
Speaker 3: he was appointed to run West Point, not the military academy,
Speaker 3: the four right, Yeah, this is pre I guess they
Speaker 3: probably named it after that though, didn't they.
Speaker 1: I think it turned into the military Academy. Okay, but
Speaker 1: I think this was before it was an academy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was definitely. Yeah, and so he, you know,
Speaker 3: went Benedict Arnald on everyone, and little did he know
Speaker 3: he was being a Benedict Arnald. But he sold secrets
Speaker 3: to the British, like plans, war secrets, armament locations for
Speaker 3: about three million bucks. I think it was ten thousand
Speaker 3: pounds at the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he he The reason he did this, ostensibly
Speaker 1: was a because he'd been slighted.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But also, and this is what it's been lost to history,
Speaker 1: is that he he came to believe that the revolution
Speaker 1: had lost steam, that the people running the show didn't
Speaker 1: really know what they were doing and probably wouldn't form
Speaker 1: a very good post revolutionary government if successful.
Speaker 3: So did he genuinely think the Brits were going to
Speaker 3: do a better job.
Speaker 1: Supposedly that's what historians say, but again he didn't really.
Speaker 1: He may have been the type to just kind of
Speaker 1: say that's what he was right thinking too, and then
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 3: Gotcha.
Speaker 1: So not only am I going to try to sell
Speaker 1: the map to West Point, I'm going to join the
Speaker 1: British Army, which he did, Yeah, and led at least
Speaker 1: two raids against American revolutionary forces. So he really switched sides.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah in seventeen eighty. I can't believe whoever
Speaker 3: wrote this article put that. When the plot was intercepted,
Speaker 3: he went from he wrote a zero.
Speaker 1: I know, I know.
Speaker 3: I was all of a sudden, I was in like
Speaker 3: in the US magazine Ers or.
Speaker 1: Like a Springer show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's weird, but that's what happened. He was convicted
Speaker 3: of treason and his name was erased from the record books,
Speaker 3: and England promised him. They're like, hey, if you defect
Speaker 3: over here, we're going to give you land in Canada. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we're not going to give you land here. We'll give
Speaker 3: you land in Canada some money, and we'll promise your
Speaker 3: family pensions and you're going to be a British provincial
Speaker 3: brigadier general, and he's like, that sounds pretty great. But
Speaker 3: as it turned out, he didn't get that many great
Speaker 3: assignments in the military. In England, he was even sort
Speaker 3: of I don't think anyone likes a trader. No, that's England.
Speaker 1: They're like, yeah, yeah, that comes up again and again,
Speaker 1: like yeah, even the side that you're trying to or whatever.
Speaker 1: They yeah, they're like, you're a trader.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's because basically you're just a big liar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're treacherous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so people are like, how can I go
Speaker 3: to trust you? Thanks for doing that, but can you
Speaker 3: go live in Canada?
Speaker 1: But it does pop up again and again. Anybody who's
Speaker 1: ever turned trader and expected some sort of glory has
Speaker 1: been sorely disappointed.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So in England he was sort of poo pooed.
Speaker 3: Then he moved to Canada they didn't like him. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then he moved back to England and died there
Speaker 3: without ever like making a whole lot of money or
Speaker 3: getting any important military action. Right, So sort of a
Speaker 3: sad ending.
Speaker 1: It really is. And today if you go to West Point,
Speaker 1: there's I guess twelve plaques of some of like the
Speaker 1: head revolutionary generals, and his name is literally wiped from
Speaker 1: the record. It has the year of his birth and
Speaker 1: I think the town of his birth. Well, his name
Speaker 1: is not on the plaque any longer, just says is
Speaker 1: this smeared or there's a sharpie through it?
Speaker 3: Right? All right, So that's been an arnold.
Speaker 1: Let's go a little further back. Okay, let's go way back.
Speaker 1: I'm talking like maybe forty four BC.
Speaker 3: Cassius and Brutus. Yeah, Marcus Junius Brutus the younger.
Speaker 1: I'm glad. Do you look that up?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure he had a fuller name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Brutus. It's like it's like a whole country of
Speaker 1: share or something.
Speaker 3: And here's the thing with these guys. They were definitely
Speaker 3: traders as well, but they're also singled out clearly. They
Speaker 3: killed Caesar we all know in the IDEs of March,
Speaker 3: which is Caesar the Senator and dfl dictator for life,
Speaker 3: which self declared. But they are like sixty dudes that
Speaker 3: took part in this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Caesar was self declared Caesar for a civil
Speaker 1: war one informed a triumvirate with the people that he vanquished. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he wasn't entirely dictatorial, although as like popular opinion
Speaker 1: started to swell around him, He's like, maybe I will
Speaker 1: just be leader for life. Let's save all those voting
Speaker 1: days and I'll just be leader for the rest of
Speaker 1: the time. I'm alive. And Cassius and Brutus had both
Speaker 1: fought against Caesar in the civil war yea. And despite that,
Speaker 1: Caesar pardoned both of them and gave them positions of
Speaker 1: power in his new government.
Speaker 3: And brand new knives.
Speaker 1: And they said, and they said, still not enough. Well,
Speaker 1: Cassius especially apparently he was very envious of Caesar and
Speaker 1: his power. He was the rebel rouser, and that that
Speaker 1: was ultimately his motive, although he used the concept of
Speaker 1: the Republic of Rome turning into a dictatorship to lead
Speaker 1: the assassination against Caesar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and even cooked up evidence and like letters of
Speaker 3: support to show Brutus, because Brutus was much friendlier with Caesar.
Speaker 3: There were buds, but he was swayed by Cassius and said,
Speaker 3: you know what, this is going to be good for
Speaker 3: our country or our kingdom or whatever they were calling
Speaker 3: at the time, and took part. But they weren't like that.
Speaker 3: The lead I mean, maybe they cooked it up, but
Speaker 3: they weren't the initial aggressors.
Speaker 1: I thought Brutus was the first one to stab Caesar.
Speaker 3: No, this dude, Tillius Simber came out and like pulled
Speaker 3: down his tunic first of all, did he really? Yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess he said pulled it down, But I don't
Speaker 3: know what that means. If he I imagined he was
Speaker 3: pulling it hockey either pants him or no. Tunic's like
Speaker 3: a shirt thing, so I thought he pulled it over
Speaker 3: his head like a hockey player might in a fight.
Speaker 1: It's like reverse pants.
Speaker 3: It reverse pants him, And Caesar was like, you know,
Speaker 3: what is this violence going on? And then another dude, Kaska,
Speaker 3: he came at him with a knife, and Caesar blocked
Speaker 3: him away and defended himself and was like, basically, what's
Speaker 3: going on here? And then that's when everyone, like sixty
Speaker 3: guys descended upon him. Wow, among you know, Brutus might
Speaker 3: have been the lead of that pack.
Speaker 1: Though, yeah, okay, okay, Well.
Speaker 3: He stabbed the crap out of him, So I knew.
Speaker 1: I thought Brutus was the first one to stab him.
Speaker 1: I knew that some other guy was the first one
Speaker 1: to strike him, and it may have been the guy
Speaker 1: who reverse pants to him till he yeah, you, me
Speaker 1: and I were at Pompei who actually walked around Pompeii
Speaker 1: And there's a table there and it belonged to that guy.
Speaker 1: Oh really, And I guess somebody in Pompeii like bought
Speaker 1: the table of the first guy to strike Caesar and
Speaker 1: like had it in their via and it's still there today.
Speaker 3: And did you eat at it?
Speaker 1: No, we stared at it. Oh okay, we looked at
Speaker 1: it from like three meters away.
Speaker 3: Oh gotcha.
Speaker 1: You have to say meters because in Italy that's obnoxious.
Speaker 3: And apparently only one of the stabs. He was stabbed
Speaker 3: twenty three times, and like continued to be stabbed even
Speaker 3: after he was on the floor dead, but only one
Speaker 3: of them was a fatal blow. He was a like
Speaker 3: the second stab I think went through his heart, and
Speaker 3: the rest were just you know, but before they felt injury.
Speaker 1: When Brutus stabbed him, yeah, Caesar very famously said a
Speaker 1: two brute yeah, which literally means and you brutus or
Speaker 1: what the hell brutus?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you too, And supposedly he kind of gave up
Speaker 3: at that point, like it killed a spirit when he
Speaker 3: saw Brutus was involved. Yeah, but I don't. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Supposedly he didn't want to live in a brutistless world,
Speaker 1: in a world where even Brutus could assassinate him, so
Speaker 1: he resigned himself to dying and hence became a hero.
Speaker 3: It's very sad. It was on my birthday?
Speaker 1: Your birth is it the fifteenth? Fifteenth too? But not
Speaker 1: of March?
Speaker 3: That's right? Uh so? Oh? Also too, apparently that was
Speaker 3: the first autopsy report. Oh really, first post mortem death
Speaker 3: report was made on Caesar Greeks man.
Speaker 1: If that's true, I've heard the Romans. Whoops. Whatever, I'm
Speaker 1: really glad I caught that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to lead to their email. Anything else I want
Speaker 3: on these two traders?
Speaker 1: No? Oh yes, Dante had a special hatred for Brutus
Speaker 1: and Cassius, and in his Inferno he says that they
Speaker 1: are being perpetually eaten by two of Lucifer's three mouths.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: And the third mouth is reserved for the next guy.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about, a little guy named Judas as Carrie.
Speaker 3: Oh really, yeah, Satan's third mouth.
Speaker 1: So Lucifer's three mouths are eating Cassius, Brutus and Judas.
Speaker 3: Wow. All right. Judas is one of these that recent
Speaker 3: evidence has emerged where he may not have been such
Speaker 3: a trader, but we'll get into that. But then that
Speaker 3: was refuted as well. Everyone obviously knows the Judas kiss
Speaker 3: very famously. Judas betrayed Jesus. He was one of the disciples.
Speaker 3: He betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Yeah, and it was
Speaker 3: actually a signal to the guards to come and grab him.
Speaker 3: I guess he was identifying him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently the Romans didn't know who this Jesus was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: at least by sight. And Judas went and said, hey,
Speaker 1: you guys want this Jesus, what do you give me?
Speaker 1: And the signal was like, well, you kissed the guy
Speaker 1: that's Jesus, and we'll come get him.
Speaker 3: And we'll give you thirty pieces of silver.
Speaker 1: Thirty pieces of silver. I mean, the west Egg inflation
Speaker 1: calculator doesn't go back to you know that date, but
Speaker 1: I can imagine it's still probably wasn't that much thirty
Speaker 1: pieces of silver.
Speaker 3: I have no idea.
Speaker 1: Well, apparently it was used later on to buy a
Speaker 1: field to turn into a potter's field to bury unclaimed
Speaker 1: dead Oh really, but I mean it's field, how much.
Speaker 1: It couldn't have been that.
Speaker 3: Much, Like how much was land going for back then
Speaker 3: in the Middle East?
Speaker 1: They had tons of land.
Speaker 3: Okay, So Judas betrays Jesus. He was we didn't know
Speaker 3: much about his life at the time, but recently there
Speaker 3: has been I think in two thousand one of the Gospel,
Speaker 3: a new gospel was revealed, the Gospel of Judas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, colon my story.
Speaker 3: My side of things.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And it was a of course, a papyrus document dating
Speaker 3: to the second century a d. And it was written
Speaker 3: about in a book called the Lost Gospel, and it
Speaker 3: portrays this Judas as more of a facilitator of what
Speaker 3: Jesus wanted. Basically, Jesus is like, hey, turn me in
Speaker 3: because this is my destiny. Yeah, Like sacrifice yourself. I
Speaker 3: sacrifice myself and we all go on to live in
Speaker 3: heaven and you know, fulfill our destinies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which a lot of people are like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: kind of like this different view of Judas, you know,
Speaker 1: and it makes Jesus even more prescient than he appears
Speaker 1: in the Bible, sure, because you know, he's betrayed by
Speaker 1: someone he thought was his friend, and this he is
Speaker 1: commanding Judas he's asking him to do this. So it's
Speaker 1: just an all around like great view of the story
Speaker 1: when when, But unfortunately, apparently there's some problems that a
Speaker 1: lot of scholars, Gnostic scholars have with the translation, and
Speaker 1: that if you just tweak a few things to the
Speaker 1: way that the Gnostic scholars think it should be translated, yeah,
Speaker 1: that all just goes right out the window. And actually
Speaker 1: Judas is not only a horrible treacherous traitor, he's actually
Speaker 1: a demon from the thirteenth level of being.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so quite two different stories. Yeah, all by changing
Speaker 3: a few words in this Coptic text, which isn't the
Speaker 3: easiest stuff to translate. Like it's tough, you know, it's
Speaker 3: not like and even the person that poo pooed the
Speaker 3: original translation was like, this is a very hard job.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying they necessarily did it on purpose, but
Speaker 3: that's not what I think it says, right, And so,
Speaker 3: and that was April Deconic, a professor of Biblical studies
Speaker 3: at Rice University. And I don't know did other people
Speaker 3: come out and support that. I can really find much.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: And apparently actually in the Bible it's hinted at that
Speaker 3: Jesus could have known about it, but.
Speaker 1: Well doesn't he say like one of you will betray me?
Speaker 3: At least? Yeah, he definitely said that.
Speaker 1: The Last Temptation of Christ. Yeah, who Harvey kai Tell
Speaker 1: does a pretty good Jesus or Judas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you know will in Dafoe.
Speaker 1: Yeah that was that was a good movie. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that was how I when I like anything I'd ever heard,
Speaker 1: I always thought like Jesus knew it was just never
Speaker 1: as explicit as this Gospel of Judas put it.
Speaker 3: Right and then Gospel of Judas. I even claim that
Speaker 3: Jesus even asked Judas like, hey, will you do this
Speaker 3: for me? Do me as solid? So kiss me, put
Speaker 3: one right here, right.
Speaker 1: So Judas realizes what he's done, feels horribly guilty, tries
Speaker 1: to give the silver back. The high priests that he's
Speaker 1: sold Jesus out to won't take the money, and so
Speaker 1: he throws it on the temple floor. They end up
Speaker 1: figuring out that it can be used for a potter's feel,
Speaker 1: and they use that thirty pieces of over for that,
Speaker 1: and then Judas goes off and hangs himself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I don't think we said Jesus was crucified.
Speaker 3: I thought that went without saying. Yeah, but in case
Speaker 3: there's like one person out there was like, what.
Speaker 1: Happened to Jesus? All right, whatever, it became a Jesus,
Speaker 1: That's what happened. And then Judas supposedly fell headlong and
Speaker 1: his body opened up. And there, if you go back
Speaker 1: and read some scholarly translations, they think that his body
Speaker 1: opened up means that he was left his body was
Speaker 1: left hanging for a while out in the heat, and
Speaker 1: when it finally fell, like a branch broke or whatever,
Speaker 1: and it fell, it kind of ruptured.
Speaker 3: Across where'd you find that out I don't remember.
Speaker 1: Somewhere online?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 1: Yeah it was. Yeah. They were talking about how he
Speaker 1: went headlong. He became headlong, and they were saying, like,
Speaker 1: if you just switch out like a couple of letters,
Speaker 1: headlong becomes swollen, and then that would explain why his
Speaker 1: body opened up.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And now Judas and Judas kiss are both part of
Speaker 3: the lexicon. And you know, in terms of betrayals, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, treacherous treacher So I know, thanks Sam.
Speaker 1: How about Chuck, I know you've seen this movie.
Speaker 3: I love this movie.
Speaker 1: Uh, the assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Coward
Speaker 1: Robert Ford.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've talked about it. This is a good movie,
Speaker 3: very good movie, written and directed by h Andrew Dominic
Speaker 3: and uh has Paul Schneider and my buddy, Paul Schneider.
Speaker 3: Schneid's right, he listens, Oh, hey, was he he's in it? Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's he's one of the gang. And he's a great actor.
Speaker 3: He's We've since become like email pals. That's so.
Speaker 1: Uh. That was an excellent movie. I'm sure Schneider did
Speaker 1: fantastic in it.
Speaker 3: He did great Schneid's Schneid's.
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.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think the movie was pretty accurate. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: it was great, like gorgeous to look at, beautifully filmed. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and not just because Brad Pitt was in it, but
Speaker 3: Casey Fleck as Robert Ford was amazing.
Speaker 1: He really so. Anyway, if you haven't seen that movie,
Speaker 1: go out and see it. In the meantime, we'll spoil
Speaker 1: it for you.
Speaker 3: I think he was nominated for an Academy.
Speaker 1: Well, I can't imagine how he wasn't. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: so creepy.
Speaker 3: So what's the deal with Jesse James.
Speaker 1: Well, Jesse James was a member of the James Ganga,
Speaker 1: the leader, a full partner. Well, I think he and
Speaker 1: his brother Frank were kind of co leaders really, that's
Speaker 1: the impression I have, Like Frank stallone. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: were very successful at robbing trains, robbing people, robbing banks,
Speaker 1: robbing everything, and they became outlaw folk heroes everybody loved
Speaker 1: to hate, but he also still loved.
Speaker 3: Well, they didn't kill people.
Speaker 1: No, not until the second to last robbery by Jesse James.
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.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was pretty new. He had long tried to
Speaker 3: get in the James Gang and was sort of shunned
Speaker 3: as a weirdo, a little weird and like not the
Speaker 3: most skilled robber and gunman, and it wasn't taken very seriously,
Speaker 3: which always bothered him.
Speaker 1: Right, So Jesse James pulls off one last train robbery
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy and decides to retire. Frank James retires
Speaker 1: and Robert Ford kind of tangs along with Jesse James
Speaker 1: the rest of his life, and the Governor of Missouri
Speaker 1: put a bounty on Jesse James head of I believe
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars, which is pretty substantial for eighteen seventy. Sure,
Speaker 1: And in eighteen eighty two Robert Ford took the Governor
Speaker 1: of Missouri up on this. I apparently met with him, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not only said I'm gonna do this. I want
Speaker 1: this reward. I'm gonna split it with my brother here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I also want to be I want immunity from
Speaker 1: my crimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well he was supposedly just supposed to capture him.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, and.
Speaker 3: Did the shooting on his own volition.
Speaker 1: And there's a wood cutting in this article of Jesse
Speaker 1: James dropping a feather duster just like he does in
Speaker 1: the movie.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. He stands on a chair in his own
Speaker 3: home to dust a picture and Robert Ford shoots him
Speaker 3: in the back of the head. Yeah, and kills him
Speaker 3: just right there, very like low key and anticlimactic.
Speaker 1: With his wife home and everything. Yeah, And then they leave,
Speaker 1: and so Robert Ford kind of like I think Benedict Darnold,
Speaker 1: expected to be concerd something of a hero. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he was considered a coward a zero. Yeah, yeah, he was.
Speaker 3: Actually, he and his brother were both indicted, found guilty,
Speaker 3: sentenced to hang, and pardoned in a single day.
Speaker 1: Oh that's a heck of a day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty like emotional rollercoaster going on there.
Speaker 1: And they became an ostracized socially. Robert Ford just became
Speaker 1: the butt of many jokes. And then finally one day
Speaker 1: he was confronted by a man who sought him out
Speaker 1: because he wanted to kill Robert Ford for to gain
Speaker 1: his own acclaim.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Edward O'Kelly brought a shotgun into it. He was
Speaker 3: a bar owner I think at the time Robert Ford was.
Speaker 3: And after by the way, they toured in a touring production.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, like recreating the murders.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sam Rockwell.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And so Edward O'Kelly goes in the bar with
Speaker 3: a shotgun, says hello, Bob, He turns around, shoots him
Speaker 3: in the throat, and he gets a sentence commuted after
Speaker 3: a petition and his pardoned killing Robert Ford.
Speaker 1: Yeah, back then, the prairie job mob rule definitely had
Speaker 1: like a ground hold.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is, but I think I
Speaker 1: got my point across.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were like, he was a coward and you
Speaker 3: shot him, so that makes you a good guy.
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 3: So that's Robert Fort. You got anything else? Nope? Should
Speaker 3: we move on to Mada Hati?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I knew next to nothing about Mada Hai.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Same here.
Speaker 1: She turned out to be a pretty fascinating woman.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Possibly not a trader at all. Yeah, actually, probably not
Speaker 1: a trader at all. Yeah, let's let's talk about her.
Speaker 3: Well, she was a very sexual being. She was very
Speaker 3: close to her father apparently, who doted on her, and
Speaker 3: she has been described as sex as being her driving force.
Speaker 3: And she was said to have an insatiable longing for
Speaker 3: male attention her entire life and for the time period
Speaker 3: early nineteen hundreds, she really really slept around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she didn't just like you the sex with
Speaker 1: the men. She liked them to buy her stuff.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well she used it as a means for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She blew through a lot of guy's money, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just loved to live lavishly, racked up tons of
Speaker 1: debt and became something of a toast among Parisian society,
Speaker 1: European society.
Speaker 3: Actually, yeah, she was Dutch, we should point out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, her real name was Margareta Zelli.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but she looked like Indian and she tried to
Speaker 3: remake herself as this Indian exotic Indian dancer.
Speaker 1: I read Indonesian. Oh, Indonesian, Yeah, because Mata Hari is
Speaker 1: Malaysian for eye of the dawn, which means sunrise. Gotcha,
Speaker 1: So her name was Sunrise, the stripping dancer.
Speaker 3: Well, and she she didn't just dance like this was
Speaker 3: at a time when the mulan ruge was like they
Speaker 3: were like pulling their skirts up a little bit and
Speaker 3: and some ankle and some nickers, and she was like
Speaker 3: taking it to you another.
Speaker 1: Level, apparently on stage in people's living.
Speaker 3: Rooms, private dances, like traveling dancing, like really erotic and
Speaker 3: exotic stuff for the time.
Speaker 1: So from what I understand, she was also a sometime
Speaker 1: prostitute when things were really bad and sure and then
Speaker 1: she but ultimately she just kind of went through a
Speaker 1: succession of lovers around Europe, and at one point she
Speaker 1: found herself in I guess in Amsterdam and was approached
Speaker 1: by a German officer and said, hey, we want you
Speaker 1: to spy for us. Here's twenty thousand francs and some
Speaker 1: invisible ink, and you're now a German spy, right, And
Speaker 1: she's like, whatever, mine air, right, Thanks for the money, sucker,
Speaker 1: and threw away the invisible ink supposedly, and never spied
Speaker 1: for Germany. But she still had a code name H
Speaker 1: twenty one, and as far as Germany was concerned, she
Speaker 1: was a spy for them, even though she didn't take
Speaker 1: it seriously. Apparently never carried out any spying activities. So
Speaker 1: she had a reputation as a German.
Speaker 3: Spy, yeah, without actually spying yet. And she was, as
Speaker 3: this one writer puts it, she was traveling alone. She
Speaker 3: was wealthy, she was an excellent linguist, and very foreign
Speaker 3: and very educated and admitted to having lovers and like
Speaker 3: all of this stuff for the time just meant we
Speaker 3: don't trust you, even if we don't have evidence. This
Speaker 3: makes you untrustworthy, right, So at some point the French
Speaker 3: decided that they were going to recruit her to become
Speaker 3: a French spy. This is Durman World War One, Yeah,
Speaker 3: even though they already suspected she was a German spy.
Speaker 3: She was sent around to try to get to I
Speaker 3: don't remember what country they were trying to get her into, Vittel,
Speaker 3: oh try together.
Speaker 1: She went to Russia. Yeah, she ended up going there
Speaker 1: for a little while in exchange for becoming a French spy,
Speaker 1: agreeing to spy for the French exactly. She ended up
Speaker 1: in Spain and came across this German officer and apparently
Speaker 1: he suspected her of being a spy. So when she
Speaker 1: started asking him questions, he gave her old information.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well they went to bed together as well. Sure
Speaker 3: we should mention this thing is just rife with sex.
Speaker 1: Right, and he gave her some old information. This the
Speaker 1: frenchman who the French intelligence officer who recruited her as
Speaker 1: a spy but still suspected her as a German spy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: finally said you 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.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and basically Thunder knows that the whole experience and
Speaker 3: was like, I'm going to hold my head high, I'm
Speaker 3: going to blow you a kiss right before you shoot me.
Speaker 3: And 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 to,
Speaker 1: but she refused to blind Ok, that's what it's in
Speaker 1: this article I saw elsewhere is like to the nuns.
Speaker 3: She also slept with her headmaster when she was sixteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it got kicked out of school for it. Yeah,
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 cold October day in nineteen seventeen. Yeah,
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 is about thirty years later,
Speaker 1: one of the prosecutors in France admitted, quote they didn't
Speaker 1: have sorry, here's the quote. There was quote not enough
Speaker 1: evidence to flog a cat. Yeah, that she very very
Speaker 1: likely did not ever spy for Germany. Yeah, made that
Speaker 1: one half hearted attempt in France just buy for France
Speaker 1: to make some money, and was executed and still didn't protest.
Speaker 3: I wonder if there's been a good movie on her,
Speaker 3: surely there, I don't know if there's been a recent one.
Speaker 3: She was tall too, she was like almost six feet tall.
Speaker 1: Yes, she looks very long.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look at her. It's hard to like sometimes it's
Speaker 3: tough to look at pictures from back then and see
Speaker 3: the attraction, you know. Yeah, it's just a different time period.
Speaker 1: I think it was the fact that she took off
Speaker 1: her clothes.
Speaker 3: And was real sexy and tall, right, yeah, slept with everybody.
Speaker 1: Selfish should know. So Matahari 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 toguri.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, she was. In fact, I'm just going
Speaker 3: to go ahead and say it, she was not a
Speaker 3: spy and she was not a treson As trader because
Speaker 3: it was proven so, and she was pardoned by Gerald Ford.
Speaker 1: Right, so she was born. So I'm just going to
Speaker 1: take her off the list. Okay, we'll finish the story though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a worthwhile story. Yeah, I have a to Guri.
Speaker 1: She was born in America in Los Angeles and had
Speaker 1: a degree in zoology from UCLA, And in nineteen forty one,
Speaker 1: she traveled to Tokyo to take care of an ailing
Speaker 1: aunt her family center over there. Yeah, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that she didn't really speak Japanese, she hadn't been raised
Speaker 1: in Japanese culture. Apparently, it was a lot of culture shock,
Speaker 1: but she still went over to take care of her
Speaker 1: aunt nonetheless, And while she was there, she got two jobs.
Speaker 1: One she was typing for one new service, and she
Speaker 1: got a second job as a typist for the one
Speaker 1: of the radio stations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they're like, Hey, you're American, Japanese American, and
Speaker 3: you have a great voice, and you're perfect for this
Speaker 3: new thing that we're going to do. Its American rock
Speaker 3: and roll music, and we're going to play it for
Speaker 3: the morale of the troops and.
Speaker 1: Well to deteriorate the morale.
Speaker 3: Well, but she they told her a different story at
Speaker 3: first though.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, they told her it was.
Speaker 3: To boost the morale. Really, yeah, Like, I don't think
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 3: Well, it was later said that it did, in fact
Speaker 3: boost the morale. They said Americans love the music and
Speaker 3: thought the Tokyo Ro's banter was funny and it lifted
Speaker 3: their spirits.
Speaker 1: That's funny.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, So if they were really trying to do that,
Speaker 3: it did a pretty poor job of it.
Speaker 1: Okay. Nonetheless, she was reporting on things like ships being sunk.
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
Speaker 3: Yeah, she called it. Well that's what she was. Eventually
Speaker 3: the one thing that they penned on her.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, then that didn't actually happen.
Speaker 3: Oh really yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So well let's get back to the story. World War
Speaker 1: two goes along, yeah, right, it ends, and she tries
Speaker 1: to get back to America, and as she's doing that,
Speaker 1: apparently the Japanese government identified her as Tokyo Rose.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she was orphan. Anne was her radio name, and
Speaker 3: Tokyo Rose was just sort of the name of the
Speaker 3: operation as a whole and not a single person, even
Speaker 3: though they tied her to that name.
Speaker 1: Which led to some great confusion, apparently because they were
Speaker 1: trying to get her as Tokyo Rose, even though she
Speaker 1: called herself Orphan Anne, and there were like twelve women
Speaker 1: including her that were all Tokyo Rose collectively.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the Japanese government says that's Tokyo Rose, and
Speaker 1: she said I'm orphan An. The American Intelligence Services of
Speaker 1: the Army investated her and could find no evidence that
Speaker 1: she committed any form of treason, and they were going
Speaker 1: to let her in the country, back in their place
Speaker 1: of birth because she traveled without a passport. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: now she's trying to get back in she needed a passport.
Speaker 1: Apparently a lot of veterans groups were like, you can't
Speaker 1: let Tokyo Rose into the US.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It was this one guy kind of started the
Speaker 3: charge and was successful.
Speaker 1: The reporter had at Bundridge. Yeah, yeah, Well apparently he
Speaker 1: got a couple of Japanese guys just to commit perjury
Speaker 1: and present false evidence against Tokyo Rose.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The two most damaging witnesses actually like just completely lied, right.
Speaker 3: The FBI put him up to it, coached them, yeah,
Speaker 3: and said you're going to get tried for treason if
Speaker 3: you don't do this.
Speaker 1: So she ended up being tried and convicted for treason.
Speaker 1: And sentenced to ten years, and she got out in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six, and they tried to deport her, and
Speaker 1: she successfully battled deportation and moved to Chicago. Yeah, died
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six.
Speaker 3: She worked at a retail store until two thousand.
Speaker 1: And six, her father's store.
Speaker 3: Two thousand and six, she was working in a retail store. Yeah,
Speaker 3: at ninety years old, and nobody even people didn't like
Speaker 3: come in there to see Tokyo Rose, like she was
Speaker 3: just a worker. Yeah, isn't that weird? It is like
Speaker 3: such a prominent figure in history, It just a ringing
Speaker 3: people up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you said, uh Ford Pardner.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Gerald Ford. Then he fell down.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the quizzling just briefly.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The quizzling is we mentioned earlier as another name.
Speaker 3: If you live in perhaps Norway or maybe other parts
Speaker 3: of Europe, you might be called a quizzling if you're
Speaker 3: a trader because of Vidcan Quizzling.
Speaker 1: Yeah he was.
Speaker 3: He basically tried to seize power after buddying up with
Speaker 3: Hitler in nineteen forty and said, you know what, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna use this as an opportunity to make Norway my own.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he did so for a very very short time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he invited the Nazis to come invade Norway. They did.
Speaker 1: He 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.
Speaker 3: They're like, sure, sure, ruler.
Speaker 1: Then they installed their own guy as the head of
Speaker 1: Norway and demoted Quizzling to president Minister President. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: apparently he went to work sentencing Norwegian Jews to concentration camps.
Speaker 3: Yeah. He really bad guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He was very much anti union. He was a fascist,
Speaker 1: and he was trying to make Norway fastist and he
Speaker 1: did so. He became the first person to ever announce
Speaker 1: a coup de ta on television. That's how he made
Speaker 1: his power grab. Oh really Yeah, I think it was television,
Speaker 1: although it seems early so maybe it was radio, but
Speaker 1: I guess he became the first one to announce it
Speaker 1: over a broadcast.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So, after the Nazis defeated, he was like.
Speaker 3: Oh no, yeah, I have a feeling this is gonna
Speaker 3: end up bad for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he was convicted of treason, sentenced to death,
Speaker 1: and executed by firing squad.
Speaker 3: And you are a quizzler. I'm sorry, quizzling.
Speaker 1: If you collude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're a Norway and you're trader, you're a quizzling. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like the Benedict Arnold of Norway. So chuck, you
Speaker 1: got anything else?
Speaker 3: No, And as per usual, this is a top ten
Speaker 3: that we do about six of and encourage people to
Speaker 3: go read the rest, including Robert Hanson, who we've talked about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ezra Pound as we talked about in the Insanity Defense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the Cambridge five. Yeah, not the Seattle seven
Speaker 3: or the Jackson five or the Jackson five.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And did we skip another one? Was at it?
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Oh the intro, we didn't mention the
Speaker 1: Cleveland Cavaliers iyre Lebron against Lebron, which I just think
Speaker 1: that's weird. Well, I think then went berserk.
Speaker 3: That's sort of past. And there's rumors of him going
Speaker 3: back to Cleveland anyway next no way, really maybe his
Speaker 3: contract's up and they think that he might love nothing
Speaker 3: more than to go back there and win a championship.
Speaker 1: Huh. Well, we'll see, Yeah, we'll see what happens. If
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about traders, you can type
Speaker 1: that word into the search bar at house tofforks dot
Speaker 1: com and it'll bring up this article. And since I
Speaker 1: said search bar, it means it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 3: This is Capgrass. Hey, guys, thanks so much for doing
Speaker 3: the Capgrass syndrome episode. It was amazing timing came out
Speaker 3: right around Father's Day and my father suffers from the syndrome.
Speaker 3: It's been very painful to watch. No yeah wow. During
Speaker 3: my marriage, we have never lived very close to my parents,
Speaker 3: but just under three years ago we moved close enough
Speaker 3: for day trips. About the same time, my dad had
Speaker 3: a fairly significant stroke and it made the slow progress
Speaker 3: of vascular dementia Alzheimer's that he also suffers from significantly worse.
Speaker 3: He started visiting my dad on a weekly basis. I
Speaker 3: would spend the day with him while my mom and
Speaker 3: brother would get the Monday rush orders out. Apparently Dad
Speaker 3: ran a mail order business. When I first started these visits,
Speaker 3: Dad knew who I was. We talked and I shared
Speaker 3: photos and stories of my kids. But within just six
Speaker 3: months the cap Grass really took effect. We had to
Speaker 3: work our way through who this strange lady was, who
Speaker 3: lived there? Now my mom? And why did Linda my
Speaker 3: mom leave him and watched his absolute fear when she
Speaker 3: would walk into the room. He eventually forgot who my
Speaker 3: brother and I were, as well as well as our
Speaker 3: spouses and kids, although I had to giggle a little
Speaker 3: bit during the small amount of time when my husband
Speaker 3: was the only one of us he knew because Capgrass
Speaker 3: affects those closest to you and then works his way out,
Speaker 3: so the husband wasn't around him as much, so at
Speaker 3: one point he was the only person that he recognized. Wow,
Speaker 3: and the White felt that was kind of funny. Now
Speaker 3: the dementia and Alzheimer's have progressed to a point of
Speaker 3: living in the past and not even remembering moment to moment,
Speaker 3: let alone day to day, he still doesn't know why
Speaker 3: his family has abandoned him, even though we're all around
Speaker 3: him all the time. I know he lives a very
Speaker 3: fear filled and lonely life amongst strangers. I liken it
Speaker 3: to living in a nightmare every moment of the day,
Speaker 3: and it sounds really sad. But she was fairly upbeat
Speaker 3: in the email like that we corresponded with just so
Speaker 3: like people are out there, aren't crying and stuff. Thanks
Speaker 3: for doing the podcast. When I talk about how dad
Speaker 3: is doing, it's tough to explain what he's going through.
Speaker 3: And now I can just send people to the podcast
Speaker 3: to learn more about it, which really helped. That's cool,
Speaker 3: That is Jill Overturf in Republic, Missouri.
Speaker 1: Well thanks a lot, Jill. We appreciate you sharing that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I you know, I hope things improve for
Speaker 3: your father.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. If you have a story about something
Speaker 1: we've talked about ever, we want to hear it, especially
Speaker 1: if we've helped you explain that to other people. We
Speaker 1: like that kind of thing. You can tweet to us
Speaker 1: at sys Kate podcast. You can join us on Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash Stuff you Should Know, and you can
Speaker 1: send us an email to stuff podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
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