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Homeward Bound · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
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  Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Yomamoto O Tokichi was fourteen
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  Speaker 1: when he left his home in Japan in eight thirty two.
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  Speaker 1: He'd taken a job on the crew of a rice
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  Speaker 1: transport ship bound for a dog The ship left the
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  Speaker 1: harbor on October eleven, and not long after it was
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  Speaker 1: hit by a powerful storm that knocked the vessel way
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  Speaker 1: off course. It drifted far into the Pacific Ocean. It's
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  Speaker 1: rudder and mast had been ripped away, leaving the ship
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  Speaker 1: unable to steer in any direction. For over a year,
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  Speaker 1: the transport ship floated aimlessly in the Pacific, It's crew
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  Speaker 1: growing increasingly desperate and hungry. They ended up surviving on
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  Speaker 1: desalinated water and by eating their cargo, the rice they've
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  Speaker 1: been tasked with carrying to Ado. By the time they
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  Speaker 1: washed ashore on the West coast of the United States,
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  Speaker 1: only three crew members were left alive, including Yamamoto, who
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  Speaker 1: had turned fifteen during the journey. But their hardships weren't
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  Speaker 1: over yet Washington State hadn't yet been admitted to the Union,
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  Speaker 1: and the indigenous people living in the area were wary
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  Speaker 1: of strangers. The Makah tribe welcomed Yamamoto and his fellow
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  Speaker 1: crew members at first, but after the castaways had recovered,
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  Speaker 1: they were enslaved before being given to John McLoughlin of
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  Speaker 1: the Hudson's Bay Company. McLoughlin didn't see three young men
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  Speaker 1: children really in dire need of help. He saw opportunity
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  Speaker 1: and a way to begin trade negotiations with Japan. He
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  Speaker 1: put them on a boat to England, where they were
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  Speaker 1: to convince the monarchy to fund his endeavor. The Brits
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  Speaker 1: didn't bite, though they didn't see any value in furthering
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  Speaker 1: McLoughlin's dreams of international trade, but rather than send Yamamoto
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  Speaker 1: and his friends back to the US, they were shipped
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  Speaker 1: off to China, where they could find safe passage home
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  Speaker 1: from there. But just as their journey was coming to
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  Speaker 1: a close, fate had other ideas. They were intercepted by
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  Speaker 1: Carl Gutzlaff, a German missionary who worked for the British government.
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  Speaker 1: He wanted them to teach him Japanese so he could
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  Speaker 1: bring his religion to the people there. The three survivors
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  Speaker 1: did as they were told, educating Carl in their tongue,
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  Speaker 1: before meeting an American trader who also wanted to talk
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  Speaker 1: to Japan about a possible trade partnership. The American promised
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  Speaker 1: to take them to Ado, the city that they had
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  Speaker 1: intended to go on their original journey. Finally, their journey
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  Speaker 1: would find some closure and they could return to their
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  Speaker 1: families and their previous lives. Unfortunately, the trader couldn't get
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  Speaker 1: his ship anywhere near the country. Every time he approached
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  Speaker 1: the shore, cannon fire ensued, forcing him to ultimately retreat
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  Speaker 1: to southern China. Japan, you see, had enacted the Sakaku policy,
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  Speaker 1: a word meaning closed country. Anyone seeking to enter or
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  Speaker 1: leave was met with hostility, often resulting in death. So
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  Speaker 1: Yamamoto and the other crew members built new lives for
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  Speaker 1: themselves in China. They worked as translators for the British
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  Speaker 1: government and several British companies. Yamamoto in particular, bounced around
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  Speaker 1: from place to place, job to job, working on ships
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  Speaker 1: and helping sneak Japanese castaways back home aboard Dutch and
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  Speaker 1: Chinese ships. Two countries not bound by the Sokoku policy,
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  Speaker 1: and yet, despite his work and helping others find their
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  Speaker 1: way to Japan, Yamamoto never took advantage of his position
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  Speaker 1: to return home permanently. He did visit twice on business,
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  Speaker 1: but never found a place for himself like he had
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  Speaker 1: in China. He married two times, and with the second wife,
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  Speaker 1: he raised four children. As part of his work for
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  Speaker 1: the British government, he was a naturalized subject and took
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  Speaker 1: on the name John Matthew Odison before return into Singapore
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  Speaker 1: to live out his final years. Yamamoto died in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty seven at just forty nine years old. His life
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  Speaker 1: had been cut short, but he had packed it full
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  Speaker 1: of adventure. But it's not all sad. No matter where
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  Speaker 1: he lived or who he worked for, Yamamoto was and
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  Speaker 1: always would be, a Japanese citizen. He'd left behind a family, friends,
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  Speaker 1: people he'd loved but would never see again. His body
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  Speaker 1: was buried in Singapore, where he lived with his wife,
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  Speaker 1: but he'd been a man of two worlds. As such,
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  Speaker 1: it was only fitting that half of his remains should
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  Speaker 1: be returned home to Japan, which is exactly what happened,
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  Speaker 1: but not right away. Yamamoto's remains, or half of them
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  Speaker 1: at least, returned in two thousand five, eighty seven years
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  Speaker 1: after his death, and last I checked, he has no
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  Speaker 1: plans to leave. The nineteen eighties were a wild time.
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  Speaker 1: Advances in technology brought the personal computer to the masses,
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  Speaker 1: as well as fear about the future. We didn't have
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  Speaker 1: any idea of what the Internet would bring. There was
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  Speaker 1: no warning about social media, and nobody was branding themselves
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  Speaker 1: as an influencer. But a war was brewing, one that
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  Speaker 1: would bring two world powers together in a display of
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  Speaker 1: unity not seeing any other time in history. It began
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  Speaker 1: as the Cold War was ending. President Ronald Reagan and
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  Speaker 1: Communist leader Mikhail Gorbachev had gone back and forth in
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  Speaker 1: an effort to end the global arms race. The Soviet
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  Speaker 1: Union had promised to eliminate ballistic missiles and intermediate range
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  Speaker 1: nuclear forces or i n f s from Europe. In return,
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  Speaker 1: the United States promised to not continue their research into
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  Speaker 1: strategic defense initiatives for ten years. But President Reagan wasn't
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  Speaker 1: interested in stopping research. While he hated the concept of
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  Speaker 1: mutually assured destruction, his goal was to implement his strategic
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  Speaker 1: defense initiative a missile defense system that would prevent a
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  Speaker 1: ballistic missile attack from space. Neither side trusted the other, though,
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  Speaker 1: but that didn't stop either of them from working on
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  Speaker 1: a possible solution. The talks came to a head in
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  Speaker 1: September of ninety six when Garbagecheff suggested a meeting somewhere
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  Speaker 1: neutral where they could discuss matters in peace and perhaps
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  Speaker 1: come to some kind of an agreement. Reagan agreed, and
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  Speaker 1: thirty days later, on October eleven, the President of the
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  Speaker 1: United States and the leader of the Soviet Union gathered
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  Speaker 1: at a house in Reikiavik, Iceland that had once been
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  Speaker 1: used as the British consulate, and it was there where
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  Speaker 1: they began negotiations. Things didn't go well at first. Garbage
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  Speaker 1: Jeff was described as belligerent, wanting only to discuss ending
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  Speaker 1: the arms race. Reagan, on the other hand, had several
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  Speaker 1: problems he wanted remedied, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
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  Speaker 1: and various human rights violations. Unable to find common ground,
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  Speaker 1: the two men decided to leave the house and take
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  Speaker 1: a walk around the property with their interpreters. The discussion
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  Speaker 1: they had was only heard by the people present. History
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  Speaker 1: tells us nothing of value was mentioned, as the summit
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  Speaker 1: fell apart not long after. The Cold War wouldn't end
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  Speaker 1: for another five years. However, Gorbachof certainly remembered what he
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  Speaker 1: and the former president discussed. You see, Reagan was an
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  Speaker 1: avid reader, specifically of science fiction. Edgar Rice Burroughs was
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  Speaker 1: a favorite, but so were some contemporary authors, two of
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  Speaker 1: whom ended up writing policy for the president's bold new initiative.
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  Speaker 1: Because Reagan saw space the way Jean Roddenberry had as
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  Speaker 1: the final frontier, Jerry Purnell and Larry Niven, the co
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  Speaker 1: authors of the nineteen seventy four bestseller The Moat in
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  Speaker 1: God's Eye, had been asked to join a new committee
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  Speaker 1: dedicated to advancing America's future technology efforts. It was called
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  Speaker 1: the Citizens Advisory Council on National Space Policy and was
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  Speaker 1: comprised of former astronauts, military personnel, scientists, and other science
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  Speaker 1: fiction authors. Over the course of three days, the Citizens
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  Speaker 1: Advisory Council met at Niven's house, where they drafted a
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  Speaker 1: policy designed to combat Reagan's fears. Later, during his walk
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  Speaker 1: with Mr Gorbachev and reiky Vik, he brought those fears
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  Speaker 1: up in their conversation outside. President Reagan no longer saw
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  Speaker 1: Gorbachev or the Soviet Union as their ultimate enemy, and
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  Speaker 1: although their talks fizzled in reiky Vik, the two men
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  Speaker 1: understood that at some point they would need to set
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  Speaker 1: aside their differences and join forces. There was another threat
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  Speaker 1: on the horizon, one that would require as much firepower
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  Speaker 1: as our planet could muster. President Reagan asked Mr gorbache
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  Speaker 1: Off if he would help. When the time came. Mr Gorbachof,
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  Speaker 1: with the help of his translator, didn't scoff or laugh
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  Speaker 1: or insult the President in any way. He simply turned
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  Speaker 1: to him and said, no doubt about it, And just
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  Speaker 1: what was this battle they were preparing for? And where
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  Speaker 1: was that war going to take place? Nowhere? It turns out, well,
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  Speaker 1: nowhere on Earth, that is. They had agreed to help
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  Speaker 1: each other for the greater good should a new enemy
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  Speaker 1: arrive to threaten their safety, an enemy from outer space.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works, I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television
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  Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
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  Speaker 1: the World of Lore dot come and until next time,
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  Speaker 1: stay curious.