- Have you ever had a friend talk behind your back?
Well these people are way worse.
History has always been affected
by the renegades who oppose power,
but many of those people were open about their intentions,
unlike the people on this list,
who betrayed the very people
that they were supposed to be loyal to.
Here are the 10 most notorious traitors in history.
Number 10 are the Rosenbergs.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were the first US citizens ever
to be convicted and executed
for espionage during peacetime,
for passing top-secret information
on aeronautics and atomic bombs to the Soviets.
Julius, an engineer in the US Army Signal Corps
met Ethel at a Young Communist League meeting
in New York in 1939.
They then married and had two sons.
They ran and recruited a spy ring
throughout the 1940s and early '50s,
and passed intel to the Soviets,
stolen by Ethel's brother, David Greenglass,
from the atomic bomb lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Greenglass confessed to his crimes
that began the nuclear arms race,
and later testified against his sister and brother-in-law,
who were executed in Sing Sing Prison on June 21st, 1953.
Betraying your country-men to the Soviets?
There's a special place in hell for these people.
Number nine is Tokyo Rose.
Los Angeles born and Japanese American, Iva Toguri,
found herself in limbo while visiting a sick aunt
when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.
She was trapped in war-time Japan,
barred from returning to the United States,
yet refused to denounce her homeland,
so she was denied food rations.
The native English speaker took a job posting
the radio show Zero Hour, as Tokyo Rose,
which broadcasted Japanese propaganda to weaken the resolve
of the Allied military personnel in the Pacific,
although she used sarcasm
to undercut her treasonous messages.
Hey everyone, Tokyo Rose here,
America's doing really bad in the war,
but I don't really mean that.
(bell dinging)
When Imperial Japan surrounded,
Toguri was arrested and became
the 7th person in US history ever to be tried with treason,
serving six years in prison,
but a sympathetic president, Gerald Ford,
pardoned her in 1977, and restored her citizenship.
Wait, sympathetic to what?
She was a traitor to her country.
Look, I'm not saying leave her in prison, (bell dinging)
no I'm saying leave her in prison.
Number eight is Guy Fawkes.
In 1608, Briton's most notorious traitor, Guy Fawkes,
plotted to blow up British Parliament
and kill King James I, and was foiled.
Coming from the oppressed English Catholic minority,
Fawkes was discovered beneath the House of Lords
with 36 barrels of gun powder ready to be lit.
The gunpowder plot was planned for months,
and adjusted to minimize loss of innocent life,
but the traitors had a traitor amongst them
that alerted Lord Monteagle in an anonymous letter
which led to Fawkes and the friends' arrest.
Guy Fawkes Day, often called Bonfire Night,
is celebrated on November 5th in the United Kingdom,
with fireworks and those iconic masks of Fawkes' like-ness
which are used by the hacker group Anonymous.
Quick question,
this guy was a traitor to the United Kingdom,
why are people still celebrating him?
That's like having a John Wilkes Booth Day
in the United States.
Number seven is La Malinche.
This Aztec woman helped the Spanish conquistadors,
led by the infamous Hernan Cortes,
to destroy the Aztec Empire,
and make modern-day Mexico a Spanish colony.
La Malinche, which means The Captain's Woman,
was originally a noble-born, but had fallen from grace
when she was sold to Cortes as a slave.
She spoke the Mayan language and learned Spanish,
so she became Cortes' main translator and his lover.
As conquistadors marched across the land,
La Malinche helped Cortes negotiate alliances
with tribes hostel to the Aztec.
She also helped converted everyone
to Christianity along the way,
as they marched towards the Aztec ruler, Moctezuma,
who eventually surrounded
to the Spanish's superior fire-power.
See, a single woman took down a whole empire.
Gentlemen, this is why you do not tick off ladies,
just lettin' you know.
Number six is Benedict Arnold.
Benedict Arnold's name is synonymous with two things,
treason and breakfast.
He made a name for himself in the American Revolution,
fighting with Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys,
by seizing Fort Ticonderoga from the British in 1775.
Arnold was one of the original Sons of Liberty,
a close confident of George Washington,
and became a General in the Continental Army.
But he fell for a young girl named Peggie Shippen,
and financed their extravagant lifestyle
by providing intel to British Major, John Andre,
and systematically weakened West Point defenses
while he was in charge in 1780.
Andre was caught and hung.
So, with Arnold's treason discovered,
he fled with his wealth across British lines,
fighting for the British.
That's actually kind of impressive,
because you have to keep in mind,
back then they probably just had bags and bags of coins.
He was probably just like running,
trying not to drop his coins like a leprechaun.
Number five is Mir Jafar.
Mir Jafar is actually referred to
as the Benedict Arnold of India because he enriched himself
by helping consign India to British rule.
From Arab decent, Jafar came to India penny-less,
but proved himself to be a capable military man,
and became a trusted confidant
of Bengal ruler called Nawab Alivardi Khan.
However, Jafar was not as loyal to Khan's successor,
Siraj ud-Daulah, or his French allies,
whom he betrayed to help the British East India Company
win the Battle of Plassey.
And he was rewarded for his treachery
by being named the next Nawab of Bengal,
but was merely a puppet of the British East India Company
that exploited the subcontinent's resources,
and subjugated its populace.
That was until Gandhi's peaceful revolution 200 years later.
Folks remember, money means way less than legacy.
That's it, there's no joke there, just don't be a dick.
Number four is Alfred Redl.
Colonel Alfred Redl's traitorous exploits
led to the downfall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Born poor, he excelled at the elite war school in Vienna,
and joined the Intelligence Bureau, where,
by 1900, he was in charge of all Russian affairs.
The Tsarists Intelligence Service
blackmailed Redl for being gay,
and threw in large bribes
so that Redl would share Austrian war plans,
while Redl gave his own command false information
on Russian capabilities.
This led to hundreds of thousands of deaths
that resulted in the dissolution
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire into seven territories,
after the Treaty of Saint Germain.
Redl's protege, Major Maximilian Ronge,
exposed Redl's treachery, and, well, he was killed.
Are you guys getting the hint yet?
Don't betray your own people,
'cause it doesn't quite end up well for ya.
Number three is Vidkun Quisling.
Norway's greatest traitor, Vidkun Quisling,
sold his country out to the Nazis during World War II,
for a relatively small slice of power.
In 1933, he co-founded
the Norwegian National Socialist Party,
around the time that Adolf Hitler founded the Nazi Party,
but squandered its middling popularity
with a pro-German, anti-Semitic platform.
When Germany invaded Norway on April 9th, 1940,
Quisling announced the Nazi coup over the radio,
hoping to become the Norwegian Nazi puppet.
The Nazis ended up giving him the toothless post
of Minister President, while German Josef Terboven
was installed as commissioner,
and reported directly to Hitler.
Quisling lived out the war in his opulent Oslo mansion,
that was until the Nazis were defeated,
and he was arrested on May 9th, 1945,
tried for treason, and, of course, executed.
Thank you for betraying your country,
the Fuhrer appreciates it.
So what position do I get?
Minister President.
Yes, that's what you get.
Okay, bye.
Number two is Marcus Junius Brutus.
There's a good chance that Brutus lives down
in the ninth circle of hell
for betraying his best friend, Julius Caesar,
helping the Roman Senate stab him to death
during the Ides of March in 44BC.
Brutus was one of Caesar's best friends
and closest confidants,
but did not agree with Caesar ruling Rome as a dictator,
threatening democracy and the Republic at large.
The Roman Senators convinced Brutus to take action
because his own ancestor, also named Brutus,
was instrumental in overthrowing
the Roman Monarchy in 509 BC.
Together, they took their boss, Caesar, down,
in a cowardly fashion,
inventing the art of backstabbing, literally.
Now, interestingly,
while many see Brutus as a traitor and a coward,
William Shakespeare ambivalently argues in Julius Caesar
that Brutus was also a patriot and a hero.
Yeah, well there's also arguments
that William Shakespeare didn't write any of his own stuff,
and he made up 10% of the words that he used, so,
take that with a grain of salt.
Number one is Judas Iscariot.
Judas Iscariot was one of Jesus Christ's 12 apostles
pictured in Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper,
with a look of grief and despair.
The Gospel of John says that Judas greedily
asked the religious authorities,
who thought Jesus' ideas were dangerous,
for a measly 30 pieces of silver,
that would only be worth about $3500 today.
And he asked for that to betray the son of God.
Judas led them to Gethsemane where Jesus was praying
and identified him with a kiss.
But, according to the Gospel of Matthew,
Jesus knew Judas would sell him out,
declaring at the Last Supper
that one of his apostles would betray him,
which Judas confessed to.
You know, you should never betray a friend,
but, if that friend may or may not be the son of a deity,
definitely not, definitely not.
So, those were the 10 most notorious traitors in history,
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