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A Samurai Walks Into The White House · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our super producer,
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  Speaker 1: Max Kawhi Williams.
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  Speaker 2: He's just so cute.
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  Speaker 3: Look at him, a face.
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  Speaker 4: Like a button. That guy, those big old eyes just
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  Speaker 4: staring back at you. That is none other than mister
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  Speaker 4: Noel Brown. They called me Ben Bullen, and we all
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  Speaker 4: three are huge fans of as you could imagine history.
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  Speaker 4: One thing that escapes a lot of people, I think,
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  Speaker 4: especially when we just look at what you learn in
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  Speaker 4: your grade school history books, is that all of the
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  Speaker 4: history that you could imagine happened a lot more concurrently
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  Speaker 4: that your history books will have you believe.
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  Speaker 2: Parallel timelines, baby, not parallel universes. This stuff happened in
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  Speaker 2: the same universe at the same time, just very very
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  Speaker 2: far away. And we always from one another, and we
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  Speaker 2: always talk about things like parallel thinking during times where
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  Speaker 2: these different cultures were so isolated but kind of figured
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  Speaker 2: out the same stuff at the same time. Super interesting phenomenon,
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  Speaker 2: and we have a discussion of just such a relationship
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  Speaker 2: coming to us from our brand new research associate, Jabbari,
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  Speaker 2: you really knocked it out of the park with this
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  Speaker 2: research brief.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely yet thank you Jabari. We're still working on a
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  Speaker 1: nickname for you man.
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  Speaker 2: But itself in the text, I think right to celebrate Jabari,
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  Speaker 2: to celebrate.
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  Speaker 1: You here we are not blowing smoke. This is what
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  Speaker 1: ofb our or favorite kinds of thought exploration. We're going
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  Speaker 1: to take three things that you're probably familiar with, the
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  Speaker 1: ancient era of Japanese samurai, the advent of a facimile
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  Speaker 1: technology which leads to the fax machine, and the presidency
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  Speaker 1: of the notorious amateur wrestler Abraham Lincoln.
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  Speaker 2: We'll reach on that guy both real reach with his
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  Speaker 2: arms and with his hat.
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  Speaker 1: And this means, as Jabari reveals to us, this means
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  Speaker 1: that technically a Japanese samurai could have hypothetically sent none
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  Speaker 1: other than Abraham Lincoln a fax if he or she
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  Speaker 1: had wanted.
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  Speaker 2: Why am I picturing this as like a political cartoon opportunity,
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  Speaker 2: You know, that's great, Like a samurai sending a fact
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  Speaker 2: to Abraham Lincoln. The punchline would be in whatever the
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  Speaker 2: fact said. Maybe that'll reveal itself in the text as well.
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  Speaker 2: So sort of like finding out the tidbit of information
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  Speaker 2: that Cleopatra, who lived from sixty nine to thirty BCE,
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  Speaker 2: lived closer to the invention of the iPhone two thousand
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  Speaker 2: and seven than she did to the construction of the
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  Speaker 2: Egyptian Pyramids twenty five sixty BCE. We're always, you know,
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  Speaker 2: as aging fellows and fans of pop culture, having these
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  Speaker 2: moments where we're like, gosh, we're closer now to the
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  Speaker 2: like sixties, as the sixties.
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  Speaker 3: Were to like the twenties.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's just the way time compresses as you
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  Speaker 2: get older and you start viewing it in a different way.
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  Speaker 2: It's fascinating stuff, but it's true. It's not a factoid.
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  Speaker 2: It's a fact right.
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  Speaker 1: A factoid is something that sounds true but is not
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  Speaker 1: in fact true, Like carrots give you great eyesight, so
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  Speaker 1: which is a World War two myth. By the way,
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  Speaker 1: so this.
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  Speaker 3: Also re started by big carrot, no doubt.
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  Speaker 1: As you say, Jabari time reality, these windows and relationships
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  Speaker 1: can throw us for a loop when we really start
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  Speaker 1: thinking about them. And this is what inspires the conversation
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  Speaker 1: we're having today. What might a samurai have sent to
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  Speaker 1: our sixteenth president? And as Jabari. As you put it,
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  Speaker 1: would our sixteenth president have left that samurai on red
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  Speaker 1: at the time, he.
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  Speaker 2: Was a busy man. He also seemed like a man
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  Speaker 2: of the people, so he might have he might have responded.
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  Speaker 1: And since both of us are going to end up
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  Speaker 1: in Japan at some point later this year, Oh.
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  Speaker 3: I've got a countdown going for it. Ben, I'm so excited.
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  Speaker 1: Awesome, man, we we couldn't be more excited to talk
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  Speaker 1: a little bit about Samurai. So you guys, what's the
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  Speaker 1: first thing you think of when you hear the word Samarai?
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  Speaker 2: I think of Akira Kurosawa's seven Samurai.
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  Speaker 3: Nice.
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  Speaker 2: Nice, But also, if we're going to stick with numbers,
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  Speaker 2: I also think of the era of Samurai and the
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  Speaker 2: various I believe the six kind of key periods involving
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  Speaker 2: the evolution of the samurai culture in tradition.
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  Speaker 3: I just think a tom Cruise.
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  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, yeah, the last Samurai, Thanks White Savior. So
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  Speaker 1: I love the conversation about the eras of samurai because
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  Speaker 1: for most of us in the West, you have a
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  Speaker 1: titular image of what appears to be only one point
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  Speaker 1: in Japan's history. But we have to remember the stories
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  Speaker 1: about the samurai remind us of the deep age of
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  Speaker 1: other civilizations. The US is still a relatively new kid
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  Speaker 1: on the block geopolitically speaking, not pop music.
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  Speaker 2: Speaking, right, And while we obviously don't quite have the
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  Speaker 2: time to go into the entire history of Japan's existence
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  Speaker 2: as a unified country, we are going to take a
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  Speaker 2: bit of a snapshot at the six distinct eras of
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  Speaker 2: the jap These samurai, Given there nearly seven hundred year reign,
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  Speaker 2: perhaps it ought to come as no surprise to you
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  Speaker 2: ridiculous historians that it would in fact share a timeline
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  Speaker 2: at some point with some of these other historical touch points.
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  Speaker 2: But it's nonetheless a very interesting, as you pointed out,
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  Speaker 2: Ben thought experiment. So let's talk first about maybe where
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  Speaker 2: the term samurai comes from.
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  Speaker 1: Ooh, I love this as a guy who as a
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  Speaker 1: guy who has cartoonishly bad Japanese, the term samurai has
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  Speaker 1: fascinating etymology. It comes from the word saburu, which means
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  Speaker 1: to serve, and it was first used in about CE
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  Speaker 1: or ad if you prefer seven to two, and it
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  Speaker 1: meant it was a way of describing mid to low
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  Speaker 1: ranking court administrators, and only later did it describe armed
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  Speaker 1: imperial guards, and mostly, as you can tell from the etymology,
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  Speaker 1: the title was referring to their loyalty to the emperor
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  Speaker 1: one who serves, and.
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  Speaker 2: This would have been feudal Japan, right, So these were
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  Speaker 2: like sort of in service to their lord of this
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  Speaker 2: particular region fiefdom. I guess you could call it, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: like like knights, Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Like knights. Consider that a knight in western or central
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  Speaker 1: Europe may serve a particular duke, right, or a particular
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  Speaker 1: noble or aristocrat lord. But that's some kind of lord,
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  Speaker 1: but that that in turn, that aristocrat, that noble would
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  Speaker 1: have fealty to the king or the royal family until
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  Speaker 1: they tried would be the emperor throw them until they
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  Speaker 1: tried to overthrow them gape in this case would be
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  Speaker 1: the emperor. You're correct, right, And so these guys were
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  Speaker 1: like they were kind they were like the security guards,
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  Speaker 1: the police or military forces, you know, terrorizing the serfs.
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  Speaker 3: Uh.
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  Speaker 1: They were hired of a game squad, yes, a bit
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  Speaker 1: of a goon squad. And one thing that Jabari I
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  Speaker 1: love that you're pointing out here is right at the top,
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  Speaker 1: we refer to samurai as either he or she him
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  Speaker 1: or her. It may surprise some of us to realize
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  Speaker 1: that a lot of the Samurai were co ed.
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  Speaker 2: That's the thing, man, we often run into facts like
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  Speaker 2: this that are tricky upon first examination to kind of
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  Speaker 2: reconcile with what we maybe typically think about the past.
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  Speaker 2: The Samurai, as well as the pirates, for example, they
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  Speaker 2: were pretty egalitarian. And they were also they treated women
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  Speaker 2: with a lot more respect and equality than one might think. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Now, historical figures vary on the total, but experts generally
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  Speaker 1: believe that anywhere from twenty percent to as many as
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  Speaker 1: fifty percent of these frontline warriors were female by the
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  Speaker 1: early sixteen hundreds. There's also a surprising amount of diversity
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  Speaker 1: in this, particularly in the case of Yasuke the African Samurai,
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  Speaker 1: which we covered back in twenty nineteen episode of Ridiculous History.
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  Speaker 2: We sure did, and you can check that one out
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  Speaker 2: as Jabbari did.
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  Speaker 3: That was a fun one.
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  Speaker 2: And also, if I'm not mistaken, the inspiration for the
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  Speaker 2: pretty excellent, very graphic novel asque cartoon Afro Samurai, I.
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  Speaker 3: Believe that is correct.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, And as we always say, in Hollywood adaptations inspired by.
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  Speaker 3: Or loosely based on honorous so.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Jabari, the line is too good to not include,
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  Speaker 1: so we'll give you the quote verbatim. You say, that's right,
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  Speaker 1: folks go woke and last damn near a millennium or whatever.
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  Speaker 3: Kids say these days.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the kids would probably agree with that one. Frankly,
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  Speaker 2: moving on to I believe Ben helped me out here
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  Speaker 2: the High End period. Yes, hey, okay, High On period
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  Speaker 2: seven ninety four to eleven eighty five, which is marked
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  Speaker 2: by the formation of these I guess you could call
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  Speaker 2: them bands or like these sort of individual subgroups of
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  Speaker 2: warriors called bushi, and I believe that is a term
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  Speaker 2: that you might be familiar with from the film Bushido Blade.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, this is also another way to call them
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  Speaker 1: would be mercenaries.
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  Speaker 2: And that might be a term ridiculous historians that you
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  Speaker 2: may recognize from the video games series Bushido Blade.
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  Speaker 3: Ah.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, And another word for these folks at this
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  Speaker 1: time would be mercenaries. They would get paid to maintain order,
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  Speaker 1: and when an estate was expanding or encroaching into another territory,
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  Speaker 1: it was their job to make that encroachment happen. At
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  Speaker 1: this point, again, merks, they're not their stories similar to
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  Speaker 1: that janisaries in some way, they're not rising to administrative
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  Speaker 1: power just yet until they reach the Kama Kuora period,
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  Speaker 1: and that's eleven eighty five to thirteen thirty three.
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  Speaker 3: Well, and much like.
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  Speaker 2: The sort of codes of chivalry that we know, you
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  Speaker 2: know from the feudal Knights from the West, the Bushie
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  Speaker 2: adhered to a similar code of conduct and ethics called
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  Speaker 2: the Bushido Code, which apparently in that series I've never
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  Speaker 2: played personally, I think there's several of them. Bushido blade
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  Speaker 2: is a strict code of honorable combat that dictates the
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  Speaker 2: narrative progression of the story, kind of like in certain RPGs,
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  Speaker 2: where your actions, whether they're positive or negative, or neutral
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  Speaker 2: or whatever, can change the ending absolutely.
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  Speaker 1: We also know in the Kama Kora period that the
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  Speaker 1: rise to power of what we call the Samurai class
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  Speaker 1: came from a decade's long, violent stretch of chaos between
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  Speaker 1: two powerful clans, Minamoto and Taia, and it ended with
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  Speaker 1: the minimum spoiler everybody, the Minimoto. When this leads to
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  Speaker 1: the formation of what we now call the Kama Kora
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  Speaker 1: Shogunate area ruled by a specific clan shogun, similar to
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  Speaker 1: like a Mongolian kanate, a warlord, right, Yes, pretty much.
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  Speaker 3: Something along those lines.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, definitely not a much more of a totalitarian,
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  Speaker 2: militaristic kind of order, like martial law practically.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, like a warlord who's heavy on the admin, you
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  Speaker 1: know what I mean. Like Japan. This is Japan's first
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  Speaker 1: feudal military government in all of known history. It's decentralized,
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  Speaker 1: so everybody is paying lip service to the Emperor of Japan,
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  Speaker 1: but it's more of a figurehead status. It's the showguns
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  Speaker 1: and later the samurai who wield the actual power.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And I love what Jabari points out here. It's very
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  Speaker 2: similar to the arrangement that Tony Soprano in the incredible
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  Speaker 2: HBO series The Sopranos worked out with all of the
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  Speaker 2: other captains of their crime family, or capos as they
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  Speaker 2: referred to. In the early series of Sopranos, Uncle Junior
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  Speaker 2: was meant to be the boss kind of I'm saying
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  Speaker 2: the boss.
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  Speaker 3: I can't not say it that way in.
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  Speaker 2: Terms of his age and seniority, but he really just
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  Speaker 2: ruled as kind of a figurehead.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And that's a great comparison. We know that
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  Speaker 1: power shifts continued, and the power sort of balkanized. It
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  Speaker 1: became more localized during what we call the Murumachi period
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  Speaker 1: in thirteen thirty six all the way to fifteen seventy three.
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  Speaker 1: This is where we see the feudal lords, warlords like
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  Speaker 1: you said, named the daimo, and they are regionally placed,
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  Speaker 1: strategically placed to sort of franchise out the rule of
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  Speaker 1: the shogun. They maintain these large estates and these castles
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  Speaker 1: which you should check out when you visit. This leads
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  Speaker 1: to armies of samurai.
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  Speaker 2: Right and then in the mid fifteenth century we start
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  Speaker 2: seeing the beginnings of the son Dooku period, which was
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  Speaker 2: fourteen sixty seven to sixteen hundred, and we also started
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  Speaker 2: to see the complete fall of centralized authority due to
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  Speaker 2: an incredibly bitter and brutal civil war between the daimo overseers,
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  Speaker 2: which pitted the samurai armies against one another, causing tons
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  Speaker 2: of internal strife and conflict, utterly brutal warfare for nearly
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  Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty years. And this whole you know,
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  Speaker 2: bloody affair, is credited as the period where combat technique
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  Speaker 2: were beginning to be honed and revolutionized and some of
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  Speaker 2: the sophisticated war strategies that we credit to the Japanese
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  Speaker 2: and the samurai that we know today.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of people die in horrific ways. So we'll
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  Speaker 1: just fast forward, fast forward along that while acknowledging it,
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  Speaker 1: and this leads to the unification of Japan under the
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  Speaker 1: Tokagawa Shokunate. This ushers in about two hundred years of
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  Speaker 1: relative peace, and the warriors suddenly find themselves out of
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  Speaker 1: a job. Then you don't need people running around chopping
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  Speaker 1: heads off and committing sepuku. If they mess up, which
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  Speaker 1: is ritualized suicide tied to these codes.
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  Speaker 2: Of honor right and then failure to adhere to it
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  Speaker 2: are being dishonored, and then you would be more likely
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  Speaker 2: to take your own life ritualistically than live as a
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  Speaker 2: shame to your family or your clan.
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  Speaker 1: Now, this is where we get to the key part
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  Speaker 1: of our thought experiment. Right, there's a three act structure.
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  Speaker 1: Now we're to Edol period.
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  Speaker 2: Which I think the way many people really think of
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  Speaker 2: in terms of the real culmination of all of this
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  Speaker 2: samurai business.
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  Speaker 1: Now we're at sixteen oh three to about eighteen sixty eight,
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  Speaker 1: So keep that last date in your mind, folks. This
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  Speaker 1: is where we see the most consequential transition for the
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  Speaker 1: samurai class. They become similar again to the comparison of
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  Speaker 1: janissaries in the Ottoman Empire, they become bureaucrats, they become
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  Speaker 1: local powerholders and politicians, and wearing your sword starts to
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  Speaker 1: become ceremony and tradition. So you're not really it's like
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  Speaker 1: all those portraits of later Medieval Age kings in the West.
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  Speaker 1: They've got the armor on for the portrait, they've got
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  Speaker 1: the sword because it looks nice in the oil painting,
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  Speaker 1: but actually using it right.
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  Speaker 2: And I guess, you know, maybe I'm confused because certainly
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  Speaker 2: when I think of samurai, I often think of the
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  Speaker 2: Edo period, and maybe because that's what a lot of
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  Speaker 2: a lot of the imagery comes from, like a lot
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  Speaker 2: of the paintings and a lot of the classic samurai
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  Speaker 2: garb that we think of with those helmets.
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  Speaker 3: But it is also completely accurate that this was not
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  Speaker 3: the bloody warring period.
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  Speaker 2: This was samurai more as like diplomats and politicians wearing
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  Speaker 2: the stuff out of ceremony.
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  Speaker 3: So it's interesting for me, certainly to.
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  Speaker 2: Clarify some of that and realize that what we think
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  Speaker 2: of as samurai period really is kind of a miss
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  Speaker 2: mix and match of all of these different periods kind
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  Speaker 2: of you know that has been depicted in maybe not
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  Speaker 2: the most historically accurate way by pop culture.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the samurai can still tangle if they have to,
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  Speaker 1: but they're a lot more like your upper management. They're
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  Speaker 1: a lot more like in response to your earlier facts
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  Speaker 1: kind of samurai instead of you know, I will decapitate
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  Speaker 1: you samurai, but they you know, what still happened. We
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  Speaker 1: want to be clear about that. And you may be
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: asking yourself, guys, why did we need to take this
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: quick trip down memory lane of Japanese samurai history. We
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: think it's because it's cool, and it sets up our
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: It sets up one of our travel obsessions that tomorrow
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: you obviously also share, and it also gives us the
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  Speaker 1: historical context that leads us to act to So there's
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  Speaker 1: eight hundred years or over eight hundred years of samurai history.
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  Speaker 1: Seven hundred of those years are effectively as part of
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  Speaker 1: Japan's ruling class, and now we have to travel around
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: the world. So the Edo period is happening in Japan,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: but what's going on in Scotland?
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  Speaker 3: What is going on in Scotland?
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Well, some crafty scots and some schemes. Well, yeah, there's
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: definitely some culinary innovations going on in terms of like
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: the traducing of cow stomachs.
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  Speaker 3: Have you ever I bet you have been. You've eaten hagis?
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  Speaker 2: Surely yes, not me, not not to say that I'd
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  Speaker 2: be against it, but I will tell you what I
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  Speaker 2: did have last night, Ben, I went to this incredible
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  Speaker 2: Polish restaurant called Carcima in green Point, Brooklyn and had
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: this thing they do called stuffed cabbage, where it's just
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: like a bunch of meat and seasoning and stuff like
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  Speaker 2: stuffed inside a big, old, you know, thick piece of cabbage.
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  Speaker 2: So that's about as close as I want to get
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  Speaker 2: to the haggis of it all. Maybe try a little
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  Speaker 2: blood sausage. But now the haggis is a little extreme
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  Speaker 2: for me, so more for you, But okay with it.
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  Speaker 1: It's uh, it's one of those things where I'm glad
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  Speaker 1: I tried it, but I don't. I don't find myself
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  Speaker 1: come lunchtime with a hankering for a haggis.
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  Speaker 3: You don't hankering.
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  Speaker 1: I don't have a hagas hanker nor blood pudding, but
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  Speaker 1: have tried that as well.
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  Speaker 3: It's just it's.
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  Speaker 1: Something you should do when it's a so you could
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  Speaker 1: say you did it, and.
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  Speaker 2: Some people swear by it. They do, And I'll tell
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  Speaker 2: you what I do like is maybe a bit of
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: a hot take. I like just a good old piece
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  Speaker 2: of liver and that that has that kind of coppery
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  Speaker 2: taste that a lot of people associate with awful and
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  Speaker 2: bloody blood stuff.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: But I enjoy it.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: I think it's because I grew up eating it. Not
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: something that I would order necessarily, but I did. I
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: hate brains and eggs as well because I had some
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: real uh real southern grandparents stuff from North Carolina, and
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: that was more liver for you. Man. Scrapple, remember Ben,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: when we were on that road trip with with our
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: buddy Scott from car Stuff and we ate, uh they
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: call it scrapple or liver pudding.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks like a shingle. It does look like it,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: and it's not that bad. I don't know if that
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: documentary of our road rally for car Stuff is still
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: on Amazon, but check it out if it did a
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: lot of fun.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: It was a good time.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: But back to Scotland after our organ meat detour there.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: At this same time, when the Edo period is in
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: full swing in Japan, a Scottish inventor and engineer, as
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Jabbari puts it, delightfully, was kilt deep in his creation
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: and development of facsimile technology.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: This guy's name is Alexander Bain.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Not that Alexander Bain, not the philosopher.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: Different guy, Nope, different guy.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: That guy was born eighteen eighteen died nineteen oh three.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: This fella we're talking about, Alexander Bain, was born in
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: either eighteen ten or eighteen eleven, depending on the source.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: His father, a man named John Bain, was a crofter.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: What's the crofter?
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Ben?
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, let's do it like an ad. Hey,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: are you tired of being a surf? Are you tired
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: of not having land rights or even human rights? Well
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: we can't make you a Scottish lord, but we can
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: upgrade you a little bit. Consider crofting the comfort ecotomy
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: plus of sharecropping. It's slightly better. You have a little
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: bit more equitable circumstances, and most importantly, your children have
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: a better chance of advancing up the socio economic ladder
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: of the time.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: And children he did have. My friend John Bain's wife,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Isabella Waiters, sometimes referred to as Isobel Waiters, reportedly had
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: twelve of them, six boys and six girls, an even dozen.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: That's wild man, Good luck, Isabelle, your service for sure.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: So this is where we this is why we're setting
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: up the idea of socioeconomic educational opportunity. Bain gets his
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: elementary education per normal. He later pursues a trade. He's
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: apprenticed to a local clockmaker named John Sellers se l
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Lars and he's just eleven. Basically, the family I don't
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: want to say this disrespectfully. It's not human trafficking, but
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: they did kind of pimp him out because all the
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: money he made as the apprentice to this local clockmaker
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: went back to his family. Is pay as a kid,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: he was apprenticeships of the time, they would pay you
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: quote unquote in room and board and anything. Any financial profit,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: if it was acknowledged in your agreement, would go to
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: your adult family. This works out, Bain learns a lot.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: He's not gonna waste his life being a crofter, not
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: that there's anything wrong with that. He has higher ambitions.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: It's eighteen thirty seven when he relocates to London. He
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: works as a journeyman clockmaker for a little while. This
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: is the natural path of learning the trades at the time,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: and even now in certain trades today, we think that
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: his second boss when he's a journeyman. We think this
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: guy was named John Barwise, because this happens all the
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: time in academia as well. Because Bain files his first
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: patent and this guy, John Barwise is listed as a
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: co applicant, which is kind of like when Quentin Tarantino
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: was listed as executive producer on Man with the Iron Fist,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Like he didn't really write the script, he didn't really
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: invent the thing.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: But yeah, sometimes the executive executi producer is kind of
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: a taste maker, sort of there to kind of lend
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: a little bit of expertise on set. But also sometimes
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: it involves like money and finance or credibility. It can
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: mean different things, but yes, especially when they put it
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: above the line, it adds some gravitas to a movie
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: So we cannot prove it, but we have a sneak
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: eating Spidey sense that John and bar Wise just got
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: his name on the patent, not because he helped with
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the idea, but because he was Alex Bain's boss.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: There you go, yeah, And that's sometimes he gets some
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: of that Nollywood too little Nepo baby type stuff. So
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: in January of eighteen forty one, the two of them
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: were granted their first successful patent, four o'clock with pendulum
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: that was moved by electromagnetic impulses. Been, I know you
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: and I are both fascinated by the art of clockmaking.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Oh the complications, Oh fascinating, dude, And like just the
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: tiny little pieces and the way they all have to
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: work in concert, and yes, the complications. So physicists and
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: fellow inventor Charles Wheatstone had demonstrated a clock to the
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Royal Society, which is the UK's national Academy of Sciences
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: and the oldest continuously operating scientific academy in the entire
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: world around and operating going strong since sixteen sixty And
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: that happened in December of the previous year. And this clock, yeah,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: was very similar, alarmingly similar to use clock parlance, to
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: the one that Bane and Barweise themselves had patented.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: And Bain had a story about this. He responded to
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: the maybe not accusations just yet, but the implications of
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: ip theft. Check out our episodes on that. And he
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: said the following, He said, look, I do know Charles
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Wheatstone magazine editor told me to visit Wheatstone, and I
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: did visit him, and Charles and I talked about stuff,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: and Wheatstone told me my idea was poppycock and hogwash
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: and I shouldn't pursue it any further, and then he
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: stole it from under my feet. Wheatstone did not like
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: this accusation. Obviously, these are strong words, so he said, no, no, no, no, no, no,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: no no no. I've been working on my electric clock
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: way before I ever met this Bain kid. And we
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: don't know. We're never going to know for certain at
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: this point because it was so long ago, but it
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: seems entirely possible that these two guys did meet. But
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: they came up with the idea independently of each other.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: There we go parallel thinking it happens, And that didn't
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: stop Bane. He took out war patents. He was getting
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: pretty prolific, and he was again, he was a very
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: smart dude. He he had this phenomenal idea. In December,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: he took out a patent for a series of applications
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: of electric technology to railway locomotives and signaling, and he
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: did this with the help of another collaborator, a Royal
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Navy lieutenant named Thomas Wright.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Correct Baine then introduced what would become a crucial modification
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: to the transmission of telegraph signals and of course received
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: reception as well by inverting the existing method of creating
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: these signals, which used a needle of pivoting under the
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: influence of an electromagnet, by suspending a movable coil between
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: the poles of a magnet, and this took off by
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: May of eighteen forty three. Bane it patented a machine
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: that could transmit and receive drawings and documents recognized Wiley
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: as the ancest are true the modern facts machine. And
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: when I say the modern facts machine, obviously it's easy
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: to kind of scoff because it does feel like an
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: outdated technology at this point in history, but it is
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: still used by certain organizations.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Oh and after warning, man fax machines are very common
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: in Japan.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: Okay, interesting, Okay, well, let's get to it.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Even though Bain was applauded and lauded for his inventions
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: and just his you know, innovating spirit his imagination. He
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: was able to complete a series of successful lab tests
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: over the next couple of years, but it was just
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: ahead of its time and it didn't quite result in
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: the immediate adoption in use for practical applications that.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: He had hoped.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it reminds me of an excellent Mitchell and Web
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: sketch about all of da Vinci's other inventions that just
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: don't apply. That he's trying to explain how a computer
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: mouse works to his patron who they neither of them
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: know what a computer is, or he vince windshield wipers
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: before windshields and cars.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: That's hilarious. That is like the very definition of being
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: too ahead of the current.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's what. Yeah, you're making paraphernalia for a
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: core invention that does not yet exist. That's kind of
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: where Bain is.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: We know.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: There's something really beautiful about this too, which is in
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the world of invention, it is extraordinarily rare for a
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: single person to be the luminary the Moses coming down
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: from on high, or the Prometheum with the fire. We
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: stand on the shoulders of giants. So if you look
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: around at anything in your area, including statistically the phone
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: you're listening to this on. Then you have to realize
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: that dozens, if not thousands of people made tiny inventions
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: and tiny improvements that led to the thing you're seeing now.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: So a lot of our tech advancements come from what
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: we call compounding innovation standing on the shoulders of giants,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: or combinatorial innovation, which is when you take an existing
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: technology and then you take another existing technology and you
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: put them together.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, like peanut butter and jelly, just so just
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: like that what you call it synergistic effects.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: There we go.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: And a big fan of combinatorial innovation is an Italian guy,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: physicist inventor Giovanni Casselli. He takes the technology of the
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: telegraph and something called the pentagraph and combines them with
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: speaking to synchronization pendulum synchronization to invent the first real
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: fax machine, which he calls the pentelegraph.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: The pent telegraph, I love it. In eighteen sixty, Napoleon
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: the Third No, not that Napoleon, his nephew, however, and
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: the Emperor of France at the time would take in
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: a demonstration of the pent telegraph, and you know they
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: were on board with it. They decided to place orders
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: for the service to work within the French National Telegraph network,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: and with the help of Napoleon the Third but with
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: access to the telegraph network as well as financial support,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: the Penn Telegraph was successfully tested over a span of
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: eight hundred kilometers stretching between Paris and Marseilles.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: And now we get to our third act. We're tying
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: the whole thing together. It is the spring of eighteen sixty.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: The Tokugawa Shogunate has sent an official delegation of somewhere
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: between seventy six to eighty samurai to the United States
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: of America to ratify what's called the Treaty of Amity
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: and Commerce. They obviously arrive at the West coast. It's
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: San Francisco, right because trans Pacific flights are not a
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: thing yet. They are on the USS Powhatan in February.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: That's when they arrive, and then they travel across the country.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: It takes a while, by the way, because the interstate's
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: still not a thing. They get to Washington, d C. Philadelphia.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: At New York City they have to go via Panama.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: It's a whole thing, and the American public loves them,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: you know, this is they get a Beatlemania ask welcoming.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: They do, and it's problematic because it's exotic and they're
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: treating them like aliens. A crowd of five hundred thousand
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: something people shows up in New York for a parade.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: This is bigger than New Year's at the time.
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: It would seem so yeah, roughly half a million people.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: That is wild.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Meanwhile, during all of this, the soon to be president
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Abraham Lincoln was making the campaign rounds. He was on
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: the trail, and it wouldn't be long before he was
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: actively dealing with the lead up to a little thing
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: called the War of Northern Aggression or the Civil War,
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: something along those lines. But in terms of the timeline,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: his travelers would have actually taken him well within the
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: range that that technology we're talking about could have transmitted communications.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: And on May sixteenth, eighteen sixty, it must be said,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: the Republican National Convention convened in Chicago. Their platform condemned
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: proposals to allow slavery in US territories, and they called
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: rightly the reopening of the African slave trade a crime
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: against humanity. Because the Republicans of that era were very
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: different from the Republican Party in the US today. This
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: all brings it together beautifully. We think we know how
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: things wound up playing out in that election, but we're
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: baffled by the commonality and commingling of history because technically,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: as you point out, Jabbari, all of this together means
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: that a samurai could have been on that diplomatic trip.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: He or she could have actually sent Abraham Lincoln a fax. Uh,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: let's send on this? What would what would the samurai facts?
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln night sick, wrestling.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Moves man, Yeah, yeah, compliment on his read, sure, his
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: stovepipe hat?
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: No, what you got, Max? I said, you up? Yeah?
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: You new phone? Who does w h No?
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: I love Jabari's suggestions here. Perhaps that preemptive little on
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: your left or watch your back might have helped, and
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: that would work real well for the political cartoon that
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: we set up at the top. I think this is
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: a really fun way to kind of do a little
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: grab bag history episode in a really fun trajectory that
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: you set up for as Jabari. So thanks a lot
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: for the research on.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: This, big, big thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Huge thanks to our brand new research associate Jabbari Davis,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: as well as Alex Williams Uh the musical genius who
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: composed this track, Chris Fraciotis and he's Jeff codes here
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: in Spira, Jonathan Strickland, the quiztor, aj Bahamas, Jacobs a puzzler,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lance the world's foremost authority on
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: underwater explosions. What a weird flex. Speaking of cool flex
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: is big big shout out to the rude dudes of
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. If you dig us, you'll love them now
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: tell us maybe over on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: What you would have facted either a samurai or Abraham Lincoln.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: We'll see you next time, folks.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,