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Hello everybody, it's Josh and for this week's Select, I've chosen our 2013 episode on history's greatest traders. Turns out history is rife with treacherous people and if there's any lesson to learn from this episode, it's be careful who you cross. Because once your name is associated with treachery, it turns out that that stays pretty sticky. It's tough to get rid of. Enjoy.
SPEAKER_07: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. So Chuck. Yeah. I have a story for you. Alright, let's hear it.
Come back with me. Wayback machine? Sure. Okay.
Couple hours ago. Yeah. So here we are. It's December 22, 1972. Oh yeah. Something really bad is about to happen. Sit down in front of this TV. Okay.
Our good friend and hero, Peter Brady, is trying out for the school play. Yeah. It's a story of the American Revolution. I remember that.
He tries out for George Washington, but he doesn't get it. And in fact, the name of this episode that we're sitting here watching on this nice brown and orange shag carpeting is called Everybody Can't Be George Washington.
Peter doesn't get the part of George Washington, but he does get another very important part, the part of Benedict Arnold. Ooh.
Well, at first he's like, hey, it's a part. It's a speaking part. I'm pretty happy. I'm going to do my best. That was a tree in my last six plays.
SPEAKER_13:
Right. This is a huge step up for him. Until his classmates point out that Benedict Arnold was a traitor. And since Peter's playing a traitor, he must be some sort of traitor too.
SPEAKER_02: So basically the whole school turns on him because he's playing Benedict Arnold. Which is really kind of silly. It is very silly.
And of course, Peter tries to get out of the play again and again. Yeah. Affecting laryngitis, pretending he has a limp, all of this stuff. Saying he forgets his lines. Yeah, I think I remember that. And finally, successful, and then his dad points out that he has turned into a traitor. Now Peter.
SPEAKER_02: Against the whole cast. Don't tell me. He had a lesson for him and he sat him down and had a talking to. It was a good one. Yeah. It was a good one.
SPEAKER_02: And so Peter goes in and plays Benedict Arnold and knocks it out of the park. And learned a lesson in the process.
But the whole premise of this episode of Brady Bunch is that Peter was suffering from a smear campaign started 200 years before by George Washington.
And it was so successful that even today, you can get a rise out of somebody by calling on Benedict Arnold if they've done something traitorous.
SPEAKER_13: Yeah, and we've learned there are quite a few synonyms with traitor that were in fact notorious traitors. Like if you call someone a Judas. Right. Or a Benedict Arnold. Or a what? A Quisling. Yeah. That might be popular in some parts of the world. Right. But this is the USA. Sure.
SPEAKER_02:
So we call people Benedict Arnold. That's right. Well, let's talk about this. Let's talk about Benedict Arnold to start.
Okay. Well, you know, first of all, we should point out that this is a curated show from our buddy Sam Teagarden. This is the summer of Sam then.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_13: Yeah. We're continuing into our second summer of Sam. And for those of you that don't know, Sam is a local fan of ours. Yeah.
SPEAKER_13: And a good kid. And he's actually on our TV show. He was in an episode, the Make It Rain episode. Yeah. One of our softball teammates. Yeah.
SPEAKER_13: And Sam's a good guy and he sends in great ideas so we like to highlight them when we do them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_13:
All right. So summer of Sam. Hey, Sam. Hope you're doing well, buddy. So where are we, Benedict Arnold?
SPEAKER_02:
We're talking about Benedict Arnold and why there was such a smear campaign against him. And it turns out rightfully so. Although possibly I think a lot of Arnold's side of the story has been lost to history.
SPEAKER_13:
Well, yeah. And coincidentally, or not coincidentally, some of these traders that we're going to mention today, history has borne out that they may not have been traders. Yeah.
But Benedict Arnold definitely was. No, he was a documented trader. Yeah. As traitorous and treasonous as you can get as far as in the context of war.
SPEAKER_13:
Yeah. So early on in life, things started out pretty well. He was born into some wealth. But his family, specifically his father, squandered their fortune with some bad business dealings. Apparently he was quite a drinker.
Oh, he turned into the town drunk. Yeah. Well, that'll do it. They lost their family estate because of him? Yeah. They lost their dough. Three of his sisters, or sorry, siblings died from yellow fever. He had to drop out of school.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he became an apothecary. Yeah. So things weren't like rosy for the guy. Although he did quite well later on in the military. Well, he did quite well even before that as a merchant. And actually by the age of 22, was able to buy back his family's estate.
SPEAKER_02:
Oh, really? Which he then turned around and sold at a profit. Well, good for him. So I guess he wasn't the sentimental type. Flip this estate. Yeah. I think it wasn't that he wanted his family's estate back. He just didn't want to lose out on the potential profit from it, I guess.
Yeah. And he seemed like he may have been like ADD before there was ADD. Yeah. Yeah. From the sounds of reading his thing, I was just like, man, this kid had ADD. He was like, always in trouble. He's getting kicked out of school. Yeah. But it was just because he was like, busy. Yeah. He wasn't like a bad kid, it seemed like. He was just always had something going on.
SPEAKER_13: He finally, I guess, found his niche and he did become quite a businessman and fabulously wealthy. But he wasn't wealthy enough, in his opinion. And in fact, joined the Sons of Liberty, a revolutionary group in New England, because he was mad that his riches were being taxed by England.
SPEAKER_02:
Yeah. He liked the dough. He did. And he did have a pretty remarkable military career. And Jefferson and Washington were big supporters of him for a while. Yeah. But he also suffered. Apparently, there are a lot of petty jealousies that they don't talk about among the founding fathers and the second and third echelons of all these guys. And apparently, Benedict Arnold frequently suffered. Yes, he was slighted a lot. A lot. Yeah. He missed out on honors and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_02: And he doesn't seem like the type to let things go, nor was he the type to air his feelings. So he just kind of sat there and stewed. Right. Yeah. I saw most of the times he was slighted. He fought really hard to get either reassigned or reappointed to the position he was going for. And so you're right. He couldn't let it go. He needed therapy. But instead, he was appointed to run West Point, not the military academy. The fort, right? Yeah. This is pretty, I guess they probably named it after that, didn't they?
SPEAKER_13:
I think it turned into the military academy. But I think this was before it was an academy. Yeah, it was definitely. Yeah. And so he went Benedict Arnold on everyone. And little did he know he was being a Benedict Arnold. But he sold secrets to the British, like plans, war secrets, armament locations, for about 3 million bucks. I think it was 10,000 pounds at the time.
SPEAKER_13:
Yeah. So the reason he did this ostensibly was, A, because he'd been slighted. Yeah. But also, and this is what it's been lost to history, is that he came to believe that the revolution had lost steam. Yeah. That the people running the show didn't really know what they were doing and probably wouldn't form a very good post-revolutionary government if successful. Yeah. So did he genuinely think the Brits were going to do a better job? Supposedly. Okay. That's what historians say.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_02: But again, he didn't really, he may have been the type to just kind of say that's what he was thinking too. And that's what somebody wrote down at some point. But he ultimately said, the colonies are better back in the hands of England again. Gotcha. So not only am I going to try to sell the map to West Point, I'm going to join the British Army, which he did, and led at least two raids against American revolutionary forces. So he really switched sides.
SPEAKER_02:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. In 1780, I can't believe whoever wrote this article put that, when the plot was intercepted, he went from zero, he wrote a zero. I know. I know. All of a sudden, it was in like an Us magazine or something. Or like a Springer show. Yeah. But that's what happened. He was convicted of treason, and his name was erased from the record books, and England promised him, they're like, hey, if you defect over here, we're going to give you a
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_13:
land in Canada. We're not going to give you land here. We'll give you land in Canada, some money, and we'll promise your family pensions. And you're going to be a British provincial brigadier general. And he's like, that sounds pretty great. But as it turned out, he didn't get that many great assignments in the military. In England, he was even sort of, I don't think anyone likes a trader. No, that's even in England. They're like, yeah, that comes up again and again. Like, yeah, even the side that you're trying to do.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Or whatever. They, yeah, they're like, you're a trader. Well, I think it's because basically, you're just a big liar. Yeah. And you're treacherous. Yeah. And so people are like, how am I going to trust you? Thanks for doing that. But can you go live in Canada? But it does pop up again and again, anybody who's ever turned trader and expected some sort of glory has been sorely disappointed. Yeah. So in England, he was sort of poo-pooed. Then he moved to Canada. They didn't like him. Yeah. And then he moved back to England and died there without ever, like, making a whole lot of money or getting a job.
SPEAKER_02:
SPEAKER_13: Yeah. And he didn't like any important military action. Right. So sort of a sad ending. It really is. And today, if you go to West Point, there's, I guess, 12 plaques of some of like the head revolutionary generals. Oh, yeah. And his name is literally wiped from the record. It has the year of his birth. And I think the town of his birth. But his name is not on the plaque any longer. Just says, bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
SPEAKER_02: Alright. So that's Benedict Arnold. Let's go a little further back. Okay. Let's go way back. Okay. I'm talking like maybe 44 BCE. Cassius and Brutus. Yeah. Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger. I'm glad you looked that up. Yeah. I'm sure he had a fuller name. Yeah. Brutus. It's like a
SPEAKER_02: whole country of Cher or something. And here's the thing with these guys. They were definitely traders as well but they're also singled out. Clearly they killed Caesar. We all know on the Ides of March. Which is Caesar the Senator and DFL. Yeah. Dictator for life. Which self declared. But there were like 60 dudes that took part in this. Yeah. And Caesar was self declared. Caesar fought a civil war. One and formed a triumvirate with Caesar.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_02:
With the people that he vanquished. Yeah. So he wasn't entirely dictatorial. Although as like popular opinion started to swell around him he's like maybe I will just be leader for life. Let's save all those voting days and I'll just be leader for the rest of the time I'm alive. And Cassius and Brutus had both fought against Caesar in the civil war. Yeah. And despite that Caesar pardoned both of them.
SPEAKER_02:
And gave them positions of power in his new government. And brand new knives. And they said still not enough. Well Cassius especially. Apparently he was very envious of Caesar and his power. Yeah. He was the rabble rouser. And that was ultimately his motive. Although he used the concept of the Republic of Rome turning into a dictatorship to lead the assassination against Caesar. Yeah. And even cooked up evidence and like letters of support to show Brutus. Because Brutus was
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_13: much friendlier with Caesar. They were buds. Right. But he was swayed by Cassius and said you know what this is going to be good for our country or our kingdom or whatever they were calling it at the time. And took part but they weren't like the lead. I mean maybe they cooked it up but they weren't the initial aggressors. I thought Brutus was the first one to stab Caesar. No. This dude Tilius Cimber came out and like pulled down his tunic.
SPEAKER_13:
First of all. Did he really? Yeah I guess he said pulled it down but I don't know what that means. I imagined he was pulling it like a hockey jersey. Either pantsed him or no a tunic is like a shirt thing. So I thought he pulled it over his head like a hockey player might in a fight. It's like reverse pantsed. Reverse pantsed him. And Caesar was like you know what is this violence going on. And then another dude Casca he came at him with a knife and Caesar blocked him away and defended himself.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_13:
And was like basically what's going on here and then that's when everyone like sixty guys descended upon him. Wow. Among you know Brutus might have been the lead of that pack though. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well. And he stabbed the crap out of him. So I knew I thought Brutus was the first one to stab him. I knew that some other guy was the first one to strike him and it may have been the guy who reverse pantsed him. Tilius Cimber? Yeah Yumi and I were at Pompeii. We actually walked around Pompeii. Uh huh. And there's a table there and it belonged to that guy. Oh really?
SPEAKER_02:
SPEAKER_02: And I guess somebody in Pompeii like bought the table of the first guy to strike Caesar. Oh wow. And like had it in their via. And it's still there today. And did you eat at it? No we stared at it. Oh okay. We looked at it from like three meters away. Oh gotcha. You have to say meters because it's in Italy. That's obnoxious. Um and apparently only one of the stabs he was stabbed twenty three times and like continued to be stabbed even after he was on the floor dead. Uh huh. But only one of them was a fatal blow. Um.
SPEAKER_13:
And he was stabbed like the second stab I think went through his heart. And the rest were just you know. But before that. Consult to injury. When Brutus stabbed him. Yeah. Caesar very famously said et tu Brutae? Yeah. Which literally means and you Brutus? Or what the hell Brutus? Yeah. You too. And supposedly he kind of gave up at that point like killed his spirit when he saw Brutus was involved. Yeah. But um I don't know if that's true. Yeah supposedly he didn't want to live in a uh. Brutus-less world.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_02:
A world where even Brutus could assassinate him. So he resigned himself to dying and hence became a hero. It's very sad. It was on my birthday. I thought your birthday was. Is it the fifteenth? Mine's the fifteenth too. But not on March. That's right. Uh so oh also too apparently that was the first autopsy report. Oh really? First post-mortem death report was made on Caesar. God the Greeks man. If that's true.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_02: Yeah. I'm glad I caught that one. Yeah. A bunch of people just deleted their email. Are you done anything else? On these two? Traders? Um no. Oh yes. Uh Dante had a special hatred for um Brutus and Cassius. And in his Inferno he says that they are being perpetually eaten by two of Lucifer's three mouths.
SPEAKER_02: Wow. And the third mouth is reserved for the next guy we'll talk about, a little guy named Judas Iscariot. Oh really? Yeah. Satan's third mouth? So Lucifer's three mouths are eating Cassius, Brutus, and Judas. Wow. Alright Judas is one of these that um recent evidence has emerged where he may not have been such a traitor but we'll get into that. But. But then that was refuted as well.
SPEAKER_13: Yeah. And he knows the Judas kiss. Very famously Judas betrayed Jesus. He was one of the disciples. He betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Yeah. And it was actually a signal to the guards to come and grab him. I guess he was identifying him. Yeah apparently the Romans didn't know who this Jesus was. Yeah. At least by sight. And Judas went and said hey you guys want this Jesus? What do you give me? And the signal was like well you kiss the guy that's Jesus and we'll come get him. And we'll give you thirty cents.
SPEAKER_13:
Thirty pieces of silver. Thirty pieces of silver. I mean the West Egg inflation calculator doesn't go back to you know that date but I can imagine it still probably wasn't that much. Thirty pieces of silver? I have no idea. Well apparently it was used later on to buy a field to turn into a potter's field to bury unclaimed dead. Oh really? But I mean it's a field. How much, it couldn't have been that much. Like how much was land going for back then in the Middle East? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:
I had tons of land. Okay so Judas betrays Jesus. He was, we didn't know much about his life at the time but recently there has been I think in 2000 one of the gospel, a new gospel was revealed. The gospel of Judas supposedly. Yeah, colon my story. My side of things. And it was of course a papyrus document dating to the
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_13: second century AD and it was written about in a book called The Lost Gospel and it portrays this Judas as more of a facilitator of what Jesus wanted. Basically Jesus was like hey turn me in because this is my destiny. Like sacrifice yourself, I sacrifice myself. And we all go on to live in heaven and fulfill our destinies. Yeah which a lot of people were like okay I kind of like this different view of Judas you know. And it makes Jesus
SPEAKER_02:
even more prescient than he appears in the Bible. Sure. Because you know he's betrayed by someone he thought was his friend and this he is commanding Judas. He's asking him to do this. So it's just an all-around like great view of the story. When when? But unfortunately apparently there's some problems that a lot of scholars, Gnostic scholars have with the translation and that if you just tweak a few things
to the way that the Gnostic scholars think it should be translated, that all just goes right out the window. And actually Judas is not only a horrible treacherous traitor, he's actually a demon from the 13th level of being. Yeah. So quite two different stories. All by changing a few words in this Coptic text which isn't the easiest stuff to translate. Like it's tough you know. It's not like and even the person that poo-pooed the original
SPEAKER_13:
translation was like this is a very hard job you know I'm not saying they necessarily did it on purpose but that's not what I think it says. Right. And so and that was April DeConnick a professor of biblical studies at Rice University. And I don't know did other people come out and support that I couldn't really find much. I don't know. And apparently actually in the Bible it's hinted at that Jesus could have known about it but. Well doesn't he say like one of you will betray me?
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_02: I mean at least he did in The Last Temptation of Christ. Yeah. Who Harvey Keitel does a pretty good Judas. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Willem Dafoe. Yeah that was a good movie. But yeah that was how I when I like every anything I'd ever heard I always thought like Jesus knew it was just never as explicit as this Gospel of Judas put it. Right and in Gospel of Judas I even claimed that Jesus even asked Judas like hey will you do this for me? Right. Do me a favor.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_13: I'm not saying it's solid. So. Kiss me put one right here. Right. So Judas realizes what he's done feels horribly guilty tries to give the silver back. The high priests that he's sold Jesus out to won't take the money. And so he throws it on the temple floor. They end up figuring out that it can be used for a potter's field and they use that 30 pieces of silver for that. And then Judas goes off and hangs himself. Yeah and I don't think we said Jesus was crucified. I thought that went without saying.
SPEAKER_13:
Yeah. But in case there's like one person out there was like well what happened to Jesus? Right whatever became of Jesus. That's what happened. And then Judas supposedly fell headlong and his body opened up and there if you go back and read some scholarly translations they think that his body opened up means that he was left at his body was left hanging for a while. Oh wow. Out in the heat and when it finally fell like a branch broke or whatever.
SPEAKER_02:
And it fell it kind of ruptured. Gross. Where'd you find that out? I don't remember somewhere online. Wow. Yeah it was um yeah they were talking about how he went headlong. He became headlong and they were saying like if you just switch out like a couple of letters headlong becomes swollen. And then that would explain why his body opened up. Wow. Yeah. And now Judas and Judas kiss are both part of the lexicon and you know in terms of betrayals. Oh yeah. You know.
SPEAKER_02: Treacherous episode. I know. Thanks Sam.
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SPEAKER_01:
How about Chuck. I know you've seen this movie. I love this movie. The assassination of Jesse James by the coward coward Robert Ford. Yeah we've talked about it is a good movie very good movie written and directed by Andrew Dominic and has Paul Schneider and my buddy Paul Schneider.
SPEAKER_13:
Yeah.
SPEAKER_13: Schneider. Right. He listens. Oh hey.
What's he is he's in it. Yeah he's he's one of the gang and he's he's a great actor he's we've since become like email pals. That's neat. Yeah. So that was an excellent movie. I'm sure Schneider did fantastic in it. He did great.
SPEAKER_02:
Schneider. Schneider. And it seems to me I don't know a lot about the whole saga of Jesse James especially his demise. Yeah. But it seemed to be pretty true to everything I've ever heard about it. Yeah I think the movie was pretty accurate. Yeah. And it was great like gorgeous to look at beautifully film. Yeah. And not just because Brad Pitt was in it. But Casey F. Fleck as Robert Ford was amazing. He really did. So anyway if you haven't seen that movie go out and see it. In the meantime we'll spend a lot of time talking about it.
SPEAKER_02:
I think he was nominated for an academy. I can't imagine how he wasn't. Yeah. He was so creepy. So what's the deal with Jesse James. Well Jesse James was a member of the James gang. Yeah the leader. A full partner. Well I think he and his brother Frank were kind of co-leaders. Oh really. That's the impression I have. Like Frank Stallone. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: And they were very successful at robbing trains, robbing people, robbing banks, robbing everything. And they became outlaw folk heroes. Everybody loved to hate. But they also still loved. Well they didn't kill people. No not until the second to last robbery by Jesse James. Yeah. They botched it and a couple of people died. Most of the James gang was caught. And Jesse and Frank went off and assembled a new gang that included Robert Ford.
SPEAKER_13: Yeah he was pretty new. He had long tried to get in the James gang. And was sort of shunned as a weirdo. A little weird and not the most skilled robber and gunman. And wasn't taken very seriously which always bothered him. Right. So Jesse James pulls off one last train robbery in 1870 and decides to retire. Frank James retires. And Robert Ford kind of tangs along with Jesse James the rest of his life.
SPEAKER_02: And the governor of Missouri put a bounty on Jesse James head of I believe $10,000 which is pretty substantial for 1870. Sure. And in 1882 Robert Ford took the governor of Missouri up on this. Apparently he met with him. Yeah. And not only said I'm going to do this, I want this reward, I'm going to split it with my brother here. Yeah.
But I also want to be, I want immunity from my crimes. Yeah well he was supposedly just supposed to capture him. Oh okay. And did the shooting on his own volition. And there's a wood cutting in this article of Jesse James dropping a feather duster. Just like he does in the movie. Oh yeah he stands on a chair in his own home to dust a picture and Robert Ford shoots him in the back of the head. Yeah and kills him.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_13: Just right there very low key and anticlimactic. With his wife home and everything. Yeah. And then they leave. And so Robert Ford kind of, I think Benedict Arnold expected to be considered something of a hero. Yeah. And he was considered a coward. A zero. Yeah. Yeah he was actually, he and his brother were both indicted, found guilty, sentenced to hang, and pardoned in a single day. Well that's a heck of a day.
SPEAKER_02:
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_02: Yeah pretty emotional roller coaster going on there. And they became ostracized socially. Robert Ford just became the butt of many jokes. And then finally one day he was confronted by a man who sought him out because he wanted to kill Robert Ford to gain his own acclaim. Yeah Edward O'Kelly brought a shotgun into, he was a bar owner I think at the time, Robert Ford was. And after by the way they toured in a touring production. Oh yeah. Like recreating the murders.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_13: Yeah Sam Rockwell. Yeah. And so Edward O'Kelly goes into the bar with a shotgun, says hello Bob, he turns around, shoots him in the throat, and he gets a sentence commuted after a petition and is pardoned for killing Robert Ford. Yeah back then the mob rule definitely had like a ground hold. Yeah. I don't know what that is but I think I got my point across. Yeah they were like he was a coward and you shot him so.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_13: That makes you a good guy. Exactly. So that's Robert Ford, you got anything else? Nope. Should we move on to Mata Hari? Yeah I knew next to nothing about Mata Hari. Yeah same here. She turned out to be a pretty fascinating woman. Yeah. Possibly not a traitor at all. Yeah. Actually probably not a traitor at all. Yeah. Let's talk about her.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_13: Well she was a very sexual being. She was very close to her father apparently who doted on her. And she has been described as sex as being her driving force and she was said to have an insatiable longing for male attention. Right. Her entire life. And for the time period, early 1900s, she really, really slept around. Yeah and she didn't just like you the sex with the men. She liked them to buy her stuff.
SPEAKER_12:
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah. Well she used it as a means for sure. Yeah she blew through a lot of guys money. Right. Yeah. And just loved to live lavishly, racked up tons of debt and became something of a toast among Parisian society, European society actually. Yeah she was Dutch we should point out. Yeah her real name was Margarethe Zelle.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah but she looked like Indian and she tried to remake herself as this Indian exotic Indian dancer. I read Indonesian. Oh Indonesian? Yeah because Mata Hari is Malaysian for Eye of the Dawn which means sunrise. Gotcha. So her name was sunrise, the stripping dancer. Well and she didn't just dance. Like this was at a time when the Moulin Rouge was like they were like pulling their skirts up a little bit and showing some ankle and some knickers. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_13:
And she was like taking it to you know another level. Apparently in people's living rooms. On stage. Yeah all private dances like traveling dancing like really erotic and exotic stuff for the time. So from what I understand she was also a sometime prostitute when things were really bad. Sure.
SPEAKER_02:
SPEAKER_02: And then she but ultimately she just kind of went through succession of lovers around Europe and at one point she found herself in I guess in Amsterdam. Oh. And was approached by a German officer and said hey we want you to spy for us. Here's 20,000 francs and some invisible ink and you're now a German spy. Right. And she's like whatever mein Er. Right. Thanks for the money sucker and threw away the invisible ink supposedly. Yeah. And never spied for Germany. But she still had a code name H21 and as far as Germany was concerned she was a spy for them even though she didn't take it seriously apparently never carried out any spying activities. Right. So she had a reputation as a German spy. Yeah without actually spying yet. Right.
SPEAKER_13: And she was as this one writer puts it she was traveling alone. She was wealthy. She was an excellent linguist and very foreign and very educated and admitted to having lovers and like all of this stuff for the time just meant we don't trust you even if we don't have evidence. Right. This makes you untrustworthy. Right. So at some point the French decided that they were going to recruit her to become a French spy. This is during World War One. Yeah.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_02: Even though they already suspected she was a German spy. She was sent around to try to get to I don't remember what country they were trying to get her into. Vitell. Oh well she. The town of Vitell when she was trying to go there. She went to Russia. Yeah. She ended up going there for a little while in exchange for becoming a French spy agreeing to spy for the French. Exactly. She ended up in Spain and came across this German officer and apparently he suspected her of being a German spy.
SPEAKER_02: So when she started asking him questions he gave her old information. Yeah. Well they went to bed together as well. Sure. We should mention this thing is just rife with sex. Right. And he gave her some old information. This the Frenchman who the French intelligence officer who recruited her as a spy but still suspected her as a German spy. Yeah. Finally said you know what I think that what you were really doing was giving French secrets to the German. You're a double agent and we're going to arrest you. Yeah. And she was arrested in France. Again now she's a spy.
SPEAKER_13:
No evidence. No evidence whatsoever and tried for treason and convicted. Yeah and basically Thunder knows that the whole experience and was like I'm going to hold my head high. I'm going to blow you a kiss right before you shoot me in the firing squad. Well supposedly it wasn't the firing squad it was two nuns that she became friends with and her lawyer who also she had slept with. That's who she blew kisses to. But she refused to blindfold. Oh I thought she blew. Okay. That's what it said in this article. Gotcha.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_02: I saw elsewhere it was like two the nuns. She also slept with her headmaster when she was 16. Yeah. And got kicked out of school for it. Yeah. So she refuses a blindfold in the end. She's all dressed up and everything for her execution. She's standing ankle deep in mud on a cold October day in 1917. Yeah. She refuses to be tied to the pole behind her. She refuses a blindfold and is executed by firing squad. So the weird thing is is about 30 years later one of the prosecutors in France.
SPEAKER_02: Admitted quote they didn't have sorry here's the quote there was quote not enough evidence to flog a cat. Yeah. That she very very likely did not ever spy for Germany. Yeah. Made that one half-hearted attempt in France. Just to get some money. To spy for France. Yeah. To make some money and was executed and still didn't protest. I wonder if there's been a good movie on her. She's a good movie.
SPEAKER_12:
SPEAKER_13: Surely there has been. I don't know if there's been a recent one. She was tall too. She was like almost six feet tall. Yeah. She looks very long. Yeah. Look at her. It's hard to like sometimes it's tough to look at pictures from back then and see the attraction you know. Yeah. It's just a different time period. Yeah. I think it was the fact that she took off her clothes. And was real sexy and tall. Right. Yeah. Slept with everybody.
SPEAKER_03:
Hey my friend. You know what. I stayed in an Airbnb in New York City not too long ago and had a really good time. It was kind of a great experience actually. Well then perhaps Chuck you thought about having an Airbnb yourself. Maybe you've stayed in an Airbnb before and thought to yourself this actually seems pretty doable. Maybe my place could become an Airbnb.
SPEAKER_13: That's right. It could be as simple as starting with a spare room or your whole place when you're away. You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. Yeah. Maybe you're planning a long weekend with friends or family this fall. Well while you're away you could Airbnb your place and make some extra money to help pay for the trip. Or maybe you have an extra bedroom or in-law unit where friends and family come to stay with you. You could Airbnb it and make some extra cash while it sits empty.
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SPEAKER_10: Hi I'm Martine Hackett and I'm hosting the second season of untold stories life with a severe autoimmune condition a production from Ruby studio in partnership with our genetics sharing real stories of MG C I D P and other autoimmune conditions. We hope to share inspiration and educate the larger community about the severe and often overlooked conditions. I can't fix this. I can't cure this and you know I'll take my treatment day by day but I want to try to be engaged be involved or be as helpful as I feel I can with the limitations I have of working full time to children.
SPEAKER_04: So I participate in like market research to provide information to hopefully benefit others because it's a small margin of people that have the mycenia then to get pregnant. It's an even more narrow margin and you can never have too much information as an epidemiologist. Yeah exactly right. Listen to untold stories life with a severe autoimmune condition on the I heart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
SPEAKER_10:
So Mata Hari probably was not a traitor and they really had a lot of trouble trying to prove that another famous traitor was actually a traitor and that woman was I have a toguri the keynote.
SPEAKER_02:
Yeah. Yeah. Tokyo Rose. Yeah she was in fact I'm just gonna go and say it. She was not a spy and she was not a treasonous traitor because it was proven so and she was pardoned by Gerald Ford.
SPEAKER_13:
Right so she was born. So I'm just gonna take her off the list. Okay. We'll finish the story though. Yeah so it's a worthwhile story. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: I have a toguri. She was born in America in Los Angeles and had a degree in zoology from UCLA. Yeah. And in 1941 she traveled to Tokyo to take care of an ailing ant. Her family sent her over there. Yeah. Despite the fact that she didn't really speak Japanese. She hadn't been raised in Japanese culture apparently. Yeah. It was a lot of culture shock but she still went over to take care of her ant nonetheless. And while she was there she got two jobs. One she was typing for one new service and she got a second job as a typist for one of the radio stations. Yeah and they were like hey you're American, Japanese American and you have a great voice and you're perfect for this new thing that we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_12:
SPEAKER_13:
It's American rock and roll music and we're gonna play it for the morale of the troops and well. To deteriorate the morale. Well but they told her a different story at first though. Oh okay. They told her it was to boost the morale. Really? Yeah like I don't think she knew what she was getting into.
SPEAKER_13:
That's crazy. Why would the Japanese boost the morale of the American troops in the Pacific? Well it was later said that it did in fact boost the morale. They said Americans love the music and thought the Tokyo rose banter was funny and it lifted their spirits. That's funny. Yeah. Okay. So if they were really trying to do that it did a pretty poor job of it. Okay. But nonetheless she was reporting on things like ships being sunk. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_13: Yeah she called it. Well that's what she was eventually the one thing that they pinned on her. Okay well then that didn't actually happen. Oh really? Yeah. Okay. So well let's get back to the story. World War II goes along. Yeah. She. Right. It ends and she tries to get back to America and as she's doing that apparently the Japanese government identified her as Tokyo Rose. Yeah she was orphaned and was her radio name and Tokyo Rose was just sort of the name of the operation as a whole. Right.
SPEAKER_13:
And not a single person even though they tied her to that name. Which led to some great confusion apparently. Yeah. Because they were trying to get her as Tokyo Rose even though she called herself Orphan Ann and there were like 12 women including her that were all Tokyo Rose collectively. Yeah. Okay. So the Japanese government says that's Tokyo Rose. And. She said I'm Orphan Ann. The American intelligence services of the army investigated her and could find no evidence that she'd committed any form of treason.
SPEAKER_02:
And they were going to let her in the country back in her place of birth because she traveled without a passport. Yeah. And now that she's trying to get back in she needed a passport. Apparently a lot of veterans groups are like you can't let Tokyo Rose into the US. Yeah it was this one guy kind of started the charge and was successful. The reporter had a bondage. Yeah. Yeah. Well apparently he got a couple of Japanese guys to commit perjury and present false evidence against her.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah the two most damaging witnesses actually like just completely lied. Right. The FBI put them up to it coached them. Yeah. And said you're going to get tried for treason if you don't do this. So she ended up being tried and convicted for treason. And sentenced to 10 years and she got out in 1956 and they tried to deport her. Yeah. And she successfully battled deportation and moved to Chicago. Yeah. Died in 2006. Yeah. And she was a
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_13: citizen. She worked at a retail store until 2006. Her father's store. 2006 she was working in a retail store. Yeah. At 90 years old and nobody even people didn't like come in there to see Tokyo Rose like she was just a worker. Yeah. Isn't that weird? It is. Like such a prominent figure in history just ringing people up. Yeah. Like you said Ford pardoned her. Yeah Gerald Ford. Then he fell down. So let's talk about the quizzling just briefly.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_02:
Yeah the quizzling is we mentioned earlier is another name if you live in perhaps Norway or maybe other parts of Europe. You might be called a quizzling if you're a trader because of Vidkun Quizzling. Yeah. He was he basically tried to seize power after buddying up with Hitler in 1940 and said you know what I'm going to use this as an opportunity to make Norway my own. Yeah.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_13:
And he did so for a very very short time. Yeah he invited the Nazis to come invade Norway. They did. He made a power grab and said I'm now the ruler of Norway and the Nazis let that slide for about a week. They're like sure sure you're a ruler. Then they installed their own guy as the head of Norway and demoted quizzling to Minister President. Yeah. And apparently he went to work sentencing a Norwegian general. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:
Norwegian Jews to concentration camps. Yeah. He really bad guy. Yeah he was very much anti-union. He was a fascist and he was trying to make Norway fascist and he did so. He became the first person to ever announce a coup d'etat on television. That's how he made his power grab. Oh really. Yeah. I think it was television. Although it seems early so maybe it was radio. I guess he became the first one to announce it over a broadcast.
SPEAKER_02: Right. So after the Nazis were defeated he was like oh no. Yeah. I have a feeling this is going to end up bad for me. Yeah. And he was convicted of treason sentenced to death and executed by firing squad. And you are a quizler. I'm sorry. Quizzling. If you collude. Yeah. If you're in Norway and you're a traitor you're a quizling. Yeah. It's like the Benedict Arnold of Norway. So Chuck you got anything else. No. And as per usual this is a very short story.
SPEAKER_02:
SPEAKER_13: As per usual this is a top ten that we do about six of and encourage people to go read the rest including Robert Hansen who we've talked about. Yeah. Ezra Pound who we talked about in the Insanity Defense. Yeah. And the Cambridge Five. Not the Seattle Seven. Or the Jackson Five. Or the Jackson Five. Yeah. And did we skip another one or was that it? I don't remember. Oh the intro we didn't mention the Cleveland Cavaliers, Iyer. Lebron.
SPEAKER_02:
SPEAKER_02:
Against Lebron. I just think that's weird. Well I think that's. Cleveland went berserk. That sort of has passed and there's rumors of him going back to Cleveland anyway. No way. Really? Maybe his contract's up and they think that he might love nothing more than to go back there and win a championship. Huh. Well. We'll see. Yeah we'll see what happens. If you want to learn more about traitors you can type that word into the search bar at house of works dot com and it'll bring up this article. And since I said search bar it means it's time for listener mail.
SPEAKER_13: Uh this is Capgras.
SPEAKER_13:
Gotcha.
SPEAKER_13:
Right.
Right. And the wife thought that was kind of funny.
SPEAKER_13: Man that was tough.
SPEAKER_13:
I'm going to be the one that got beat in the email. Like that we corresponded with. Just so like people aren't crying and stuff. Thanks for doing the podcast. I want to talk about how dad is doing. It's tough to explain what he's going through. And now I can just send people to the podcast to learn more about it. Nice. So it's really helped. Yeah that's cool. That is Jill Overturf in Republic Missouri. Well thanks a lot Jill we appreciate you sharing that. Yeah and I you know I hope things improve for your father. Yeah for sure.
SPEAKER_13:
SPEAKER_02: If you have a story about something we've talked about ever we want to hear it especially if we've helped you explain it to other people. We like that kind of thing. You can tweet to us at S.Y.S. Cape podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know and you can send us an email to stuff podcast that I heart radio dot com.
SPEAKER_08:
Stuff you should know is a production of I heart radio for more podcasts. My heart radio visit the I heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I heart radio for more podcasts.
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