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Tons of People Married Their First Cousins · 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 Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's hear it for a super producer
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  Speaker 1: who might as well be a member of the family,
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  Speaker 1: mister Max Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Who all in the family here. No, that sounds weird.
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  Speaker 2: That's wrong, That's not what I meant. I take it
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  Speaker 2: all back. Yeah, I don't know. Look, first of all,
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  Speaker 2: maybe not trigger warning, I guess. But you know, sometimes
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  Speaker 2: on a show called Ridiculous History, we do brush up
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  Speaker 2: against topics that aren't inherently ridiculous or they're like sad
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  Speaker 2: or are just kind of you know, messed up in
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  Speaker 2: some way, shape or form, and then we often follow
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  Speaker 2: these well, it was a different time, but today we
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  Speaker 2: are talking about incests. Let's just get it out there
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  Speaker 2: to a degree, and we're not saying like, wow, that's
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  Speaker 2: some wacky stuff, these wacky cousin marrying geniuses, historical figures.
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  Speaker 2: That's not the take that we're offering up at all.
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  Speaker 2: But it is an interesting story or an interesting series
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  Speaker 2: of stories just the same. And yeah, it was a
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  Speaker 2: different time.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Ben or Noel, and today we are talking about
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  Speaker 1: people who married their first cousins throughout history. You know,
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  Speaker 1: as we said, we wanted a little bit of a
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  Speaker 1: disclaimer at the top, and we are going to explore
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  Speaker 1: this respectfully because as we'll see throughout the years, there
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  Speaker 1: were often a lot there were a lot of social pressures,
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  Speaker 1: and there were a lot of intervening variables or conditions
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  Speaker 1: that will make more sense as we continue. Look, you know,
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  Speaker 1: and shout out to research associate Max for this. There
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  Speaker 1: are a lot of people in the world and if
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  Speaker 1: you look at it, if you've ever done some of
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  Speaker 1: those distant cousin quizzes and things like that, you know
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  Speaker 1: that humanity is at least somewhat related to each other,
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  Speaker 1: every member of it, right, and it increases exponentially the
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  Speaker 1: further away go, and like cousinship, But we also want
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  Speaker 1: to add as a disclaimer, there are very serious, proven
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  Speaker 1: scientific reasons why you should not marry or procreate with
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  Speaker 1: people who are too closely related to you. And what
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  Speaker 1: we're going to see today is that whether you are
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  Speaker 1: a world renowned scientist, a infamous dictator, or an outlaw,
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  Speaker 1: there are plenty of folks from so many demographics across
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  Speaker 1: history who have not just married a cousin, which happens
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  Speaker 1: still in the modern day, but married a first cousin
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  Speaker 1: a pretty immediate relationship the one.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, you did mention that this does still
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  Speaker 2: happen from time to time to this day. But we
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  Speaker 2: also historically have massive precedent for this in the form
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  Speaker 2: of royalty, you know. I mean they were marrying all
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  Speaker 2: kinds of closely related blood relatives in an effort to
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  Speaker 2: maintain a semblance of some sort of bloodline, you know.
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  Speaker 2: And we also know that over time, sometimes not very
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  Speaker 2: many generations, marrying within one's family in this way can
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  Speaker 2: cause some serious issues and thinking of the Habsburg defects,
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  Speaker 2: you know, problems with you know, things like hemophilia, all
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  Speaker 2: kinds of issues. Yes, exactly, Ben the habsburgs. We're not
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  Speaker 2: really talking about royalty today because those are sort of
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  Speaker 2: the obvious ones, right, We're talking about folks who you
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  Speaker 2: might not think of, like Albert Einstein, Yeah, famous braini.
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  Speaker 1: Act I had a theory of relativity that goes outside
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  Speaker 1: the world of physics. Of not walking away from that joke,
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  Speaker 1: he had a turbulent relationship when he married his first cousin.
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  Speaker 1: And we want to shout out Kara Goldfarb. Over All
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  Speaker 1: this interesting, she said, quote, you don't have to be
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  Speaker 1: Einstein to make a marriage work. In fact, you probably
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  Speaker 1: shouldn't be. So let's talk about Elsa Einstein. She's often
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  Speaker 1: thought of as Albert's ryder die, you know, his number
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  Speaker 1: one person. She knew how to handle this brilliant, at
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  Speaker 1: times difficult physicist. She nursed him back to health in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen when he got very very ill. She also
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  Speaker 1: once he became a global celebrity, she was always with him,
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  Speaker 1: trotting across the globe. But once you cut past the
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  Speaker 1: surface level info and the headlines and all that stuff,
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  Speaker 1: you see a darker picture. So Elsa was born Elsa
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  Speaker 1: Einstein on January eighteenth, eighteen seventy six. Father is a
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  Speaker 1: guy named Rudolph. He is the cousin of Albert Einstein's father.
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  Speaker 2: But it does get a little weirder. Her mother and
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  Speaker 2: Albert's mother were also related, like I, as closely related
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  Speaker 2: as two women can be. They were sisters, and so
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  Speaker 2: Elsa and Albert were first cousins. Yeah, that's right, they're
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  Speaker 2: first cousins. Some of this lineage stuff gets makes your
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  Speaker 2: head spin a little bit, but sure to make sure
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  Speaker 2: where yes, the in fact they were first cousins.
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  Speaker 3: My brain is still hurting from researching some of the
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  Speaker 3: tangents in trivia later on.
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  Speaker 4: It is rough, it gets rough.
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  Speaker 1: But we're in this together. And so when Elsa gets
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  Speaker 1: married to Einstein, it's not her first marriage. She actually
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  Speaker 1: marries another guy named Max Lowenthal in eighteen ninety six,
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  Speaker 1: and this couple goes on to have three children before
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  Speaker 1: they divorced in nineteen oh eight. And Elsa Rique's her
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  Speaker 1: maiden name at that time. So during her marriage, her
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  Speaker 1: first marriage, she's Elsa Loenthal. After the divorce, she's Elsa Einstein,
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  Speaker 1: and she marries Albert Einstein. Now, of course the couple
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  Speaker 1: was aware of their relationship. Having the same last name
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  Speaker 1: is you know, it's a bit of a clue. And
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  Speaker 1: Einstein also had a marriage previous to this. He married
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  Speaker 1: a lady named Meliva Maria, a Serbian mathematician, in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: oh three, and it looks like they had a honeymoon period.
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  Speaker 1: They were charmed with each other, impressing each other. But
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  Speaker 1: if you go back through an archive of letters Einstein
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  Speaker 1: wrote during his lifetime, more than fourteen hundred, then it
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  Speaker 1: looks that over time he became detached, aloof and even
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  Speaker 1: a little bit cruel to his first wife, Meliva.
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  Speaker 2: That's right. I mean, you know, we often hear about
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  Speaker 2: how difficult and at times vicious, brilliant human beings can be,
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  Speaker 2: and Albert Einstein was no different. During this period, he
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  Speaker 2: was starting to get closer and closer to Elsa. This
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  Speaker 2: is nineteen twelve we're talking about here, and he was
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  Speaker 2: still married to his first wife, Maria, who he apparently
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  Speaker 2: treated abominably. He and Elsa had grown up together, you know,
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  Speaker 2: so there was some fondness there already. You know, you
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  Speaker 2: would think familial cousinly fondness that I guess was reassessed
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  Speaker 2: in a somewhat bizarre fashion. But it was only around
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  Speaker 2: that time that we mentioned, nineteen twelve, that they started
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  Speaker 2: to develop a kind of a letter writing relationship, right,
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  Speaker 2: that began to eat its way into romantic territory. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: courting via post and which was a thing people used
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  Speaker 2: to write letters. Massive beautiful romances were forged when people
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  Speaker 2: couldn't be there face to face through letters. We have
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  Speaker 2: tons of record of this in history.
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  Speaker 1: I like Simone de Beauvier, that's a great correspondence real
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  Speaker 1: ky of course. So Einstein falls sick like I said earlier,
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  Speaker 1: and Elsa shows up and she takes care of Albert,
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  Speaker 1: she nurses him back to health. In nineteen nineteen, he
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  Speaker 1: divorces his first wife, and then he marries Elsa shortly
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  Speaker 1: after in the same year, on June second, nineteen nineteen,
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  Speaker 1: like pretty much right after his divorce is finalized. And
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  Speaker 1: we've got a quote from him that shows he is
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  Speaker 1: a little bit he's not quite Tinto's down on this.
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  Speaker 1: He says, quote, the attempts to force me into marriage
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  Speaker 1: come from my cousin's parents and is mainly attributable to
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  Speaker 1: vanity through moral prejudice, which is still very much alive
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  Speaker 1: in the old generation. So he's saying, they're making me
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  Speaker 1: marry her because they think we're living in sin.
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  Speaker 2: And that was often a prime factor, you know, and
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  Speaker 2: what led to people getting married in those days, the
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  Speaker 2: idea of making an honest man out of you or whatever,
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  Speaker 2: you know, living in sin in the eyes of God
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  Speaker 2: and doing right by that. So, yeah, we see a
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  Speaker 2: lot of marriages that were not desired by both parties
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  Speaker 2: as well, right.
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  Speaker 1: Lots of social pressure and you know, Albert repeats the
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  Speaker 1: same pattern that he did with his first wife. Over time,
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  Speaker 1: he becomes increasingly distant from Elsa. He in fact, has
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  Speaker 1: a series of affairs with a number of women, younger women.
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  Speaker 1: And even though we know that Elsa's children from her
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  Speaker 1: previous marriage thought of old al as a father figure,
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  Speaker 1: it turns out he also kind of had a budding
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  Speaker 1: like Allen thing with his eldest stepdaughter. Oh good, he
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  Speaker 1: actually thought of At one point he was like, I'm
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  Speaker 1: I know, I'm engaged to Elsa, my cousin, but I
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  Speaker 1: might break it off and propose to her daughter instead.
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  Speaker 5: Okay, wow, Albert Einstein, you know, the more you dig
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  Speaker 5: into some of these folks, the less they deserve to
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  Speaker 5: be on the cover of a children's book with a
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  Speaker 5: giant head.
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  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
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  Speaker 1: You know what I mean. It's theory or relativity.
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  Speaker 2: Indeed, yeah, it's interesting. But again, like you know, the
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  Speaker 2: idea of becoming isolated and becoming distant, and you know,
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  Speaker 2: we see this with artists, We see this with you know,
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  Speaker 2: folks who are just obsessed and consumed by their work.
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  Speaker 2: And again, not to psychoanalyze Albert Einstein on a podcast,
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  Speaker 2: but like I could see how a guy like that
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  Speaker 2: would see a woman as someone that was there for
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  Speaker 2: his gratification, you know, someone that is there to distract
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  Speaker 2: him from his stressful existence and his toilings, you know,
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  Speaker 2: mental toilings.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it happens. It happens a lot, you know,
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  Speaker 1: very driven people. Isaac Asimov did not have a happy
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  Speaker 1: marital life. A lot of authors didn't, and a lot
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  Speaker 1: of scientists didn't, you know. And at the same time,
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  Speaker 1: nothing happens in a vacuum. As we always say, it's
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  Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, let's fast forward to their anti Semitism
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  Speaker 1: is on a dangerous rise, and a lot of right
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  Speaker 1: wing groups start targeting Albert Einstein. So eventually he and
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  Speaker 1: Elsa say, we're going to have to relocate the family.
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  Speaker 1: It's nineteen thirty three. Things are not looking good in Germany,
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  Speaker 1: so we're going to move to the United States, and
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  Speaker 1: they put down roots in Princeton, New Jersey. The disasters
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  Speaker 1: keep coming because shortly after they move, Elsa gets news
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  Speaker 1: that her daughter Ilsa has developed cancer. She was living
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  Speaker 1: in Paris at the time, so her mom goes to
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  Speaker 1: France to be with her in her final days. This
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  Speaker 1: is definitely terminal condition. She comes back to the US
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  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty five, and Elsa now has health issues, medical
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  Speaker 1: conditions of her own heart and liver problems that just
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  Speaker 1: keep getting worse. And what does Albert do. He closes
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  Speaker 1: the door to his study figuratively, and he keeps click
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  Speaker 1: clacking away on his work.
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  Speaker 2: And sadly, Elsa passed away on December twentieth of nineteen
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  Speaker 2: thirty six in that home in Princeton, New Jersey. And
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  Speaker 2: you know, for as much of a sob as Einstein
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  Speaker 2: comes off in the story, it is reported that he
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  Speaker 2: was genuinely at a loss over her passing, and a
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  Speaker 2: family friend, a guy named Peter Buckney, said it was
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  Speaker 2: the first and only time he saw Albert Einstein cry.
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  Speaker 1: And you know, everybody knows that any relationship, no matter
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  Speaker 1: how beautiful, can have a lot of ups and downs,
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  Speaker 1: and it can be difficult to maintain any long term relationship.
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  Speaker 1: You know, you really have to show up every day
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  Speaker 1: for it. And we're not saying, obviously that Elsa and
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  Speaker 1: Albert had the perfect marriage, but it does show us
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  Speaker 1: that he had emotional difficulties. Right, a brilliant physicist, but
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  Speaker 1: not a super emotionally aware person. And we know this
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  Speaker 1: because of a letter he wrote to the son of
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  Speaker 1: one of his friends. His friend, Michelle Besso had passed away,
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  Speaker 1: and Albert wrote this, what I admire and your father
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  Speaker 1: is that for his whole life he stayed with only
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  Speaker 1: one woman. That is a project in which I grossly
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  Speaker 1: failed twice way to make it about you, bro. That's
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  Speaker 1: really weird.
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  Speaker 2: That is a little weird. Yeah, there's no question. And
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  Speaker 2: again shout out to Kara gold Farm for all that's interesting.
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  Speaker 2: Who hipped us to a lot of these very interesting
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  Speaker 2: facts about you know, ultimately a great man, not necessarily
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  Speaker 2: a great husband, you know.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, and it jump in here.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, so when I was writing this, there's a
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  Speaker 3: lot of people who marry their first cousins, so I
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  Speaker 3: try to pick people are kind of closer to us
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  Speaker 3: in history and also ones that I could have that
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  Speaker 3: there's plenty of research materials about, Like sure some of
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  Speaker 3: these people can't find them about. When I picked these
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  Speaker 3: three people, I did not expect to be grossed out
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  Speaker 3: the most bi Albert Einstein. Of these three, I'm like,
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  Speaker 3: this isn't gonna be the one that gross me out
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  Speaker 3: the most, too.
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  Speaker 1: Well, don't worry about this right, as you know, will continue.
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  Speaker 1: We will continue by going to the Middle East. The infamous,
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  Speaker 1: infamously bad romance novelist and also a dictator of rock
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  Speaker 1: for some time. Saddam Hussein.
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  Speaker 2: I see, he.
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  Speaker 1: Kinda had a pull quote for me here, one of
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  Speaker 1: history's few truly bad guys. I agree with that. We
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  Speaker 1: have so many strange things to talk about when it
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  Speaker 1: comes to Hussein. He did write a copy of the
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  Speaker 1: Quran in his own blood, for instance. He also he
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  Speaker 1: also married his cousin, he sure did.
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  Speaker 2: And Saddam Hussein's a guy that kind of didn't really
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  Speaker 2: have many guardrails on the things that he felt that
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  Speaker 2: he could or could not do. That's sort of the
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  Speaker 2: way of the of the dictator. And you know, it's funny.
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  Speaker 2: A lot of these I feel like, these, these individuals
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  Speaker 2: we're talking about today could be their own episode of
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Behind the Bastards. Pretty sure Saddam's got a few. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: but it's true. We don't know a whole lot though
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  Speaker 2: about the first marriage that Saddam Hussein had to Saji
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  Speaker 2: Sajida Talfa. We get this from Gina de muro Over
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  Speaker 2: at all. That's interesting as well. Quote here from this piece.
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  Speaker 2: Given that it is hard to step the fact from
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  Speaker 2: the hearsay, often the little that is known concerning his
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  Speaker 2: wife is just as disturbing as the worst rumors. Was
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  Speaker 2: often the case, once again for folks like this, a
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  Speaker 2: lot of smoke probably an awful lot of fire too.
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  Speaker 2: So Saddam Hussein and Sajita Talfa had an arranged marriage
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  Speaker 2: that was arranged by their parents when they were only
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  Speaker 2: ten years old. This was agreed upon. Sajita was also
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  Speaker 2: a Saddam's uncle's daughter, which by the whole cousin math
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  Speaker 2: thing comes back to first cousins, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And we do have to say, you know, in
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  Speaker 1: a place where people have arranged marriages, being related in
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  Speaker 1: some way to your spouse or your would be spouse
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  Speaker 1: was not considered necessarily a bad thing or a deal breaker. Oftentimes,
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  Speaker 1: arranged marriages or negotiations between branches or clans of a
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: family right to further solidify some of the things we
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, you know, influenced lineage and so on. So
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  Speaker 1: the couple gets hitched around nineteen sixty three. Even today
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  Speaker 1: people aren't sure what the exact date was. They did
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  Speaker 1: go on to have five different children, and by most accounts, Sajida,
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  Speaker 1: who had been a school teacher before marrying Saddam, she
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  Speaker 1: liked the marriage. She liked some of the side benefits
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  Speaker 1: because her husband was high ranking in the government, of course,
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  Speaker 1: and she enjoyed the social status. She was flexing with
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  Speaker 1: designer clothes from Europe wherein jewelry. She dyed her hair blonde,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: and she became the first lady of a rock right. So,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: one woman who met her said she aspired to be
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  Speaker 1: light skinned and coated her face with so much powder
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  Speaker 1: that it looked like quote, someone had thrown flour on her.
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  Speaker 1: That's a pretty pretty rude, body shamy thing to say.
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  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, yeah, it's not great, but she wasn't super
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  Speaker 2: pleasant either. That's that is that is what you hear
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  Speaker 2: also been. I believe the of the five children they had,
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  Speaker 2: two of them were like the worst ones, like the
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: ones that you heard like, you know, I think whipping
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: the losing soccer team on the bottoms of their feet,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: ude and kuse during that period, you know, when they
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: are just absolute, absolute monsters. And I think there's there's
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: there's a couple of dramatized you know, kind of biopics
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: about them. If I'm not mistaken, it's like called like
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: the Devil's something or other.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, he I know. I did some research
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: on Uday in particular, and he was just absolutely like
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: a King Jeffrey from Game of Thrones, that level of
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: cartoonishly evil. And he had the you're you're talking about
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  Speaker 1: the national football team. That's whenever they lost a match,
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  Speaker 1: he would he would have them arrested in Orchard. He
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  Speaker 1: did that with Olympic athletes representing Iraq as well. Now
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  Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with the fact that his
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  Speaker 1: parents were cousins. He's just so bad that we're gonna
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  Speaker 1: mention it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, very bad that The film I was talking about,
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  Speaker 2: by the way, it is called The Devil's Double. It
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  Speaker 2: came out in twenty eleven and it is about a
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: about body doubles, exactly the body double or political decoy
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: for Uday Hussein, who is played in the film by
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Dominick Cooper, who plays both Ouda and La tiff Yahia,
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  Speaker 2: who is the double. I would like to see this
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: film and as an incredible poster, by the way, where
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: it's like oday sitting in a golden throne and everything's
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: gold and He's completely painted gold head to toe. It's
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  Speaker 2: a really striking image. Reminds me of something like David
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  Speaker 2: la Chappelle would do.
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  Speaker 1: I did see The Devil's Double. I enjoyed it. It
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: was during my I can't remeber what project it was
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: for nihilistic film viewing period. Researching, I can'mero which project
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  Speaker 1: it was. Whereas researching a lot of dictators that time,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: all of whom have really interesting and disturbing stories. Saddam
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  Speaker 1: is no different. Oh, shopkeepers in Bagdad. By the way,
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  Speaker 1: we're very scared of Saddam's wife because she refused to
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  Speaker 1: pay full price for anything. She's apparently quite vindictive, and
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  Speaker 1: opponents of the regime said she was just as violent
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  Speaker 1: and greedy as her husband. But Saddam controls the press,
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  Speaker 1: you know, and he and his forces go out of
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  Speaker 1: their way to make sure anything about his family just
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: shows him in the best lie ever, A super doting father,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: a very committed husband. There's an interview in nineteen seventy
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: eight where he says the most important thing about a
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: marriage is that the man must not let the woman
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: feel downtrodden, simply because she is a woman and he
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: is a man. That's pretty cool to say, right, that's
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: very I think that is a very human and realistic
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: thing to say. But how much of those, you know,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: propagandist statements, like how true were they when the cameras
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: were rolling?
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: But again back to dictators, they also you know, they
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: like to both f around and find out, but they
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: don't really have to reap any consequences. And when I
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: say f around, I just mean, you know, sleep around.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: It is pretty common, open secret that anybody at that
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: level of power, absolute power, is going to do whatever
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: that person wants to do in terms of having multiple partners,
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: and Sadam was no exception. Despite that rosy image that
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: he would have had the press portray him as those
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: those rose colored glasses, you know, him as the doting
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: father of the family man and all that not the case.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: The marriage was largely for show, Asidam carried on numerous affairs,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: one mistress in particular that truly was kind of his
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: number one, some Shabunder. Yeah.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And they were both already married to other people.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: That didn't stop them from having a secret wedding in
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, and he and Shabandhar started appearing publicly
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: in the late nineteen eighties. Shajdah is super unhappy about this,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: as is the rest of the family, including Saddam's brother
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: in law and Saddam's first cousin, due to the nature
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: of the marriage. They were talking about dishonor.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess that's my question. Ben is like, why
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: do that, Like, why actually have a double marriage? Is
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: it literally just because you can? Because you know narcissism.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: I would say it's classic rules shouldn't apply to me.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: I am the main character of everything, and that's I mean,
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: that's a very simplistic way to put it, but there
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: it is. He clearly did not feel.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Bound by More's or by the strength of his word
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: in vows. This guy, Saddam's brother in law, a guy
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: named Adnan Kayirala, and we're not native speakers here, Thank
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: you for bearing with us. This guy is complaining a
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: little too much. He's starting to contradict the super happy,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: faultless image Saddam spends so much time building, and so
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: ad Noon dies in a helicopter crash, a freak helicopter crash.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: It's a freak crash because Saddam's bodyguards plant explosives on
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: the chopper.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is known, right man, This is not just
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: kiss confirmed. Okay, cool. Yeah, Saddam's bodyguards did admit that
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: they planted explosive devices on the helicopter under order from
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Saddam himself. Of course, they weren't just doing it as
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: a little maybe i'll get an Ada boy here. Of course,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: during the Gulf War, as we know, a lot of
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: members of the Hussein family had to leave Iraq, but
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: they came back after it concluded, and there was a
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: period during this time that Sajita had to give up
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: her lap of luxury kind of existence. But then she
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: ultimately had to do it, you know, for real in
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: two thousand and three. Yeah.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's because this was just before the bombing of Baghdad,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: like you know, like Outcast talks about. And she, according
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: to the reports, she sought asylum in Britain with two
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: of her daughters, and their official applications were never received.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: But of course the British government is aware of her past,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and they went public with the following declaration. They said,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: our country is under no obligation to give asylum to
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: people who've taken part in human rights abuses. They're saying
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: she's not an innocent. She's not a refugee. She actively
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: participated in some her horrific things. And another point that
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: came up with this was that she was living in
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: the lap of luxury. She had a very opulent life
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: during her heyday, and all this wealth they accrued came
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: at a tremendous, profoundly disturbing cost to people of Iraq
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: who were being thrown in prison by a police state
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: were often living in crushing poverty. So their argument was,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: even if she was not directly involved in torture and
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: murder carried out by the regime, all the wealth she
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: had was blood money.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Right, and she was. I mean, look, we can't really,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: we can't really attest to the exact levels of like
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: culpability or you know, what she knew when she knew it.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: It's tough to get exact there or even rough but likely,
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: you know, living in that environment, it was known. And
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: I keep saying that game of throne style, But you know,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's not difficult to figure out what's happening
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: and where this wealth is coming from if you're paying
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: even a small amount of attention. Yeah, I don't think.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: She was surprised, right, if you had told her what
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: the regime was doing. I don't think it would have
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: been news to her. She's very much, if not a
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: willing participant, willing to profit from those acts of inhumanity.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: And okay, we like Max set it up. We're talking
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: about three today. We didn't want to end on a
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: complete downer Game of Thrones villain style, So let's go
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: to a very famous person in deep mythos of America.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Let's go to Jesse James.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: What was that? Was it?
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: The assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, cool film with a great soundtrack by Nick Cave
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: and in a long name, who's the other guy? Warren
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: ellis not the comic book writer, but the bearded mandolin
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: violin guitar playing outlaw countryman that hangs out with Nick
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Ka all the time. Really really cool soundtrack and it's
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: a great film as well. But yeah, Jesse James, pew pew,
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: In case you missed it was the sound of his
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: six guns going off, because that guy was a real
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: ace shooter.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: He also was a real violent dude. And we're going
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: to talk about this phenomenon in an episode coming up
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: later pretty soon, about how Pirates became prolific in the Caribbean.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: This guy wanted to join up in the Civil War,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: so he was just a teenager when he connects with
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Confederate gorilla forces in eighteen sixty four, and at the
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: close of the war, he never really stops basically pillaging.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: He knows that the Confederates lose the Civil War and
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: he becomes an outlaw, and so he's out there knocking
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: over banks and trains and stagecoaches. Real red dead redemption
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: two style.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, like you said, Ben, he was such
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: a young man when he kind of began this life.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: It makes sense that he would just kind of, you know,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: stay the course. And he also had some kind of
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: familial influences that we're going to get into shortly. But
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: according to a biography from American Experience, Jesse was born
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: in Clay County, Missouri, on September fifth, eighteen forty seven.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: His parents, Zerelda It's a great name and Robert James,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: were hemp farmers. Okay, but well, okay, that's a dang ah.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, like you know, people, I joke. Hemp was
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: a very very popular cash crop because it was you know,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: used to make incredibly strong ropes. In fact, a lot
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: of the ropes in chips and even in theaters, for example,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: they're referred to as hemps. Still to this day. It's
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: sort of like an old timey term for like really
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: strong road because in the old days, hemp was a
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: very available and popular material for making these.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: And of course, you know, as we always want to
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: point out, this was not the kind of this was
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: not the kind of plant that you would smoke. It was,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: as you said, mainly for industrial uses, making rope, making fiber,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: sometimes for clothing and so on. So they grow up
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: on this hemp farm. Like you said, Jesse and his
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: older brother Frank watched the Civil War erupt and they
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: decide they're going to march off from Clay County, Missouri
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: to fight for the Confederate cause. At this point, Jesse
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: James is still probably too young to go to war,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: but he tells his parents Robert James, and his mom is, look,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go. I want to fight for the Confederates.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Zerrella's full name, by the way, is Zerelda Elizabeth Cole,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: James Simms, Samuel, Sorry, why why are we telling you that?
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Because we want you to make up a silly song
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: about it. And also because this will come into play
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: with the with the cousin coupling later and.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: As we talked about, you know, with some kind of
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: familial bonds, perhaps leading to a sense of righteous indignation
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: on the part of young Jesse James, his brother, you know,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: going off and supporting a band of pro Confederate militiaman
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: you know, gorillas actually brought down the iron fist of
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: the Union on Jesse and his family. Jesse and his
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: stepfather were beaten and tortured for information by these folks
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: because of what what Frank had done.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this punishment, this which very much was may
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: have been the spark that led Jesse ultimately to join
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: a group of garias led by a guy named Bloody
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Bill Anderson in the spring of eighteen sixty four. He's
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: just sixteen, but he's seen things no sixteen year old
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: should ever have to see, and so he joins like
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: blood Meridian style and propagates this violence. They terrorize pro
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Union folks sympathizers across the Missouri countryside. Jesse James participates
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: in a lot of deeply unclean stuff, including the Centralia
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: massacre in which twenty two unarmed Union soldiers at a
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: hundred other Union soldiers are utterly butchered. He has bathed
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: in blood, right, he has baptized into a life of
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: incredibly violent activity. And you know, when you look at
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: these biographies, like we mentioned PBS's American experience, these horrible
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: formative events created the man he would become when he
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: grew up.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And at this point he starts kind
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: of canodling a little bit with a woman who would
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: become his wife, nicknamed z Mimes also known as these
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: names might be familiar to you, Zirelda Amanda Mimes.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: I kind of like the internal rhyme.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Did's a very good one. Born on July twenty first,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: eighteen forty five in Logan, Kentucky to a pastor John,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: which I love. I just call him pastor John, Pastor
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: John W. Mims and Mary Mimes. The last name Memes
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: is just very charming to me for some reason. Yeah,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Mary Mims, Mary James Memes rather and Zirelda was one
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: of twelve children that they had together, and her mother
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: was Robert James's sister, right, Robert James, father of Jesse
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: James sister Let's do the cousin math real quick, right, Okay,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: where are we at?
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Cousin math sounds like a cool down south hip hop beat.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: But this they're aware of this, by the way. Oh yeah,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: first we're at first, right, first cousins.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: The first cousins Jesse and.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Easiest cousin Math. By the way, Yeah, Jesse and Z.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Are very well aware of their familial connection the relationship,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: but they still fall in love. While Jesse is living
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: temporarily with his aunt and uncle. In eighteen sixty five
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: in Missouri, the couple gets engaged and the engagement lasts
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: nine years. During this time, our buddy Jesse is an
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: out and out outlaw, the James Younger Gang it was called.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: They're in full swing. Eventually, amid all the crime, they
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: get married at Z's sisters home in Kearney, Missouri. This
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: is on April twenty fourth, eighteen seventy four, and fast
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: forward about a year a little more. In a year,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Z has her first child, Jesse Edward Tim James Fellow
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: August baby shout out bro August thirty first, eighteen seventy five.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: The couple as twins. Later, just like three years later,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: February twenty eighth, eighteen seventy eight. However, there's a tragedy.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: The twins are still born, or according to some accounts,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: they survive for a little bit, but they pass away
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: within twenty four hours of being born. You know, of course,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: infant mortality very high at this time in American history.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Eighteen seventy nine. The next year, Z has a daughter.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: She's named Mary Susan James. She survives, and she actually
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: outlives the James Younger Gang.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, the James and Younger Gang, not to be
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: confused with the incredible I believe a funk band James Gang,
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: isn't that wasn't a funk band kind of music to
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: James Gang play sorry in a rock band James James Gang,
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: American rock band from Cleveland, Ohio, formed in nineteen sixty six.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: Go Cleveland Cleveland Rocks. Yeah, that's right. The James Younger
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: Gang stopped being active when one of the younger brothers
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: last why yep were captured during a raid in Northfield, Minnesota.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Around the high damn polite over there, drinking their milk
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: and eating their cheeses, their fine cheeses. That's Wisconsin and Minnesota.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: They like a good cheese in Minnesota as well. So
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Jesse decided to start up a new gang, the James Gang. Yeah,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: h burst of creativity. Yeah, I like it. And they
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: did continue a robin and a pillaging and uh, you know,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: holding up trains and the like. And on September seventh
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: of eighteen eighty one, Glendale, Missouri, they had their last stand.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean in terms of not like death,
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: but like the last big, big heist.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one last job. So they hold up this train
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: and then Jesse says, we're gonna move our family to
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: a different town, get away from the heat a bit.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: It's Saint Joseph, Missouri. That's where they settle under Jesse's
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: assumed name. He calls himself Tom Howard. He has a
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars reward over his head. So they have
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: to they have to try to lie low or lay low.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: And Z tries to talk Jesse into living the square life,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like getting a solid job,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe go to church once in a while.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: And Jesseward's a good square name, by the way.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And Jesse says, you know what, Hunt, You're right,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: I am definitely gonna settle down and have a square life,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: right after one last bank rubber?
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, how is it gonna go?
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: A bit?
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Is it gonna go?
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: Well, it.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Depends on what side of the robbery you're on, right,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: So he's planning this robbery, it's so such a trope,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: one last job. He hangs out with Charles and Robert
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Ford or Bob Ford to his friends call it. And
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: while they're planning this robbery, Bob kills Jesse James on
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: April third, eighteen eighty two. Zee and her children are
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: in the kitchen when the fatal gunshot occurs, and the kid,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Jesse Junior, runs into the living room. He finds his
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: father on the floor clearly has been shot in the head.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Ze begins to scream. The little girl Mary starts crying.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: This is just an absolutely horrific situation. Zee is on
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: herne He's trying to staunch the blood, but it is far,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: far too late. Bob or Robert Ford may have been
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: a coward, but he was a good enough shot at
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: close range.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Strange exactly, but I always picture, or at least maybe
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: it's depicted off an in westerns, like someone will get
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: a head shot sometimes right and then not instantly die
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: or have like the whole side of their head blown
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: off if it's with like a maybe a lower caliber pistol. Obviously,
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: shotguns a different story, but we're handguns like less powerful
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: in those days. Could you be more likely to get
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: winged or even just like you know, even we hear
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: about people surviving head shots sometimes in these days.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Sure, there are a lot of variables, you know what
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: I mean. There's also not a lot of empty space
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: in the human body, so even a weak caliber is
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: gonna is gonna do some damage. It's a good question
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: because there are there are some pistols that were pretty strong,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: and then there's some other ones that you would think
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: were maybe a little more lightweight. But that term shouldn't
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: even apply because guns can always be dangerous, you know.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: So we could probably do an entire episode about Jesse
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: and Bob's relationship. It does make me want to rewatch
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: that film, you know.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: I've honestly never seen it, and I would very much
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: like to. I think it's great.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. I enjoy If you're a history buff,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: which I guess all three of us are, then you'll
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: enjoy it.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: It's fine. History's okay, it's mids three out of five.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: I give history.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: But when Jesse dies, a lot of people who are
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: aware that he is not really Tom Howard, and a
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: lot of people in the larger United States, they say, well,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: this guy committed so many robberies. I bet is what
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: widow is set for life. But that wasn't the case.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Who was in a really dire straight The only stuff
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: they owned they had like a little bit of leftover
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: stolen jewelry. They had some weapons, and then they had
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: the things families have photos of each other, you know,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: nice letters. Here's a blanket I knit you when you
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: were but a wee child. So they've got a lot
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: of debt, and pretty soon they sell almost everything in
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: the household at an auction to pay their creditors, and
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Z and the kids have to move in with Z's
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: brother in Kansas.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: City, And as is often the case in these types
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: of situations, it's the children who really get the rough
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: end of it. Ze did not emerge from the death
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: of her husband Jesse unscathed. Despite not being harmed physically,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: she suffered from serious depression and anxiety, crippling her ability
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: to take care of her kids. She wore black all
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: the time and apparently never changed out of this black garb.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: She did not remarry. She became something of a hermit.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Jesse James Junior had to essentially much earlier than any
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: child should, become the primary earner for the household at
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: the age of eleven, to take care of his ailing
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: mother and his young sister.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: And Zie was, in her defense, a woman of integrity
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: in some regards. She refused for the rest of her life.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: And he offers to publish books or give insight into
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: the criminal career of Jesse James, who was already becoming
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: larger than life posthumously, he's becoming part of American mythology.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: And she could have made their lives easier if she
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: capitalized on the activities of her late husband, but she didn't,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: and so she passed away on November thirteenth, nineteen hundred
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: in Kansas City. She was buried in Cemetery Mount Olivet
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: in Kearney, Missouri, and about eighteen months later people exhume
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: her husband and move him from his original gravesite on
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: the James family farm to place his remains next to her.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: And you can find those graves today the next time
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: you're in Kurdie, Missouri.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: You're not a bummer ending, didn't we?
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: Y'all?
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: Well, we were going to deliver on that with some
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: tangents and trivia, some sort of nuggety little stories of
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: folks who fancied their cousins quite a bit. And I
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: think these ones we should lighten up the mood a
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: little bit, because, man, you know, dying in despair, wearing
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: all black and having your young eleven year old son
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: have to take care of you the rest of your
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: life ain't exactly the cheery ending that was promised.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about something something
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: mechs you found here where you said, wow, private secretaries
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: to the president sure loved their cousins. It's a very
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: specific font of knowledge that we're we're about to explore.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: I want to give a shout out to nominative determinism
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: and a guy named Samuel L. Gouveneir g o u
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: v e r n e u r.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: That like a fancy governor.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it's a it's a governor, but it's
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: six dollars more a counter, got it?
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: Got it?
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Our buddy sam is the private secretary for a guy
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: who is his daddy uncle and fifth president in US history,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: James Monroe.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: Ben I absolutely love that you said daddy uncle because
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: this just gets so confusing because his actual uncle, not
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: by blood, but James Monroe, was married to Elizabeth Monroe,
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: who was Samuel L. Gouvernor's mom's sister, So his aunt
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: by blood uncle by marriage, but his dad or daddy
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: or dad in law, because Gouvernor married Maria Hester Monroe,
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: the daughter of Elizabeth and James Monroe. But this is
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: even weirder when we started hearing all the names and
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: also how utterly confusing all this crap.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Is Samuel L. Gouverneur, his mother was named Hester Gouverneer.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: His wife once they actually did get married, was Maria
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: Hester Gouveneer. It's confusing, extra confusing, as you mentioned, Max,
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: and researching a lot of us stuff, it gets a
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: little Quagmiriy. So Maria Hester Gouvenier is not to be
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: confused with his second wife, Mary Digs Gouvenier.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Totally different, totally different, right, And Sam's sister's maiden name
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: was Maria Charlotte Gouveneer. Two of his children were named
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: Samuel Lawrence Gouverneir Junior and James Monroe Gouveneir also shout out.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Shout out to Max and the research brief who called
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Samuel L. Gouveneer America's number two most famous Samuel L.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: Moving on to John Adams the Second, not to be
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: confused with our boy, John Quincy Adams, who Max you
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: referred to as the original sequel.
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: Explain, because there's John, there's John Quincy Adams, which is
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: his son, and there's John Adams the second. So John
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: Adams the Second is really kind of John Adams the third,
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: but he's not. Also, to get your heads up, is
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: really hard to find information about John Adams the Second,
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: because you type it into a search engine, it just
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: comes up with John Adams, second President of American history.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: Max's with the facts of phone get backs.
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: He drops the knowledge just for you.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: So good, there we got fat.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: Indeed, John Adams was in fact the second president in
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: American history and was the successor to James L. Governaire,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: holding the position of private secretary to John Quincy Adams.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: John Adams the Second was the second son of John
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Quincy Adams and Louisa Catherine Nae Helen Adams, with an
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: older brother named George Washington Adams, Get out of here,
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: and a younger brother named Charles Francis Adams. This is
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: like a Gabriel Garcia Marquezno, it's it's absurd. Later they
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: popped a scenior onto there, just to make things less
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: confusing more confusing. You mean, I don't know.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know at this point, but all the
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: way the cadences as you're talking about, that makes me
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: think this is a situation where you could make a
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: really confusing school children's song that's supposed to help you
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: to remember but just becomes increasingly convoluted.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: Let's put they might be giants right on it. Yeah,
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: there we go. We forget.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: We forgot to say, why is private secretary important? Secretary
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: back then does not mean the same thing as secretary
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: often means now. The private secretary in this day and
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: age was a position that was kind of expected to
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: be based on nepotism. Your private secretary was usually a
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: direct close family member filling in and as you know,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: as Max points out, it's also a position that seemed
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: to have a lot of first cousin marriers and as
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: a patented Williams Street so Okay, no, he did a
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: beautiful job outlining the relationship here. John Adams two becomes
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: this private secretary for the entirety of his father's presidential
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: career starting eighteen twenty five ending in eighteen twenty nine,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: and then somewhere along the way eighteen twenty eight, he
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: marries his wife, Mary Catherine Helen at the White House
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: super fancy. Johnny and Mary had known each other for
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: a while because when Mary Catherine Helen's parents died, Mary
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: Catherine Helen was a child and she moved in with
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: her mother's sister, whose name was Louisa Catherine Helen Adams.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: To make everything a lot worse, immediately, all three Adams
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: brothers started an intense competition to win Mary's hand, and
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: they aggressively courted their cousin first custom first cousin. And
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: this is These are just a few examples. This goes on,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: but as as we said, everybody you know, it can
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: be confusing to keep track of all the individuals, especially
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: as the names get similar, and it could be difficult
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: today for people often to trace their own familial relationships.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: That's why there is there was at least a dating
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: app in Iceland. You guys heard about this that would
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: tell you whether or not you were related to someone
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: you were trying to date.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: Do you guys know the Snel I say, Irish dating show.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: I think it's Bill Hayter is like the Bachelor, and
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: it's eighty Bryant, Kate mckannon and Cecily Strong are like
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: the three like bachelors, and it turns out that two
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: of them are related to him.
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: That actually is a benefit.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: Like Adie Bryan's the one that's not related to so
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: she's just kind of eliminated off quietly, right, Yeah, that's.
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: Why that's where my brain's going with us right here.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: And again, you know, as we said at the top,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: we're not here to vilify people or to you know,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: to make a mockery of them in this regard. But
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: it turns out there are a lot of prominent historical
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: figures that did in fact marry their first cousins, from
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: outlaws like Jesse James to groundbreaking scientists like Albert Einstein,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, they're all human
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: and humans are inherently fallible. But Noel, speaking of fallibility,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: I think we did okay on this one. We held
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: our own things I don't think we falibated.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: No, wow, I'm salivating thinking of how little we falibated. Okay,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: I think we've we've all collectively gone a little insane
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: from from naming and cousin math fatigue. But thanks for
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: bearing with us, y all ridiculous historians out there, and
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: thank you Max for this incredible and brain shattering research brief.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: And thanks to you.
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: Ben behind the curtain, guys, behind the behind the gurkin. Yeah,
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of gurkhing in this episode.
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: It's this brief took.
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: An extra two weeks for me to get done because
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: once I started touching Adam's family, which the Adams family
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: is just.
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: Full of inbreeding.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: They're creepy.
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: It's so creepy. Yeah, every time I opened it up
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: and I started researching, it broke my brain. I just
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: had to stop.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you for your service, Max, and also thanks
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: to Jonathan Strickland aka the Quist. Thanks to Christoph rassiotis
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: East Jeffcoat here in spirit Nol. Of course, thanks to you.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Are you excited about this weird Pirate episode?
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, ar maty boy boy boy am I EMM
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: see you nice time? Folks For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever did you
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: listen to your favorite shows