August 22, 2013 • 43 mins
The annals of history hold a special place for people who have carried out treachery and betrayed their own. Thousands of years later, their names are still synonymous with being a scoundrel around the world. From Marcus Brutus to Vidkun Quisling and more, Josh and Chuck examine some of the bigger turncoats to live -- and exonerate others.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla. Welcome
to Stuff you should know from House Stuff, Work Stops
dot Com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
(00:29):
There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant Um so Chuck. Yeah, I
have a story. All right, it's here. It come back
with me way back machine. Sure, okay, a couple of
(00:54):
hours ago. So here we are. It's December. Something really
bad is about to happen. And sit down in front
of this TVA, our good friend and hero, Peter Brady,
is trying out for the school play. It's a story
of the American Revolution. He tries out for George Washington,
(01:15):
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 Donald. Well, at first he's like, hey, it's
(01:35):
a part, it's a speaking part. I'm pretty happy. I'm
gonna do my best. That was a tree in my
last six place, right, This is a huge step up
for him, um, until his classmates point out that Benediccdonald
was a trader, and since Peter's playing a trader, he
must be some sort of trader too. So basically the
whole school turns on him because he's playing Benedictdonald. It's
(01:58):
really kind of silly. It is silly. And of course
Peter tries to get out of the play again and again, um,
affecting laryngitis, pretending as a limp um all of this stuff,
first 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 trader. Now Peter
(02:20):
against the whole class of 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.
It was a good one, um. And so Peter goes
in and plays Bennedictdonald and knocks it out of the
park and learned a lesson in the process. But the
the the whole premise of this episode of Brady Bunch
is that Peter was suffering from a smear campaign started
(02:43):
two 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 Donald if they've done
something traitorous. Yeah, and we've learned there are quite a
few uh synonyms with trader that were in fact notorious traders,
like if you call someone to Judas or McDonald or what. Yeah,
(03:06):
that might be popular in some parts of the world.
But right, but this is the USA. Sure, so we
called people Benned McDonald's. That's right. Um, well, let's talk
about this. Let's talk about benediccdonald to start. Okay, Well,
you know, first of all, we should point out that
this is a curated show from our buddy Sam tea Garden.
This is the Summer of Sam. Then, yeah, we're continuing
(03:28):
into our second summer of Sam. And for those of
these don't know, Sam is a local fan of ours
and uh a good kid and he's he's actually on
our TV show. He was in an episode to make
an episode. Yah is one of our softball teammates. And uh,
Sam's a good guy and he sends in great ideas,
so we like to highlight them when we uh do them. Yeah,
(03:50):
all right, the summer Sam, Hey Sam, hope you're doing well, buddy. Um,
where we about Benned Iccdonald and why there was such
a smear campaign against him, and turns out rightfully so,
although possibly I think a lot of Arnold's side of
the story has been lost to history. Well. Yeah, and
coincidentally or not coincidentally, some of these traders that we're
(04:11):
going to mention today, history is born out that they
may not have been traders, but been an eternal definitely was.
So he was a documented trader and as traitorous and
treasonous as you can get, as as far as in
the context of war. Yeah. So, early on in life
things started out pretty well. He was born into some
wealth um, but his family um, specifically his father squandered
(04:35):
their fortune with some bad business dealings. Apparently he was
quite a drinker. He turned into the town drunk. Yeah, well,
that'll do it. They lost their family estate because they
lost their dough. Three of his sisters are sorry siblings
died from yellow fever. He had to drop out of school.
He became an apothecary. Yeah, so things weren't like Rosie
for the guy, although he did quite well later on
(04:57):
in the military. Well, he did quite well even before
or that as a merchant and actually by the age
of twenty two, was able to buy back his family's estate,
which he then turned around and sold it a profit.
Well good for him. So I guess he wasn't the
sentimental type for this the state. Yeah, I think it
wasn't that he wanted his his family's a state back.
He just didn't want to lose out on the potential
(05:19):
profit from it, I guess. Yeah. And he seemed like
he may have been like a d D before there
was a d D. Yeah. Yeah, from the sounds of
reading his thing, I was just like, man, he this
kid had a d D. He was always in trouble.
He's getting kicked out of school, 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
(05:39):
something going on. He finally, I guess, found his niche
and it did become quite a businessman, um and fabulously wealthy.
But he wasn't wealthy enough in his opinion, and in
fact joined the Sons of Liberty, the revolutionary group in
New England. Um because he was mad that his riches
were being taxed by England. Yeah, he liked the dough
(06:02):
he did, and uh, he did have a pretty remarkable
military career, and Jefferson and in Washington were big supporters
of him for a while. Yeah, but he also suffered um.
Apparently there are a lot of petty jealousies that they
don't talk about among the founding fathers in the second
and third echelons. Of all these guys, um, and apparently
(06:22):
Bennedicdonald frequently suffered um. Yes, he slighted a lot, a lot. Yeah,
he missed out on honors and stuff like that, and
he doesn't seem like the type to let things go,
nor was he the type to air his his feelings,
so he just kind of sat there and stewed. Right. Yeah,
I saw most of the times he was slighted, he
like fought really hard to get either reassigned or reappointed
(06:43):
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 four right. Yeah, this is pretty I guess they
probably named it for that, didn't they. I think it
turned into the Middle Terry Catty, but I think this
was before it was an academy. Yeah, it was definitely um,
(07:06):
and so he, you know, went Benedict Donald on everyone,
and little did he know he was being a Benedict Donald.
But he sold secrets to uh, to the British um
like plans, war secrets, armament locations for about three million bucks.
I think it was ten thousand pounds at the time. Yeah,
so he um. He. The reason he did this ostensibly
(07:29):
was a because he'd been slided, but also, and this
is what it's been lost to history, is that he
he came to believe that the revolution had lost steam,
that 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. So did he genuinely think the
Brits were going to do a better job. Supposedly that's
(07:52):
what historians say, 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 what what
somebody wrote down at some point, But he ultimately said this,
the colonies are better back in the hands of England again.
So not only am I gonna try to sell the
map to West Point, I'm gonna join the British Army,
(08:14):
which he did and led at least two raids against
the American Revolutionary forces, so he really switched side. Yeah,
in in seventeen eighty. I can't believe whoever wrote this
article put that. Uh, when the plot was intercepted, he
went from zero he wrote a zero. I know, I know,
I was all of a sudden, I was in like
(08:35):
US magazine ers or like a Springer show. But that's
what happened. Uh. He was convicted of treason and um
his name was a race from the record books. And
England promised him. They're like, hey, if you defect over here,
we're gonna give you land in Canada. We're not gonna
give you land here. We'll give you land in Canada
(08:55):
some money, and we'll promise your family pensions and you're
gonna be a British provincial to your general. And he's
like that sounds pretty great. But um, as it turned out,
he didn't get that many great assignments in the military
in in England. He was even sort of I don't
think anyone likes a trader's yeah, yeah, that comes up
(09:16):
again and again, like even the side that you're to
or whatever. Um, they yeah, they're like, you're a trader. Well,
I think it's because basically you're just a big liar,
You're treacherous. Yeah, and so people are like, how can
I trust you? Thanks for doing that, but can you
go with in Canada? But it does pop up again
and again. Anybody who's ever turned trader and expected some
(09:38):
sort of glory has been sorely disappointed. Yeah. So in
England he was sort of poop pooed. Then he moved
to Canada, they didn't like him, and then he moved
back to England and died there without ever like making
a whole lot of money or getting any important military action.
Sort of a sad ending, it really is. And today,
if you go to West Point, there's I guess twelve
(09:58):
plaques of some of like the head revolutionary generals, and
his name is literally wiped from the record. It has
the year of his birth and um, I think the
town of his birth. His name is not on the
plaque any longer, just says it's a smeared or there's
a sharpie through it. Um. All right, So that's been
(10:22):
at journald. Let's go a little further back. Okay, let's
go way back. I'm talking like maybe forty four BC.
Cassius and Brutus. Yeah. Uh, Marcus Junius Brutus the younger,
(10:44):
I'm glad do you look that up? Yeah, I'm sure
he had a fuller name. Yeah, Brutus. It's like it's
like a whole country of share or something. Uh. And
here's the thing with these guys. They were definitely traders
as well, but they're also singled out clearly killed Caesar
we all know in the oddes of March, which is
Caesar the Senator and dfl dictator for life, which self
(11:07):
declared um. But they're like sixty dudes that took part
in this. Yeah. And see, Caesar was self declared Caesar
for a civil war one informed a triumvirate with the
people that he vanquished, so he wasn't entirely dictatorial, although
as like popular opinion started to swell around him, he's like,
(11:31):
maybe I will just be leader for life. Let's 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,
and despite that, Caesar um pardon both of them and
gave them positions of power in his new government and
(11:53):
brand new knives. And they said right, and they said
still not enough. Well, Cassius especially apparently he was very
envious of Caesar and his power. He was the rebel
rouser and that that was ultimately his motive. Although he
used the concept of the Republic of Rome turning into
a dictatorship to lead them the assassination against Caesar. Yeah,
(12:15):
and even cooked up evidence and like letters of support
to show Brutus because Brutus was much friendlier with Caesar.
They were buds and uh, but he was swayed by
Cassius and said, you know what, this is gonna be
good for our country or our kingdom or whatever they
were calling at the time. And um took part. But
they weren't like that the lead. I mean, maybe they
(12:37):
cooked it up, but they weren't the initial aggressors. Um.
I thought Brutus was the first one to stab Caesar. No,
this dude, Tillius Simber came out and like pulled down
his tunic first of all. Yeah, I guess he said
pulled it down, But I don't know what that means
if he imagined he was pulling it either pantst him
(12:59):
or no, tunics like a shirt thing, so I thought
he pulled it over his head like a hockey player
might not fight. It's like reverse pants, the reverse pants him,
and Caesar was like, you know, what is this violence
going on? And then another dude, um Casca, he came
at him with a knife and Caesar blocked him away
and defended himself and was like, basically, what's going on here?
(13:23):
And then that's when everyone sixty guys descended upon him.
Among you know, Brutus might have been the lead of
that pack though yeah, okay, okay, well they 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 reversed pants
to him. Yeah, you, me and I were at Pompeii.
(13:44):
Who actually walked around Pompeii and there's a table there
and it belonged to that guy. And I guess somebody
in Pompeii like bought the table of the first guy
to strike Caesar and had it in their via and
it's still there today, and did you eat at it now?
We stared at it Okay, we looked at it from
like three meters away. You have the same meters because
(14:06):
it's in Italy. That's obnoxious. Um. And apparently only one
of the stabs. He was stabbed twenty three times and
might continue to be stabbed even after he was on
the floor dead, but only one of them was a
fatal blow. Um. He was a like the second stab
I think went through his heart and the rest were
just you know. But before that, when Brutus stabbed him,
(14:27):
Caesar very famously said a to brute, which literally means
and you Brutus or what the hell Brutus? Yeah, you too,
And supposedly you kind of gave up at that point,
like it killed his spirit when he saw Brutus was involved.
But yeah, supposedly he didn't want to live in a
(14:48):
less world, in 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, is it fifteenth?
But not of Mark that's right? Uh so? Oh also too,
(15:10):
apparently that was the first autopsy report, first postmortem death
report was made on Caesar. The Greeks man if that's
true the Romans. Whatever. I'm really glad I caught that one. Yeah,
probably anything else on these two traders. Um no, oh, yes,
(15:36):
Dante had a special hatred for um Brutus and Cassius,
and in his Inferno he says that, uh, they are
being perpetually eaten by two of Lucifer's three months, and
the third mouth is reserved for the next guy we'll
talk about, a little guy named Judas is carrying Oh really, yeah,
(15:58):
Satan's third month, So lucy first three months or eating Cassius,
Brutus and Judas. All right, 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. Um. Everyone obviously knows
(16:20):
the Judas kiss very famously. Judas betrayed Jesus his uh,
he was one of the disciples. He'd betrayed Jesus with
a kiss, and it was actually a signal to the
guards to come and grab him. I guess he was
identifying him. Yeah, apparently the the Romans didn't know who
this Jesus was, at least by sight, and Judas went
(16:42):
and said, hey, you guys want this Jesus, what do
you give me? And the signal was like, well, you
kissed the guy that's Jesus, and we'll come get him
and we'll give you thirty pieces of silver. Thirty pieces
of silver. I mean the west Egg inflation calculator doesn't
go back you know that that date. But I can
imagine it's still probably wasn't that much thirty pieces of silver.
(17:03):
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, but I mean it's field.
How much it couldn't have been that much. How much
was land going for back then in Middle East? They
had tons of land? Um? Okay, So Judas betrays Jesus.
(17:24):
He was um. We didn't know much about his life
at the time, But recently there has been I think
in two thousand one of the gospel, a new gospel
was was revealed, the Gospel of Judas colon my story,
my side of things, uh. And it was of course
(17:47):
the Papyrus document dating to the second century a d.
And it was written about in a book called the
Lost Gospel, and it portrays this Judas is more of
a facilitator of what Jesus wanted. Basically, Jesus was like, hey,
turn me in because this is my destiny. UM, like,
(18:07):
sacrifice yourself. I sacrifice myself and we all go on
to live in heaven and you know, 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 even more prescient than he appears in
the Bible, because you know, he's betrayed by someone he
thought was his friend. In this he Um is commanding Judas,
(18:31):
he's asking him to to do this. So it's just
an all around like great view of the story. When
when But unfortunately, Um apparently there's some problems that a
lot of scholars, um 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,
(18:54):
that all just goes right out the window. And actually
Judas is not only a horrible treacher traitor, he's actually
a demon from the level of being. Yeah, So quite
two different stories all by changing a few words in
this uh Coptic text, which isn't the easy stuff to translate,
like it's tough, you know, it's not like and even
(19:17):
the person that poo pooed the original translation was like,
this is a very hard job. You know. I'm not
saying they necessarily did it on purpose, but um, that's
not what I think it says. And so and that
was April Deconic, a professor of biblical studies at Rice University.
And I don't know did other people come out and
support that. I can really find much. I don't know.
(19:41):
And apparently actually in the Bible it's hinted at that
Jesus could have known about it, but um, well doesn't
he say like one of you will betray me? I
mean at least definitely said that the Last Temptation of Christ.
Who Harvey Kite tell those a pretty good Jesus or
a Judas? Yeah, yeah, yeah that was Yeah, that was
a good movie. But um yeah that was how I
(20:03):
when I, like every anything I'd ever heard, I was
thought like Jesus knew. It was just never as explicit
as this Gospel of Judas, right, and then Gospel of
Judas say even claimed that Jesus even asked Judas like, hey,
will you do this for me a solid, so UM
kiss me and put one right here. Right. So Judas
(20:25):
realize is what he's done. It feels horribly guilty, tries
to give the silver back the high priests that he's
sold Jesus out to UM won't take the money. UM,
and so he throws it on the temple floor. They
end up figuring out that it can be used for
a potter spiel, and they used that thirty pieces is
over for that UM. And then Judas goes off and
hangs himself. Yeah. And I don't think we said Jesus
(20:47):
was crucified. I thought that went without saying. But in case,
there's like one person out there was like, what happened
to Jesus? Right, whatever became a Jesus, that's what happened. Um.
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, um, his body opened up means that
(21:11):
he was left at his body was left hanging for
a while out in the heat, and when it finally fell, uh,
like a branch broker or whatever, and it fell, it
kind of ruptured. Where'd you find that out? I don't
remember somewhere online. Yeah it was. Yeah, they were talking
about how he went headlong, he became headlong, and they
(21:33):
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. Uh. And now Judas
and Judas Kiss are both part of the lexicon. And
you know, in terms of betrayals, you know, treacherous. I know,
thanks Sam, how about Chuck? I know you've seen this movie.
(21:55):
I love this movie. Uh, the assassination of Jesse James
by the cow Cow 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 Schnyder. Schneid's right, he listens, Oh, hey, was he
(22:19):
he's in it? Yeah, he's he's one of the gang.
And uh, he's he's a great actor. He's We've since
become like email pals. So, uh, that was an excellent movie.
I'm sure Snyder did fantastic in it. Great Schneids Schneid um.
And it seems to me I don't know a lot
about the whole saga of Jesse James, especially his demise.
(22:42):
But it seemed to be pretty true to everything I've
ever heard about it. Yeah, I think the movie was
pretty accurate and it was great, like gorgeous to look
at beautifully film. Uh, and not just because Brad Pitt
was in it, but Casey A. Fleck as Robert Ford
was amazing. He really so. Anyway, if you haven't see them,
if we go out and see it in the meantime,
we'll spoil it for you. I think he was nominated
(23:03):
for an Academy. I can't imagine how he wasn't. And
he was so creepy. So what's the deal with Jesse James. Well,
Jesse James was a member of the James Gang, a
full partner. Well, I think he and his brother Frank
were kind of co leader. That's the impression I have
like Frank still Yeah, and um, they were very successful
(23:25):
at robbing trains, robbing people, robbing banks, robbing everything, and
they became outlaw folk heroes everybody loved to hate. But
he also still loved. Well, they didn't kill people, no,
not until the second to last robbery by Jesse James. Uh,
they botched it and a couple of people died, most
of the James gang was caught, and Jesse and Frank
(23:46):
went off and assembled a new gang that included Robert Ford. Yeah,
he was pretty new. Um, he had long tried to
get into James gang. And um, we'll sort of shun
is uh a little weird and like not the most
skilled robber and gunman, and it wasn't taken very seriously,
(24:07):
which always bothered him. So, Um, Jesse James pulls off
one last train robbery in eighteen seventy and decides to retire.
Frank James retires and Robert Ford kind of tangs along
with Jesse James the rest of his life. And um,
the Governor of Missouri put a bounty on Jesse James
head of I believe ten thousand dollars, which is pretty
(24:30):
substantial for eighteen seventy. And in eighteen eighty two, Robert
Ford took the Governor of Missouri up on this, apparently
met with him and not only said I'm gonna do this.
I want this reward, I'm gonna split it with my
brother here, but I also want to be I want
immunity from my crimes. Yeah, well, he was supposedly just
(24:51):
supposed to capture him, and Um did the shooting on
his own volition. And and there's a wood cutting in
this article coal of Jesse James dropping a feather duster
just like he does in the UM movie. Oh yeah,
he's He stands on a chair in his own home
to dust a picture and Probert Ford shoots him in
(25:14):
the back of the head. Yeah, and kills him just
right there, very like low key and anticlimactic with his
wife home and everything. And then they leave. And so
Robert Ford kind of like I think Bennedictdonald, expected to
be considered something of a hero, and he was considered
a zero. Yeah, yeah, he was. Actually he and his
(25:37):
brother were both indicted, found guilty, sentenced to hang, and
pardoned in a single day. Well that's a heck of
a day. Yeah, pretty like emotional roller coaster going on there.
And they became an ostracized socially. Um, Robert Ford just
became the butt of many jokes. And then finally, Um,
one day he was confronted by a man who sought
(25:57):
him out because he wanted to kill Robert Ford for
to gain his own acclaim. Yeah, Edward O'Kelly brought a
shotgun into it. He was a bar owner I think
at the time Robert Ford was. And after by the way,
they toured in a touring production like recreating the Murders. Yeah,
Sam Rockwell Yeah, and um so Edward O'Kelly goes in
(26:18):
the bar with a shotgun, says hello, Bob. He turns
around and shoots him in the throat, and he gets
a sentence commuted after a petition in his pardoned for
killing Robert Ford. Yeah. Back then the prairiebu definitely had
like a ground hold. Yeah. I don't know what that is,
(26:39):
but I think I got my point across. Yeah. They
were like, he was a coward and you shot him,
so that makes you a good guy. Thanks. Uh so
that's Robert Ford. You got anything else? Should we move
on to Mata Hatti? Yeah, I knew next to nothing
about Mata Hary. Yeah. Same here. She turned out to
be a pretty fascinating woman. Possibly not a trader at all. Yeah, actually,
(27:03):
probably not a trader at all. Yeah, let's let's talk
about her. Well, um, she was a very sexual being.
She was very close to her father apparently, who doted
on her, and she has been described as um sex
as being her driving force, and she was said to
have an insatiable longing for male attention her entire life
(27:24):
and for the time period early nineteen hundreds, 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. Oh yeah, well she used as a means
for sure. Yeah. She Um. She flew through a lot
of guy's money, right, and Um, I just love to
live lavishly, racked up tons of debt and um became
(27:49):
something of a toast among Parisian society, European society. Actually
she was Dutch, we should point out. Yeah, her real
name was Um Margarita Zelli. Yeah, but she looked like
Indian and she tried to remake herself as this Indian
exotic Indian dancer. I read Indonesian Indonesian. Yeah, because Mata
Hari is Um Malaysian I of the dawn, which means sunrise.
(28:15):
So her name was Sunrise, the stripping dancer. Well, and
she she didn't just dance like. This was at a
time when the Mulan rouge was like they were like
pulling their skirts up a little bit and showing some
ankle and some knickers, and she was like taking it
to you know, another level. Apparently in people's living rooms,
(28:37):
private dances like traveling dancing, um, like really erotic and
exotic stuff for the time. So from what I understand,
she was also a sometime prostitute. Um when things were
really bad, sure, um and then she but ultimately she
just kind of went through succession of of lovers around Europe.
(28:58):
And at one point she found her self in um
in Amsterdam and was approached by a German officer and said, hey,
we want you to spy for us. Here's twenty thousand
francs and some invisible ink, and um, you're now a
German spy. And she's like, whatever mine air, thanks for
(29:19):
the money, sucker, and threw away the invisible ink. Supposedly
and never spied for Germany, but she still had a
code name H one, 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.
So she had a reputation as a German spy, yeah,
(29:41):
without actually spying yet. And uh she was as uh,
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. This
makes you untrustworthy, right so um, At some point the
(30:04):
French decided that they were going to recruit her to
become a French spy. This is during World War One,
even though they already suspected she was a German spy.
She was sent around um to try to get to
I don't remember what country they were trying to get
her into. Of hotel oh, she went to Russia. She
(30:26):
ended up going there for a little while in exchange
for becoming a French spy. Agreeing to spy for the French.
She ended up in Spain and came across this German
officer and apparently he suspected her of being a spy.
So when she started asking him questions, he gave her
old information. Well they went to bed together as well.
(30:47):
Sure we should mention this thing is just right with
sex and um, he gave her some old information. This
the frenchman who the French intelligence officer who recruited her
as a spy, but still suspect her as a German
spy finally said, 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.
(31:07):
And she was arrested in France again no evidence, no
evidence whatsoever, and tried for treason and convicted. Yeah, and
um basically Thunder knows that the whole experience, and was like,
I'm gonna hold my head high, I'm gonna blow you
a kiss right before you shoot me in the firing squad.
Well supposedly it wasn't the firing squad. It was two
(31:28):
nuns that she became friends with and her lawyer who
also she had slept with. That's who she blew kisses too.
But she refused to O that's what it said in
this article that I saw elsewhere. It was like to
the nuns, she JUSTO slept with her headmaster when she
was sixteen, Yeah, and got kicked out of school for it.
So she refuses a blindfold. In the end, she's all
(31:49):
dressed up and everything for her execution. She's standing ankle
deep in mud on a coal October day in nineteen seventeen.
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 about thirty years later, one
of the prosecutors in France admitted, quote they didn't have sorry,
(32:12):
here's the quote. There was quote not enough evidence to
flog a cat that she very very likely did not
ever spy for Germany, made that one half hearted attempt
in France for France to make some money and was
(32:32):
executed and still didn't protest. I wonder if there's been
a good movie on her, surely there, I don't know
if there's been a recent one. She was tall too,
she was like almost six ft tall. Yes, 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. I think it was the fact that
(32:56):
she took off her clothes and was real sexy and
tall with everybody. So Mata Hary probably was not a trader,
and they really had a lot of trouble trying to
prove that another famous trader was actually a trader and
that woman was I have a togury. Yeah, yeah, she was.
(33:25):
In fact, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it.
She was not a spy and she was not a
treasonous trader um because it was proven so, and she
was pardoned by Gerald Ford. 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,
I have a toegury. She was born in America in
(33:46):
Los Angeles, UM and had a degree in zoology from
u c l A. And in one she traveled to
Tokyo to take care of an ailing aunt her family
center over there. Despite the fact that she didn't really
speak Japanese, Jim been raised in Japanese culture. Apparently there
was a lot of culture shock, but she still went
over to take care of her aunt nonetheless, And while
(34:08):
she was there she got two jobs. Once she was
typing for one new service, and she got a second
job as a typist for UM, the one of the
radio stations. Yeah, and they're 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. It's UM American
(34:30):
rock and roll music and we're gonna play it for
the morale of the troops, and well to deteriorate the morale. Well,
but she they told her a different story at first though.
They told her it was to boost the morale. Yeah, Like,
I don't think she knew what she was getting into.
That's crazy. Why would the Japanese boost the morale of
the American troops in the Pacific. Well, it was later
(34:53):
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 looked at her spirits. Yeah,
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 um ships being sunk.
Is that correct? Yeah, she called that. Well that's what
she was eventually the one thing that they pinned on her. Okay, Well,
(35:16):
then that didn't actually happen. Yeah, okay, So well let's
let's get back to the story. World War two goes along,
she um 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
Orphan and was her radio name in Tokyo Rose was
(35:37):
just sort of the name of the operation as a
whole and not a single person, even though they tied
her to that name, which led to some great confusion
apparently because they were trying to get her as Tokyo Rose,
even though her she called herself Orphan Aan and there
were like twelve women including her that we're all Tokyo
Rose collectively. Yeah, okay um. So the Japanese government says,
(35:58):
that's Tokyo Rose, and uh, she said, I'm morph An Ann.
The American Intelligence Services of the Army investigated her and
could find no evidence that she had committed any form
of treason, and they were going to let her in
the country, back in their place of birth. Um, because
she traveled without a passport and now that she's trying
to get back in she needed a passport. Um. Apparently
(36:22):
a lot of veterans groupture like you can't let Tokyo
Rose into the US. It was just one guy kind
of started the charge and was successful. The reporter had Bundridge. Yeah, well,
apparently he got a couple of Japanese guys to commit
perjury and and present false evidence against Um Tokyo Rose. Yeah,
(36:42):
the two most damaging witnesses actually like just completely lied, right.
The FBI put him up to it, coached them and
said you're gonna get tried for treason if you don't
do this. So she ended up being tried and convicted
for treason UM and sentenced to ten years. And she
got out in ninety six, and they tried to deport
her and Um. She successfully battled deportation and moved to Chicago.
(37:08):
She worked at a retail store until two thousand six.
Two thousand six, she was working in a retail store
at ninety 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, Like such a
prominent figure in history. It just bringing people up, like
(37:28):
you said, Ford Pardner, Yeah, Gerald Ford. Then he fell down.
Let's talk about the quizzling briefly. 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
(37:50):
Vidkan Quisling. Yeah, he was. He basically tried to seize
power after buddying up with Hitler in nine and said,
you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna use this as
an opportunity two make Norway my own. Yeah, and he
did so for a very very short time. Yeah, he
(38:10):
invited the Nazis to come invade Norway. They did. He
Um 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, here ruler, and
then they installed their own guy as the head of
Norway and demoted Quizzling to uh president minister president and
(38:32):
uh apparently he went to work sentencing Norwegian Jews to
concentration camps. Uh. He really bad guy. Yeah. He was
very much anti union. He was a fascist, and he
was trying to make Norway fastest and he did so.
He became the first person to ever announce a kudata
on television. That's how he made his power grab. Yeah,
(38:55):
I think I was television, it seems early, so maybe
he was radio. By guess he became the first one
to announce it over him podcast, right, So Um, after
the Nazis were defeated. He was like, oh no, yeah
the film this is gonna end up bad for me. Yeah.
And he was convicted of treason, sentenced to death, and
executed by firing squad. And you are a quizzler, I'm sorry,
(39:18):
quizzling if you collude. Yeah, if you're in Norway and
your trader, you're a quizzling. Yeah. It's like the Benedict
Donald of Norway. So Chuck, you got anything else? No,
And it's per usual. This is a top ten that
we do about six of and encourage people to go
read the rest, including uh Robert Hansen, who we talked about. Yeah,
(39:40):
um as were pound as we talked about in the
Insanity defense and the Cambridge five, not the Seattle seven
or the Jackson five or the Jackson five. And did
we skip another one was at it? I don't remember.
Oh the intro we didn't mention, um the Cleveland Cavaliers
ire Braun against Lebron, which I just think that's weird. Well,
(40:03):
I think I went berserk. That's sort of has passed,
and there's rumors of him going back to Cleveland anyway
next really maybe his contracts 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. Uh. If you want to learn more
about traders, you can type that word into the search
bar at house to works dot com and will bring
(40:24):
up this article. And since I said search part, it
means it's time for message break. Uh. Now, Chuck, it's
time for listener mail. Uh. This is cap Grass. Hey, guys,
thanks so much for doing the cap Grass syndrome episode.
It was amazing. Timing came out right around Father's Day
(40:47):
and my father suffers from the syndrome. It's been very
painful to watch. Yeah. During my marriage, we have never
lived very close to my parents, but just under three
years ago we moved close enough for day trips. About
the same time, my dad had a fairly significant stroke
and it made the slow progress of vascular dementia Alzheimer's
that he also suffers from significantly. Works started visiting my
(41:08):
dad on a weekly basis. I would spend the day
with him while my mom and brother would get the
Monday rush orders out. Apparently Dad ran a mail order business.
When I first started these visits, Dad knew who I was.
We talked and I shared photos and stories of my kids.
But within just six months the cap grass really took effect.
We had to work our way through who this strange
lady was, who lived there now my mom? And why
(41:30):
did Linda my mom leave him? And watched his absolute
fear when she would walk into the room. Uh. He
eventually forgot who my brother and I were, as well
as well as our spouses and kids. Although I had
to giggle a little bit during the small amount of
time when my husband was only one of us, he
knew because cap grass affects those closest to you and
then works his way out so the husband wouldn't around
(41:52):
him as much. So one point he was the only
person that he recognized, and the white thought that was
kind of funny. Now, the dementia and alzheimer to progress
to a point of living in the past and not
even remembering moment to moment, let alone day to day.
He still doesn't know why his family has abandoned him,
even though we're all around him all the time. Uh,
I know he lives a very fearfilled and lonely life
(42:13):
among strangers. I liken it to living in a nightmare
every moment of the day. Um, and it sounds really sad,
but she's she was fairly upbeat in the email like that.
We corresponded, but just still like people are up there
and crying and stuff. Thanks for doing the podcast. When
I 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.
(42:35):
So who's really helped that is Jill Overturf in Republic, Missouri.
Well thanks a lot, Joe. We appreciate you sharing that. Yeah,
and I you know, I hope things can prove for
your father. Yeah, for sure. Um, if you have a
story about something we've talked about ever, we want to
(42:56):
hear it, especially if we've helped you explain that to
other people. We like that kind of thing. Um. You
can tweet to us at s y ESK podcast. You
can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you
Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff
Podcast at Discovery dot com, and you can always check
out our website Stuff you Should Know dot com for
(43:22):
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is It
how Stuff Works dot com
Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla. Welcome
to Stuff you should know from House Stuff, Work Stops
dot Com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
(00:29):
There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant Um so Chuck. Yeah, I
have a story. All right, it's here. It come back
with me way back machine. Sure, okay, a couple of
(00:54):
hours ago. So here we are. It's December. Something really
bad is about to happen. And sit down in front
of this TVA, our good friend and hero, Peter Brady,
is trying out for the school play. It's a story
of the American Revolution. He tries out for George Washington,
(01:15):
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 Donald. Well, at first he's like, hey, it's
(01:35):
a part, it's a speaking part. I'm pretty happy. I'm
gonna do my best. That was a tree in my
last six place, right, This is a huge step up
for him, um, until his classmates point out that Benediccdonald
was a trader, and since Peter's playing a trader, he
must be some sort of trader too. So basically the
whole school turns on him because he's playing Benedictdonald. It's
(01:58):
really kind of silly. It is silly. And of course
Peter tries to get out of the play again and again, um,
affecting laryngitis, pretending as a limp um all of this stuff,
first 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 trader. Now Peter
(02:20):
against the whole class of 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.
It was a good one, um. And so Peter goes
in and plays Bennedictdonald and knocks it out of the
park and learned a lesson in the process. But the
the the whole premise of this episode of Brady Bunch
is that Peter was suffering from a smear campaign started
(02:43):
two 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 Donald if they've done
something traitorous. Yeah, and we've learned there are quite a
few uh synonyms with trader that were in fact notorious traders,
like if you call someone to Judas or McDonald or what. Yeah,
(03:06):
that might be popular in some parts of the world.
But right, but this is the USA. Sure, so we
called people Benned McDonald's. That's right. Um, well, let's talk
about this. Let's talk about benediccdonald to start. Okay, Well,
you know, first of all, we should point out that
this is a curated show from our buddy Sam tea Garden.
This is the Summer of Sam. Then, yeah, we're continuing
(03:28):
into our second summer of Sam. And for those of
these don't know, Sam is a local fan of ours
and uh a good kid and he's he's actually on
our TV show. He was in an episode to make
an episode. Yah is one of our softball teammates. And uh,
Sam's a good guy and he sends in great ideas,
so we like to highlight them when we uh do them. Yeah,
(03:50):
all right, the summer Sam, Hey Sam, hope you're doing well, buddy. Um,
where we about Benned Iccdonald and why there was such
a smear campaign against him, and turns out rightfully so,
although possibly I think a lot of Arnold's side of
the story has been lost to history. Well. Yeah, and
coincidentally or not coincidentally, some of these traders that we're
(04:11):
going to mention today, history is born out that they
may not have been traders, but been an eternal definitely was.
So he was a documented trader and as traitorous and
treasonous as you can get, as as far as in
the context of war. Yeah. So, early on in life
things started out pretty well. He was born into some
wealth um, but his family um, specifically his father squandered
(04:35):
their fortune with some bad business dealings. Apparently he was
quite a drinker. He turned into the town drunk. Yeah, well,
that'll do it. They lost their family estate because they
lost their dough. Three of his sisters are sorry siblings
died from yellow fever. He had to drop out of school.
He became an apothecary. Yeah, so things weren't like Rosie
for the guy, although he did quite well later on
(04:57):
in the military. Well, he did quite well even before
or that as a merchant and actually by the age
of twenty two, was able to buy back his family's estate,
which he then turned around and sold it a profit.
Well good for him. So I guess he wasn't the
sentimental type for this the state. Yeah, I think it
wasn't that he wanted his his family's a state back.
He just didn't want to lose out on the potential
(05:19):
profit from it, I guess. Yeah. And he seemed like
he may have been like a d D before there
was a d D. Yeah. Yeah, from the sounds of
reading his thing, I was just like, man, he this
kid had a d D. He was always in trouble.
He's getting kicked out of school, 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
(05:39):
something going on. He finally, I guess, found his niche
and it did become quite a businessman, um and fabulously wealthy.
But he wasn't wealthy enough in his opinion, and in
fact joined the Sons of Liberty, the revolutionary group in
New England. Um because he was mad that his riches
were being taxed by England. Yeah, he liked the dough
(06:02):
he did, and uh, he did have a pretty remarkable
military career, and Jefferson and in Washington were big supporters
of him for a while. Yeah, but he also suffered um.
Apparently there are a lot of petty jealousies that they
don't talk about among the founding fathers in the second
and third echelons. Of all these guys, um, and apparently
(06:22):
Bennedicdonald frequently suffered um. Yes, he slighted a lot, a lot. Yeah,
he missed out on honors and stuff like that, and
he doesn't seem like the type to let things go,
nor was he the type to air his his feelings,
so he just kind of sat there and stewed. Right. Yeah,
I saw most of the times he was slighted, he
like fought really hard to get either reassigned or reappointed
(06:43):
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 four right. Yeah, this is pretty I guess they
probably named it for that, didn't they. I think it
turned into the Middle Terry Catty, but I think this
was before it was an academy. Yeah, it was definitely um,
(07:06):
and so he, you know, went Benedict Donald on everyone,
and little did he know he was being a Benedict Donald.
But he sold secrets to uh, to the British um
like plans, war secrets, armament locations for about three million bucks.
I think it was ten thousand pounds at the time. Yeah,
so he um. He. The reason he did this ostensibly
(07:29):
was a because he'd been slided, but also, and this
is what it's been lost to history, is that he
he came to believe that the revolution had lost steam,
that 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. So did he genuinely think the
Brits were going to do a better job. Supposedly that's
(07:52):
what historians say, 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 what what
somebody wrote down at some point, But he ultimately said this,
the colonies are better back in the hands of England again.
So not only am I gonna try to sell the
map to West Point, I'm gonna join the British Army,
(08:14):
which he did and led at least two raids against
the American Revolutionary forces, so he really switched side. Yeah,
in in seventeen eighty. I can't believe whoever wrote this
article put that. Uh, when the plot was intercepted, he
went from zero he wrote a zero. I know, I know,
I was all of a sudden, I was in like
(08:35):
US magazine ers or like a Springer show. But that's
what happened. Uh. He was convicted of treason and um
his name was a race from the record books. And
England promised him. They're like, hey, if you defect over here,
we're gonna give you land in Canada. We're not gonna
give you land here. We'll give you land in Canada
(08:55):
some money, and we'll promise your family pensions and you're
gonna be a British provincial to your general. And he's
like that sounds pretty great. But um, as it turned out,
he didn't get that many great assignments in the military
in in England. He was even sort of I don't
think anyone likes a trader's yeah, yeah, that comes up
(09:16):
again and again, like even the side that you're to
or whatever. Um, they yeah, they're like, you're a trader. Well,
I think it's because basically you're just a big liar,
You're treacherous. Yeah, and so people are like, how can
I trust you? Thanks for doing that, but can you
go with in Canada? But it does pop up again
and again. Anybody who's ever turned trader and expected some
(09:38):
sort of glory has been sorely disappointed. Yeah. So in
England he was sort of poop pooed. Then he moved
to Canada, they didn't like him, and then he moved
back to England and died there without ever like making
a whole lot of money or getting any important military action.
Sort of a sad ending, it really is. And today,
if you go to West Point, there's I guess twelve
(09:58):
plaques of some of like the head revolutionary generals, and
his name is literally wiped from the record. It has
the year of his birth and um, I think the
town of his birth. His name is not on the
plaque any longer, just says it's a smeared or there's
a sharpie through it. Um. All right, So that's been
(10:22):
at journald. Let's go a little further back. Okay, let's
go way back. I'm talking like maybe forty four BC.
Cassius and Brutus. Yeah. Uh, Marcus Junius Brutus the younger,
(10:44):
I'm glad do you look that up? Yeah, I'm sure
he had a fuller name. Yeah, Brutus. It's like it's
like a whole country of share or something. Uh. And
here's the thing with these guys. They were definitely traders
as well, but they're also singled out clearly killed Caesar
we all know in the oddes of March, which is
Caesar the Senator and dfl dictator for life, which self
(11:07):
declared um. But they're like sixty dudes that took part
in this. Yeah. And see, Caesar was self declared Caesar
for a civil war one informed a triumvirate with the
people that he vanquished, so he wasn't entirely dictatorial, although
as like popular opinion started to swell around him, he's like,
(11:31):
maybe I will just be leader for life. Let's 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,
and despite that, Caesar um pardon both of them and
gave them positions of power in his new government and
(11:53):
brand new knives. And they said right, and they said
still not enough. Well, Cassius especially apparently he was very
envious of Caesar and his power. He was the rebel
rouser and that that was ultimately his motive. Although he
used the concept of the Republic of Rome turning into
a dictatorship to lead them the assassination against Caesar. Yeah,
(12:15):
and even cooked up evidence and like letters of support
to show Brutus because Brutus was much friendlier with Caesar.
They were buds and uh, but he was swayed by
Cassius and said, you know what, this is gonna be
good for our country or our kingdom or whatever they
were calling at the time. And um took part. But
they weren't like that the lead. I mean, maybe they
(12:37):
cooked it up, but they weren't the initial aggressors. Um.
I thought Brutus was the first one to stab Caesar. No,
this dude, Tillius Simber came out and like pulled down
his tunic first of all. Yeah, I guess he said
pulled it down, But I don't know what that means
if he imagined he was pulling it either pantst him
(12:59):
or no, tunics like a shirt thing, so I thought
he pulled it over his head like a hockey player
might not fight. It's like reverse pants, the reverse pants him,
and Caesar was like, you know, what is this violence
going on? And then another dude, um Casca, he came
at him with a knife and Caesar blocked him away
and defended himself and was like, basically, what's going on here?
(13:23):
And then that's when everyone sixty guys descended upon him.
Among you know, Brutus might have been the lead of
that pack though yeah, okay, okay, well they 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 reversed pants
to him. Yeah, you, me and I were at Pompeii.
(13:44):
Who actually walked around Pompeii and there's a table there
and it belonged to that guy. And I guess somebody
in Pompeii like bought the table of the first guy
to strike Caesar and had it in their via and
it's still there today, and did you eat at it now?
We stared at it Okay, we looked at it from
like three meters away. You have the same meters because
(14:06):
it's in Italy. That's obnoxious. Um. And apparently only one
of the stabs. He was stabbed twenty three times and
might continue to be stabbed even after he was on
the floor dead, but only one of them was a
fatal blow. Um. He was a like the second stab
I think went through his heart and the rest were
just you know. But before that, when Brutus stabbed him,
(14:27):
Caesar very famously said a to brute, which literally means
and you Brutus or what the hell Brutus? Yeah, you too,
And supposedly you kind of gave up at that point,
like it killed his spirit when he saw Brutus was involved.
But yeah, supposedly he didn't want to live in a
(14:48):
less world, in 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, is it fifteenth?
But not of Mark that's right? Uh so? Oh also too,
(15:10):
apparently that was the first autopsy report, first postmortem death
report was made on Caesar. The Greeks man if that's
true the Romans. Whatever. I'm really glad I caught that one. Yeah,
probably anything else on these two traders. Um no, oh, yes,
(15:36):
Dante had a special hatred for um Brutus and Cassius,
and in his Inferno he says that, uh, they are
being perpetually eaten by two of Lucifer's three months, and
the third mouth is reserved for the next guy we'll
talk about, a little guy named Judas is carrying Oh really, yeah,
(15:58):
Satan's third month, So lucy first three months or eating Cassius,
Brutus and Judas. All right, 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. Um. Everyone obviously knows
(16:20):
the Judas kiss very famously. Judas betrayed Jesus his uh,
he was one of the disciples. He'd betrayed Jesus with
a kiss, and it was actually a signal to the
guards to come and grab him. I guess he was
identifying him. Yeah, apparently the the Romans didn't know who
this Jesus was, at least by sight, and Judas went
(16:42):
and said, hey, you guys want this Jesus, what do
you give me? And the signal was like, well, you
kissed the guy that's Jesus, and we'll come get him
and we'll give you thirty pieces of silver. Thirty pieces
of silver. I mean the west Egg inflation calculator doesn't
go back you know that that date. But I can
imagine it's still probably wasn't that much thirty pieces of silver.
(17:03):
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, but I mean it's field.
How much it couldn't have been that much. How much
was land going for back then in Middle East? They
had tons of land? Um? Okay, So Judas betrays Jesus.
(17:24):
He was um. We didn't know much about his life
at the time, But recently there has been I think
in two thousand one of the gospel, a new gospel
was was revealed, the Gospel of Judas colon my story,
my side of things, uh. And it was of course
(17:47):
the Papyrus document dating to the second century a d.
And it was written about in a book called the
Lost Gospel, and it portrays this Judas is more of
a facilitator of what Jesus wanted. Basically, Jesus was like, hey,
turn me in because this is my destiny. UM, like,
(18:07):
sacrifice yourself. I sacrifice myself and we all go on
to live in heaven and you know, 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 even more prescient than he appears in
the Bible, because you know, he's betrayed by someone he
thought was his friend. In this he Um is commanding Judas,
(18:31):
he's asking him to to do this. So it's just
an all around like great view of the story. When
when But unfortunately, Um apparently there's some problems that a
lot of scholars, um 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,
(18:54):
that all just goes right out the window. And actually
Judas is not only a horrible treacher traitor, he's actually
a demon from the level of being. Yeah, So quite
two different stories all by changing a few words in
this uh Coptic text, which isn't the easy stuff to translate,
like it's tough, you know, it's not like and even
(19:17):
the person that poo pooed the original translation was like,
this is a very hard job. You know. I'm not
saying they necessarily did it on purpose, but um, that's
not what I think it says. And so and that
was April Deconic, a professor of biblical studies at Rice University.
And I don't know did other people come out and
support that. I can really find much. I don't know.
(19:41):
And apparently actually in the Bible it's hinted at that
Jesus could have known about it, but um, well doesn't
he say like one of you will betray me? I
mean at least definitely said that the Last Temptation of Christ.
Who Harvey Kite tell those a pretty good Jesus or
a Judas? Yeah, yeah, yeah that was Yeah, that was
a good movie. But um yeah that was how I
(20:03):
when I, like every anything I'd ever heard, I was
thought like Jesus knew. It was just never as explicit
as this Gospel of Judas, right, and then Gospel of
Judas say even claimed that Jesus even asked Judas like, hey,
will you do this for me a solid, so UM
kiss me and put one right here. Right. So Judas
(20:25):
realize is what he's done. It feels horribly guilty, tries
to give the silver back the high priests that he's
sold Jesus out to UM won't take the money. UM,
and so he throws it on the temple floor. They
end up figuring out that it can be used for
a potter spiel, and they used that thirty pieces is
over for that UM. And then Judas goes off and
hangs himself. Yeah. And I don't think we said Jesus
(20:47):
was crucified. I thought that went without saying. But in case,
there's like one person out there was like, what happened
to Jesus? Right, whatever became a Jesus, that's what happened. Um.
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, um, his body opened up means that
(21:11):
he was left at his body was left hanging for
a while out in the heat, and when it finally fell, uh,
like a branch broker or whatever, and it fell, it
kind of ruptured. Where'd you find that out? I don't
remember somewhere online. Yeah it was. Yeah, they were talking
about how he went headlong, he became headlong, and they
(21:33):
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. Uh. And now Judas
and Judas Kiss are both part of the lexicon. And
you know, in terms of betrayals, you know, treacherous. I know,
thanks Sam, how about Chuck? I know you've seen this movie.
(21:55):
I love this movie. Uh, the assassination of Jesse James
by the cow Cow 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 Schnyder. Schneid's right, he listens, Oh, hey, was he
(22:19):
he's in it? Yeah, he's he's one of the gang.
And uh, he's he's a great actor. He's We've since
become like email pals. So, uh, that was an excellent movie.
I'm sure Snyder did fantastic in it. Great Schneids Schneid um.
And it seems to me I don't know a lot
about the whole saga of Jesse James, especially his demise.
(22:42):
But it seemed to be pretty true to everything I've
ever heard about it. Yeah, I think the movie was
pretty accurate and it was great, like gorgeous to look
at beautifully film. Uh, and not just because Brad Pitt
was in it, but Casey A. Fleck as Robert Ford
was amazing. He really so. Anyway, if you haven't see them,
if we go out and see it in the meantime,
we'll spoil it for you. I think he was nominated
(23:03):
for an Academy. I can't imagine how he wasn't. And
he was so creepy. So what's the deal with Jesse James. Well,
Jesse James was a member of the James Gang, a
full partner. Well, I think he and his brother Frank
were kind of co leader. That's the impression I have
like Frank still Yeah, and um, they were very successful
(23:25):
at robbing trains, robbing people, robbing banks, robbing everything, and
they became outlaw folk heroes everybody loved to hate. But
he also still loved. Well, they didn't kill people, no,
not until the second to last robbery by Jesse James. Uh,
they botched it and a couple of people died, most
of the James gang was caught, and Jesse and Frank
(23:46):
went off and assembled a new gang that included Robert Ford. Yeah,
he was pretty new. Um, he had long tried to
get into James gang. And um, we'll sort of shun
is uh a little weird and like not the most
skilled robber and gunman, and it wasn't taken very seriously,
(24:07):
which always bothered him. So, Um, Jesse James pulls off
one last train robbery in eighteen seventy and decides to retire.
Frank James retires and Robert Ford kind of tangs along
with Jesse James the rest of his life. And um,
the Governor of Missouri put a bounty on Jesse James
head of I believe ten thousand dollars, which is pretty
(24:30):
substantial for eighteen seventy. And in eighteen eighty two, Robert
Ford took the Governor of Missouri up on this, apparently
met with him and not only said I'm gonna do this.
I want this reward, I'm gonna split it with my
brother here, but I also want to be I want
immunity from my crimes. Yeah, well, he was supposedly just
(24:51):
supposed to capture him, and Um did the shooting on
his own volition. And and there's a wood cutting in
this article coal of Jesse James dropping a feather duster
just like he does in the UM movie. Oh yeah,
he's He stands on a chair in his own home
to dust a picture and Probert Ford shoots him in
(25:14):
the back of the head. Yeah, and kills him just
right there, very like low key and anticlimactic with his
wife home and everything. And then they leave. And so
Robert Ford kind of like I think Bennedictdonald, expected to
be considered something of a hero, and he was considered
a zero. Yeah, yeah, he was. Actually he and his
(25:37):
brother were both indicted, found guilty, sentenced to hang, and
pardoned in a single day. Well that's a heck of
a day. Yeah, pretty like emotional roller coaster going on there.
And they became an ostracized socially. Um, Robert Ford just
became the butt of many jokes. And then finally, Um,
one day he was confronted by a man who sought
(25:57):
him out because he wanted to kill Robert Ford for
to gain his own acclaim. Yeah, Edward O'Kelly brought a
shotgun into it. He was a bar owner I think
at the time Robert Ford was. And after by the way,
they toured in a touring production like recreating the Murders. Yeah,
Sam Rockwell Yeah, and um so Edward O'Kelly goes in
(26:18):
the bar with a shotgun, says hello, Bob. He turns
around and shoots him in the throat, and he gets
a sentence commuted after a petition in his pardoned for
killing Robert Ford. Yeah. Back then the prairiebu definitely had
like a ground hold. Yeah. I don't know what that is,
(26:39):
but I think I got my point across. Yeah. They
were like, he was a coward and you shot him,
so that makes you a good guy. Thanks. Uh so
that's Robert Ford. You got anything else? Should we move
on to Mata Hatti? Yeah, I knew next to nothing
about Mata Hary. Yeah. Same here. She turned out to
be a pretty fascinating woman. Possibly not a trader at all. Yeah, actually,
(27:03):
probably not a trader at all. Yeah, let's let's talk
about her. Well, um, she was a very sexual being.
She was very close to her father apparently, who doted
on her, and she has been described as um sex
as being her driving force, and she was said to
have an insatiable longing for male attention her entire life
(27:24):
and for the time period early nineteen hundreds, 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. Oh yeah, well she used as a means
for sure. Yeah. She Um. She flew through a lot
of guy's money, right, and Um, I just love to
live lavishly, racked up tons of debt and um became
(27:49):
something of a toast among Parisian society, European society. Actually
she was Dutch, we should point out. Yeah, her real
name was Um Margarita Zelli. Yeah, but she looked like
Indian and she tried to remake herself as this Indian
exotic Indian dancer. I read Indonesian Indonesian. Yeah, because Mata
Hari is Um Malaysian I of the dawn, which means sunrise.
(28:15):
So her name was Sunrise, the stripping dancer. Well, and
she she didn't just dance like. This was at a
time when the Mulan rouge was like they were like
pulling their skirts up a little bit and showing some
ankle and some knickers, and she was like taking it
to you know, another level. Apparently in people's living rooms,
(28:37):
private dances like traveling dancing, um, like really erotic and
exotic stuff for the time. So from what I understand,
she was also a sometime prostitute. Um when things were
really bad, sure, um and then she but ultimately she
just kind of went through succession of of lovers around Europe.
(28:58):
And at one point she found her self in um
in Amsterdam and was approached by a German officer and said, hey,
we want you to spy for us. Here's twenty thousand
francs and some invisible ink, and um, you're now a
German spy. And she's like, whatever mine air, thanks for
(29:19):
the money, sucker, and threw away the invisible ink. Supposedly
and never spied for Germany, but she still had a
code name H one, 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.
So she had a reputation as a German spy, yeah,
(29:41):
without actually spying yet. And uh she was as uh,
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. This
makes you untrustworthy, right so um, At some point the
(30:04):
French decided that they were going to recruit her to
become a French spy. This is during World War One,
even though they already suspected she was a German spy.
She was sent around um to try to get to
I don't remember what country they were trying to get
her into. Of hotel oh, she went to Russia. She
(30:26):
ended up going there for a little while in exchange
for becoming a French spy. Agreeing to spy for the French.
She ended up in Spain and came across this German
officer and apparently he suspected her of being a spy.
So when she started asking him questions, he gave her
old information. Well they went to bed together as well.
(30:47):
Sure we should mention this thing is just right with
sex and um, he gave her some old information. This
the frenchman who the French intelligence officer who recruited her
as a spy, but still suspect her as a German
spy finally said, 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.
(31:07):
And she was arrested in France again no evidence, no
evidence whatsoever, and tried for treason and convicted. Yeah, and
um basically Thunder knows that the whole experience, and was like,
I'm gonna hold my head high, I'm gonna blow you
a kiss right before you shoot me in the firing squad.
Well supposedly it wasn't the firing squad. It was two
(31:28):
nuns that she became friends with and her lawyer who
also she had slept with. That's who she blew kisses too.
But she refused to O that's what it said in
this article that I saw elsewhere. It was like to
the nuns, she JUSTO slept with her headmaster when she
was sixteen, Yeah, and got kicked out of school for it.
So she refuses a blindfold. In the end, she's all
(31:49):
dressed up and everything for her execution. She's standing ankle
deep in mud on a coal October day in nineteen seventeen.
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 about thirty years later, one
of the prosecutors in France admitted, quote they didn't have sorry,
(32:12):
here's the quote. There was quote not enough evidence to
flog a cat that she very very likely did not
ever spy for Germany, made that one half hearted attempt
in France for France to make some money and was
(32:32):
executed and still didn't protest. I wonder if there's been
a good movie on her, surely there, I don't know
if there's been a recent one. She was tall too,
she was like almost six ft tall. Yes, 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. I think it was the fact that
(32:56):
she took off her clothes and was real sexy and
tall with everybody. So Mata Hary probably was not a trader,
and they really had a lot of trouble trying to
prove that another famous trader was actually a trader and
that woman was I have a togury. Yeah, yeah, she was.
(33:25):
In fact, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it.
She was not a spy and she was not a
treasonous trader um because it was proven so, and she
was pardoned by Gerald Ford. 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,
I have a toegury. She was born in America in
(33:46):
Los Angeles, UM and had a degree in zoology from
u c l A. And in one she traveled to
Tokyo to take care of an ailing aunt her family
center over there. Despite the fact that she didn't really
speak Japanese, Jim been raised in Japanese culture. Apparently there
was a lot of culture shock, but she still went
over to take care of her aunt nonetheless, And while
(34:08):
she was there she got two jobs. Once she was
typing for one new service, and she got a second
job as a typist for UM, the one of the
radio stations. Yeah, and they're 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. It's UM American
(34:30):
rock and roll music and we're gonna play it for
the morale of the troops, and well to deteriorate the morale. Well,
but she they told her a different story at first though.
They told her it was to boost the morale. Yeah, Like,
I don't think she knew what she was getting into.
That's crazy. Why would the Japanese boost the morale of
the American troops in the Pacific. Well, it was later
(34:53):
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 looked at her spirits. Yeah,
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 um ships being sunk.
Is that correct? Yeah, she called that. Well that's what
she was eventually the one thing that they pinned on her. Okay, Well,
(35:16):
then that didn't actually happen. Yeah, okay, So well let's
let's get back to the story. World War two goes along,
she um 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
Orphan and was her radio name in Tokyo Rose was
(35:37):
just sort of the name of the operation as a
whole and not a single person, even though they tied
her to that name, which led to some great confusion
apparently because they were trying to get her as Tokyo Rose,
even though her she called herself Orphan Aan and there
were like twelve women including her that we're all Tokyo
Rose collectively. Yeah, okay um. So the Japanese government says,
(35:58):
that's Tokyo Rose, and uh, she said, I'm morph An Ann.
The American Intelligence Services of the Army investigated her and
could find no evidence that she had committed any form
of treason, and they were going to let her in
the country, back in their place of birth. Um, because
she traveled without a passport and now that she's trying
to get back in she needed a passport. Um. Apparently
(36:22):
a lot of veterans groupture like you can't let Tokyo
Rose into the US. It was just one guy kind
of started the charge and was successful. The reporter had Bundridge. Yeah, well,
apparently he got a couple of Japanese guys to commit
perjury and and present false evidence against Um Tokyo Rose. Yeah,
(36:42):
the two most damaging witnesses actually like just completely lied, right.
The FBI put him up to it, coached them and
said you're gonna get tried for treason if you don't
do this. So she ended up being tried and convicted
for treason UM and sentenced to ten years. And she
got out in ninety six, and they tried to deport
her and Um. She successfully battled deportation and moved to Chicago.
(37:08):
She worked at a retail store until two thousand six.
Two thousand six, she was working in a retail store
at ninety 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, Like such a
prominent figure in history. It just bringing people up, like
(37:28):
you said, Ford Pardner, Yeah, Gerald Ford. Then he fell down.
Let's talk about the quizzling briefly. 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
(37:50):
Vidkan Quisling. Yeah, he was. He basically tried to seize
power after buddying up with Hitler in nine and said,
you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna use this as
an opportunity two make Norway my own. Yeah, and he
did so for a very very short time. Yeah, he
(38:10):
invited the Nazis to come invade Norway. They did. He
Um 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, here ruler, and
then they installed their own guy as the head of
Norway and demoted Quizzling to uh president minister president and
(38:32):
uh apparently he went to work sentencing Norwegian Jews to
concentration camps. Uh. He really bad guy. Yeah. He was
very much anti union. He was a fascist, and he
was trying to make Norway fastest and he did so.
He became the first person to ever announce a kudata
on television. That's how he made his power grab. Yeah,
(38:55):
I think I was television, it seems early, so maybe
he was radio. By guess he became the first one
to announce it over him podcast, right, So Um, after
the Nazis were defeated. He was like, oh no, yeah
the film this is gonna end up bad for me. Yeah.
And he was convicted of treason, sentenced to death, and
executed by firing squad. And you are a quizzler, I'm sorry,
(39:18):
quizzling if you collude. Yeah, if you're in Norway and
your trader, you're a quizzling. Yeah. It's like the Benedict
Donald of Norway. So Chuck, you got anything else? No,
And it's per usual. This is a top ten that
we do about six of and encourage people to go
read the rest, including uh Robert Hansen, who we talked about. Yeah,
(39:40):
um as were pound as we talked about in the
Insanity defense and the Cambridge five, not the Seattle seven
or the Jackson five or the Jackson five. And did
we skip another one was at it? I don't remember.
Oh the intro we didn't mention, um the Cleveland Cavaliers
ire Braun against Lebron, which I just think that's weird. Well,
(40:03):
I think I went berserk. That's sort of has passed,
and there's rumors of him going back to Cleveland anyway
next really maybe his contracts 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. Uh. If you want to learn more
about traders, you can type that word into the search
bar at house to works dot com and will bring
(40:24):
up this article. And since I said search part, it
means it's time for message break. Uh. Now, Chuck, it's
time for listener mail. Uh. This is cap Grass. Hey, guys,
thanks so much for doing the cap Grass syndrome episode.
It was amazing. Timing came out right around Father's Day
(40:47):
and my father suffers from the syndrome. It's been very
painful to watch. Yeah. During my marriage, we have never
lived very close to my parents, but just under three
years ago we moved close enough for day trips. About
the same time, my dad had a fairly significant stroke
and it made the slow progress of vascular dementia Alzheimer's
that he also suffers from significantly. Works started visiting my
(41:08):
dad on a weekly basis. I would spend the day
with him while my mom and brother would get the
Monday rush orders out. Apparently Dad ran a mail order business.
When I first started these visits, Dad knew who I was.
We talked and I shared photos and stories of my kids.
But within just six months the cap grass really took effect.
We had to work our way through who this strange
lady was, who lived there now my mom? And why
(41:30):
did Linda my mom leave him? And watched his absolute
fear when she would walk into the room. Uh. He
eventually forgot who my brother and I were, as well
as well as our spouses and kids. Although I had
to giggle a little bit during the small amount of
time when my husband was only one of us, he
knew because cap grass affects those closest to you and
then works his way out so the husband wouldn't around
(41:52):
him as much. So one point he was the only
person that he recognized, and the white thought that was
kind of funny. Now, the dementia and alzheimer to progress
to a point of living in the past and not
even remembering moment to moment, let alone day to day.
He still doesn't know why his family has abandoned him,
even though we're all around him all the time. Uh,
I know he lives a very fearfilled and lonely life
(42:13):
among strangers. I liken it to living in a nightmare
every moment of the day. Um, and it sounds really sad,
but she's she was fairly upbeat in the email like that.
We corresponded, but just still like people are up there
and crying and stuff. Thanks for doing the podcast. When
I 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.
(42:35):
So who's really helped that is Jill Overturf in Republic, Missouri.
Well thanks a lot, Joe. We appreciate you sharing that. Yeah,
and I you know, I hope things can prove for
your father. Yeah, for sure. Um, if you have a
story about something we've talked about ever, we want to
(42:56):
hear it, especially if we've helped you explain that to
other people. We like that kind of thing. Um. You
can tweet to us at s y ESK podcast. You
can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you
Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff
Podcast at Discovery dot com, and you can always check
out our website Stuff you Should Know dot com for
(43:22):
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is It
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