Diplomacy is complicated.
You have to manage competing interests and work cooperatively to ensure the best communal
outcome.
But luckily, there’s another, much more efficient option: Murder.
Because once you leap over those pesky moral speedbumps like The Worth Of Human Life, it
becomes so much easier to solve problems by just un-existing the people who disagree with
you; y’know, like a psychopa—But despite the nominal simplicity of “Huck a javelin
through his abdomen”, killing people can be surprisingly labor-intensive and prone
to mistakes, especially when the target is some political big-wig.
So, to have a laugh at the expense of some of the most notorious Failed Assassins, Let’s
do some History!
Our first story takes us to the eastern edge of the Mediterranean at the tail end of the
Roman Republic, which was perilous for everybody involved.
If you weren’t Roman, you were always in danger of being conquered, and if you were
Roman then it’s likely you were in the middle of an active civil war.
In such a politically hazardous climate, everybody was under threat of sabotage, and in 120 BC,
king Mithridates of Pontus was poisoned by none other than his wife.
Needless to say, the royal kiddos were spooked by the proposition of an arsenic sippy-cup,
so one of the princes booked it for the woods.
While he was wandering around the Pontic wilderness building support for a coup, the prince decided
to be proactive about the inevitable threat of poison.
So whenever he stumbled across one of Anatolia’s many poison-filled plants, animals, or minerals,
he just ate it.
The logic being that if he ingested all the poisons imaginable in small doses, he could
build up an immunity to it and become Invincible.
So after 7 long years in the woods getting blasted on tree-frogs and vipers, the prince
returned to his capital of Sinope and coup-ed his way into becoming King Mithridates VI.
With crown-on-head and kingdom-in-hand, Mithridates set about doing two things: Expanding his
state to prepare against the Roman threat, and doing way the hell More Poison.
And now that the king had graduated from his days of just eating stuff and seeing what
happens, he was going to use his royal resources to be scientific about this.
He built a series of Poison Labs to source more elaborate ingredients, test new concoctions
on prisoners, develop tailored antidotes, and of course get more poison to snack on.
No, his highness the king does not have a poison addiction, he can stop any time he
wants.
But why stop when he had baller party tricks like gulping down snake venom?
Now the thing is, part of me feels bad for meming so hard on Mithridates, because he
was an extremely learned king who collected massive libraries, could speak well over a
dozen languages, and grew his small kingdom into a Black Sea Empire, but on the other
hand, Funny Ha-Ha Poison Man, so my hands are tied.
Mithridates likely survived several assassination attempts, but we’ll never really know how
many because none of them worked.
Of course, like everybody else in the ancient Mediterranean, his downfall was Rome.
His grand-strategy was to incite a revolt in western Anatolia and Greece to let disgruntled
Romans do what they do best.
The confusion of mass slaughter made great cover for Mithridates’ march into Roman
territory, and managed to get in a spirited back and forth for a good two decades before
Rome stopped compulsively slapping itself in the face and actually started trying.
Eventually general Pompey, soon to be Pompey the Great, later to be Pompey the Headless,
stomped the Pontic army and forced Mithridates to flee across the black sea to Crimea.
After failing to raise another army, he decided it was better to just die then get paraded
in a Roman Triumph.
So with his back against the wall, Mithridates killed himself by poison, except he did not,
because he was immune.
Plan B was asking a friend of his to do him a solid and just stab him.
It’s lucky he didn’t supplement his daily poison regimen with doses of Tiny Knives or
he really would have been screwed.
And so Mithridates died as he lived, not dying from Poison.
Now, trying to kill one King is enough of an endeavor, but as time goes on, administrations
evolve, and power often gets distributed to a much wider base.
This makes it infinitely more difficult to Off an entire government at once.
But luckily, the 1600s are a wonderful time, full of such modern marvels as High Explosives,
and some enterprising lads wanted to make use of this new tech.
So let’s set the scene: England has been ruled by Protestants for nearly a century,
and they were making life increasingly suckish for English Catholic holdouts.
And since England’s Anglican monarchs kept butting heads with Very Catholic Spain and
getting excommunicated by the Very Catholic Pope, adherence to the church in Rome was
treated on par with being an enemy of the state.
This was an extremely complex mesh of religious and political factors that would require a
delicate touch to overcome…
OR, or: Blow Up Parliament.
No fuss, no persuasion checks, just an ass-ton of explosions.
That was the logic of these fine morons: Robert Catesby, Guy Fawkes, and 10 other Catholics
conspiring to destroy the protestant government of England under the new king James I.
The scariest part of this story is the plan might’ve worked if the conspirators shared
more than 5 brain-cells between them.
For instance, step one was renting an apartment next to the Palace of Westminster under the
bullet-proof alias of John Johnson — Which must have made the landlord think “Ah yes,
Mr John Johnson, he must have a respectable career of doing [Job] at [Place].”
They then spent weeks hauling 36 full barrels of gunpowder into the apartment in advance
of Parliament’s reopening.
But boomifying an entire governing body was only part of the scheme, as they planned to
start a revolt in the countryside and capture the King’s catholic daughter to install
her as a puppet queen.
And lastly, they’d sail over to Europe to get the Pope to support the new Catholic government
and pretty please forgive us for all the murder.
So that was the idea, but Parliament was closed for most of the year because of Plague, mood,
and it wouldn’t reopen until November 5.
That left a lot of time for the conspirators to ruminate on the moral implications of terrorism
— not because murder was wrong or anything silly like that — but because they had some
friends in parliament.
So despite strict orders not to send any warnings to anybody, one of the conspirators sent a
“hey, maybe don’t go to Parliament” note to his buddy.
Now this alarm-bell wrapped in a red-flag had the easily-foreseeable consequence of
getting reported straight to the chamberlain, who proceeded to search the entirety of parliament
on the night before the plot.
Imagine their surprise to find a lone gentleman standing next to a pile of firewood and 36
barrels of gunpowder in an otherwise empty apartment, a gentleman who insists that his
name is John Johnson, esteemed doer of [Job] at [Place].
I’m sure Guy Fawkes was shocked that the constable saw through his iron-clad disguise.
Fawkes was subsequently tortured into giving up the names of his co-conspirators, who were
busy up in the countryside failing to start their revolt.
Unfortunately, their excess storage of gunpowder had gotten soaked, so these big-brain boys
laid it out to dry… in front of a fire.
Which is just the most apt visual metaphor for a plan blowing up in your face.
The crew was captured and executed, and for the next century and change, British Catholics
were treated even harsher because of association with the Gunpowder Plot, even losing the right
to vote until 1829.
Nice job ending that religious persecution, good work team.
Now, I was originally going to wrap this video with the story of either Rasputin or Fidel
Castro, but Rasputin did end up getting shot to death so he’s disqualified, and the only
thing more numerous than the CIA’s 600 assassination attempts on Castro is the amount of low-effort
listicles about it.
Instead, we’re gonna ignore the rest of the world and cozy up in Venice.
So, the Venetian Republic, the longest-lasting (and best) government in world history, I
need not say more.
But sometimes, rarely, the Serenissima made some tactical errors.
In 1310, Venice had ruffled enough Vatican feathers to earn themselves an Interdict,
in which the Pope smacks the holy ban-hammer onto an entire city.
This was bad news for a mercantile island republic with approximately four square-feet
of arable land.
As the man in charge of this mess, Doge Gradenigo was immensely disliked, and had to take draconian
steps to quell all the unrest.
In a dicey situation like this, Venetian nobles had the option to A) deal with it, or B)
riot.
So with The Great British Boom-House still a couple centuries off, how did this conspiracy
go down?
Well it started with a handful of snippy nobles and one Baiamonte Tiepolo, the grandson of
a former Doge and a man with no qualms about hucking the Republic off a bridge and installing
himself as Despot.
These gents were all-but certain that scores of Venetian nobles and commoners alike would
join in their quest to stab the Doge in the face, so they sent out a lot of feelers to
their friends around town.
But “Coup” is a strong word and some people were distinctly Not On Board, and did the
responsible thing of reporting the conspiracy right to the Doge.
But even if the conspirators knew to expect a veritable partybus of guards, their more
pressing concern was weather.
Namely, the springtime lightningstorms.
See, their fool-proof plan was to take two groups across town and raise the citizens
to arms before meeting in St Mark’s Square to storm the Doge’s Palace.
But when they charged through the streets at dawn and started shouting “Liberty, Death
to the Doge!” nobody could hear them over the sound of thunder and pouring rain, and
anybody who liked what these guys were selling weren’t about to go running into a storm
at 6AM.
The West Group ran smack into a band of the Doge’s guards, and might have regrouped
if not for some priests and painters on their way to work who took the initiative to waylay
the conspirators a second time.
Tiepolo’s East Group had similar luck, gaining exactly zero sympathetic rebels.
In fact, Venetians were opening their windows specifically to shout insults.
And not to be outdone, one kind old Signora Rossi heard the commotion while doing her
morning chores, and when she opened her window, she dropped or maybe threw her stone mortar
at the conspirators, landing square on the head of the standard-bearer and killing him
instantly.
Tiepolo saw his comrade drop dead in front of him and took it as a sign that this just
was not his morning, so he ran away and politely accepted his banishment.
Meanwhile, old lady Rossi was hailed as a hero for her ingenuity and impeccable aim.
As her reward, she simply asked to fly a Venetian flag on feast days, and for her landlord to
never raise the rent on her family home so long as the Republic endured.
Now this was a god-tier play, because Venice took the conspiracy as a hint to reform; to
better avoid future treason, but also to improve the government’s overall efficiency, which
combined to give the Venetian Republic another five centuries of life.
I mean, sure, Tiepolo and his conspirators made a series of fatal mistakes in their slapdash
plot to kill the Doge, but oh boy if they only knew Signora Rossi was waiting for them
those fools would have stayed the hell home.
So, aside from some boring nerd morals about how murder isn’t a cure-all, what have we
learned today?
Well, Mithridates should have been more careful what he wished for in his poison immunity,
so the rest of us should probably lay off the arsenic and stick to alcohol as our poison
of choice.
Meanwhile, Guy Fawkes is proof that the best-laid plans are only as strong as your dumbest nickname.
And finally, divine smite comes in many forms, and old Venetian ladies with stoneware is
a good one to look out for.
Thank you so much for watching.
As I’m sure you could tell, this video was a blast to work on, so I’ve got to thank
our patrons for voting for it.
You guys are the real MVPs.
Of course, history is long and people can be morons, so there’s no dearth of other
hilarious failed plots.
So leave a comment with your favorite and I may double back to cover more of these stories
in the future, you never know.
Alright, see you in the next video!