From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul. Mission Control deconds. Most importantly, you are you, You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Today, we're embarking on a two part episode, one that travels across time and space, from the ancient Middle East all the way to the modern day. Uh, let's let's start this way without too much too much introduction. What is the difference between and assassination and a murder? Well, here are the facts. We all kind of know what an assassin is, right, Yes, at least to an extent, we know that an assassin is a murderer. Right, in order to assassinate something or someone, you have to murder it or kill it, right, Whereas a typical, a typical murderer that is out there might commit homicide, which is taking the life of another human being for any number of reasons. And we have laws on the books to differentiate between those types of homicides and degrees. Right, there's the Weirdly enough, just from a linguistic standpoint, the coolest sounding one, manslaughter is actually less man than murder in the first degree. It's like, whoops, I hit you with my car. That's manslaughter, right, A little sexist and outdated term. By the way, want to say, but human death, you caused human death, that's good, Matt. So it appears that assassination is a genre of homicide, and and that's correct. But why is it a genre. Well, an assassin is defined by their target, their tactics, and their motivations. So if we it's interesting because recently, earlier this year, there was a huge hubbub in Western media about the use of a word, the word being assassination or assassin. Webster's New World College Dictionary, which MPR uses for their editorial purposes as they're kind of guide for how to write reporting, they define an assassin as someone who murders a politically important or prominent person, typically by a surprise attack, usually for some sort of payment or in the service of some sort of ideological belief. And this is this, this sounds cold when we look at it this way, because that means that let's say someone knocks over a gas station in a robbery, they fatally shoot a cashier. That makes that criminal a murderer, but not an assassin. An assassin would be someone who fatally attacks the president of a country, unless, of course they somehow I'm laughing, this is ridiculous, unless of course they somehow accidentally kill the president, which is which is terrible manslaughter. Yeah, by like accidentally giving them coronavirus. Maybe maybe maybe, I mean, that person is definitely in for a good talking to a stiff. Fine, perhaps, But you know, is that going to be considered an assassination? Well, I don't know, right, maybe if it was premeditated, that's certainly one of the factors. But my question for you, too, Ben, is like, what if say someone was paid to kill a prominent podcaster and a point, do you go into the realm of like being politically important enough to be assassinated versus just oft you know, or or or have a hit put out on you don't don't worry, dude, We're off the table for assassinations, are you sure? Yeah, because it keeps me up nights. We we cannot be assassinated, certainly, okay, right, we can feel better now stabbed or shot? Yeah. That's interesting because to a degree, our definition of what counts as an assassination is is something we arrive at retroactively. Right. But if you, for instance, someone who may not be seen as prominent may be murdered and their death may set off a series of events that changes the world, and later historians will say it was an assassination for that reason, like Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Right, Yeah, well I would He's already an assassination worthy victim, right because he an archde Right. You see, the question gets complex. Like the most uh, one of the weirdest examples of this that I could think of was the story of the biblical Kane. Enable was Kane just a murderer or was he an assassin before the term existed? I mean, it checks the boxes. He launched a surprise attack on a politically and socially important person, and he did it because he was driven by zealous beliefs. It was his brother though, right, wasn't his jealousy though? Because his father like like the other brother better? I think I think that's what you're doing. You're using this as like almost like a microcosmic uh Mini story that sort of encapsulates the larger thing because it was political because he was favored by his father. Therefore it was motivated because he wanted to be the favorite son. Yeah, and it twisted with that, is with such a small cast of characters in that story, everybody as prominent and politically and socially important. That's that's really smart. Band I like that. And then in the end uh Can was was condemned by God and forced to walk the earth like another cane from Kung Fu. It just made me realize, maybe that's where that came from, and maybe that's where it came from. Yeah, exactly this. Okay, So this murder versus assassination thing, it might seem like it's a game of semantics, like it doesn't really make a big difference calling something an assassination versus calling it a murder. Definitely doesn't bring that person back from the dead. But the difference, as we'll find, is huge and it's crucial in some cases it as legal implications. Like earlier this year, the United States of America targeted prominent Iranian general Cassum Solomany in January, and news organizations like MPR, Fox CY and and all all the hits they were, uh, they were really concerned about how they should describe this, and and that's because murder has a legal implication, as does assassination. Well, it's like the maybe the military jargue would be eliminating a high level target or something along those lines, But the idea of calling it assassination is a bad look, you know, PR wise, It's like, that's where the semantics do matter for the optics of this. We don't assassinate people, we take out targets. Well, yeah, exactly, because when NPR actually labeled this action and assassination, it became a big deal um and there was a lot of outcry from audience members about just again the semantics of it. This was not an assassination. No, you can't call it that. Don't don't call it that. We're the good guys. Don't attack with daggers and drones in the dark. But I guarantee the people in Sulimani's own country sure as hell considered an assassination, didn't they. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's weird because this strategy if we just objectively look at this strategy. It doesn't matter what you call it, it matters what happened. And this strategy of assassination is familiar to cultures across the planet throughout the ages. I mean just from like from John Wilkes Spooth. That's a famous US based assassin, right he assassinated then President Abraham Lincoln. From that guy, all the way back to the ancient days with people like Locusta the Poisoner, you don't have to look very far, very deep defined historical records of assassins. There's a book. I guess I'll just hold it up. We'll do a little uh disturbing reading rainbow here. I don't know if you guys can see this. There's a the cover. I love that image. Let's see is it? I think it is, But either way, it's one of those classic like it looks like the cover of a Joy Division album. It's like this person dead in the bath with their arm kind of draped over the side. That classic. I believe it's Impressionists, but it's you know it, Curbs. You would be a great example, really high definition, super moody and very kind of eerie image. But I love those types of paintings. That's right. The Encyclopedia of Assassinations available at any arcane bookstore near you, right by Karl Sifficus. This explores both attempted and successful assassinations throughout human history, and interestingly enough, it lists several cases such as that of dag Hammer Scold by the way, Yeah it's a cool name. Uh. It lists that case as an assassination, but that still has not been officially confirmed as such, even though the US president at the time dag Hammer school was in charge of the u N when he was when he died in a mysterious airplane acts and we have an old YouTube video on that. But the point is this, this book is pretty old, but these cases of assassination, because of the controversy, they remain very touchy subjects for a long long time. And so today in the in the first part of our series, we wanted to ask where did this come from? Where? Where does the concept of an assassin actually originate? We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Assassin isn't some dramatic, exotic word some hack writer invented to just sort of joos up an otherwise depressing murder story. That's right, it's i P for movies after. In fact, the term assassin refers to an all too reel, all too conspiratorial organization from ancient history. It's an honest to God's secret society. Let's call it the Order of Assassins. Oh, oh my god. Wait, you're saying it's real. That's what we're saying. The Order of Assassins is real or was? Yeah. No, no, no, well we're not saying, you know, we're not saying Assassin's creed should be considered, um a playable documentary, although there's a lot of great historical research in there. Uh, we're we're saying there was a real group. We don't know a ton about them. This is something that you'll always run into when you're looking at controversial institutions in ancient history. The fortress of the Assassins, and they did have a real fortress, was conquered in twelve fifty six CE. And when they were conquered, the the castle was raised essentially a their library was destroyed, so we have no written historical records about the Assassins from the Assassins themselves. Still, we do know some things that's right. Between ten ninety and twelve seventy five, a small Nazari Ismaili sect high in the mountains of Persia and Syria went into the murder for higher business. Um. The Assassins were an offshoot of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam, and it was founded by Hassan E Sabah, who referred to his followers as a minute oh okay assassy young a s A s I y y u N with some underscore characters over the A and the U. And that means people who are faithful to the foundation of faith um. And they were. They had a stronghold fortress called a La Mut's Castle that was about a hundred thirty miles from what is today known as Tehran. Wow. I mean, it's just so cool to that that that's real. Um. So the concept here of this group they wanted to challenge the Seljuk Turks, who were Sunni Muslims. So we're we're talking about Shia and Sunny conflicts back in what did we say, the one thousand nine to twelve hundred UM the Sunni Muslims, these Seljuk Turks, they were in control of Persia at this time when when this group was organized for these purposes, and this is when the group first became known as the hasha sheen another cool word here, but today they're better known as assassins. It's it's a term that was given to them by the European crusaders who are rolling through and you know, to wing their thing. Those Europeans just making language work for them, you know. Yeah, just kind of a corruption of the phrase, right, But that's what you get with a living language. This group, known as the Assassins, they actively and covertly murdered first Muslim than later Christian leaders throughout the Middle East. And they murdered these folks or assassinated these folks when they were seen as a threat to this sect, to their society, to their geopolitical control. And while the term assassins applies to the whole crew, right, uh, there was actually only a smaller inner group known as the Fidity, that engaged in actual conflict in what is sometimes euphemistically referred to as direct action. This is important that we have. We do have to say that none of us are fluent Arabic speakers. So thank you in advance with for your understanding of our pronunciations. Uh. We we do know that the Nazari did not have a standing army, so they relied upon these warriors, these operatives to carry out espionage. Why kill an r Why fighting army when you can just kill the king or the general the Their preferred method of killing was usually going to be through the use of daggers, so that means close up to their target, no poison drop offs, no arrows, and often they were known for being completely okay with Diane or being tortured after they had committed their murder. Uh. They posed a strategic threat to Fatimid Abysses and Seljout authority alike. And for almost three hundred years, we know they killed hundreds and hundreds of people important people. The you know that era's version of v I p s three colleagues, Ruler of Jerusalem, tons of other leaders Muslim and Christian alike. So despite the fact that we don't have direct accounts from like Hassan himself saying I don't these guys up and brainwashed them and now we're killing everybody, we do have accounts from other people who were alive or around at the time. Um, now let's let's see what you think of these. One of the first ones comes from a Spanish rabbi named Benjamin of today La. He traveled through Syria in eleven sixty seven, so this is while the group was active, and Benjamin not our Benjamin, the one we just mentioned. He told of this mysterious leader that existed named the Old Man in the Mountain. That's the old Man in the Mountain. That he referred to him as Old Man in the Mountain, This old Man in the Mountain, this Yoda like figure, although he did not have that reference, who led a sect of warriors who dwelled in hidden mountain fortresses. I think, yeah, it is more of a Palpatine and it's um gosh. I can't remember which episode. I think we did one on military and Drugs, where we talked about, um, the mountain fortresses in several parts of the region there and how important they were, and then how we saw that reflected in the conflicts that the US then went into and places around Afghanistan and out in the Middle East, and these these mountain fortresses that were so difficult too if you were an invading force or someone who's trying to attack, so difficult to penetrate but that's an interesting thing, right, there's an old man in a mountain and he's he is controlling or leading a bunch of these warriors that live there. And there's also information quite a bit more actually that comes from Syrian Sunni chroniclers, and you know it's there, it exists, which is very nice, but unfortunately quite a bit of this information is biased. Again, like you have to remember that there was conflict there between the Shia and the Sunni Muslims, and because of that conflict, the Syrian Sunni population really did hate or at least some of these prominent writers seem to show anger and hatred in in the writing or at least writing about them from you know, from an enemy's perspective, because they were the enemies, and they probably did hate them because they did some heinous things they had, I mean, they had every reason hate the assassins. But it just thinks that the historical record then itself becomes this version of it rather than well, let's, you know, let's actually look at it as equal parts um in some way or at least in some form and the crusaders. We're aware of these chronicles from the from the Syrian Sunni population. They said, look, this is close enough to the truth. Someone's out here killing everybody, so let's just run hog wild with it. You know, who has time to fact check. That's a problem we have in the modern day. So as a result, we have to treat these stories with skepticism. It's kind of like propaganda you would see against the pope by their successors or against royalty. A lot of the AGAs armies of the propaganda produced is intense. Yeah, they're gonna say, like, you can read some of these things and translations thereof and say, okay, this looks like maybe it was designed to entertain an audience or just a character assassinate the assassins themselves. And they talked about how powerful, how competent these ratives were, But then they also made these pretty crazy claims about how they became so successful. Yeah, and um. In the twelfth century, William the Second, who was a crusader and the Archbishop of tire believed that this whole old man in the mountain idea um was true and that he commanded this this individual as many as sixty thousand assassins. And he noted that they would uh do suicide attacks. Um. They had no regard for their own safety in their own lives. They were seeking destroy, and if they don't make it out alive, so be it. It's all about the target and getting the job done. Um of this old man in the Mountain figure Um William the second wrote this quote, it is their custom to install their masters and choose their chief, not by hereditary right, but solely by virtue of merrit What a novel idea. By the way, Um disdaining any other title of dignity, they call him the Elder. The bond of submission and obedience that binds as people to their chief is so strong. There's no task so arduous, difficult or dangerous that any one of them would not undertake to perform it with the greatest zeal and you know, speaking back to the propaganda and the war of words and trying to smear folks to be taken with a grain of salt. But there was there were reports about this group that they God forbid eight pork and married their sisters, which were to unpack that that quotation from William the second. He's not saying meritocracy is a good thing. He's pointing it out as a criticism he's implying their barbaria because they don't, because they respect people's talents over their genetic lottery, which is ever so counterintuitive and fascinating and like a product of the time, you know what I mean. They don't have a royal pure bloodline, the lineage sending directly to God, you know, for shame. It's like they hire people based on their skills, they promote them based on their skills. They eat pork, and they're sleeping with their siblings. All three of those things were just terrible. And somehow the people who join up are willing to do things for their leaders, willing to right right right. It's almost like the chance of being promoted makes people better at their jobs. That's a very that's Please don't make that the main takeaway from today's episode, but yeah, you're right. The fact is they that this guy noticed these people were not the type of individuals to turn away from a task, even if it meant that they would be killed in completing it or captured and tortured afterwards. In some ways, this was seen as noble in this community. Uh this, so these rumors are around. It's kind of a an urban legend. It's kind of a conspiracy theory, and there's proof in you know, in terms of dead bodies of important people that keep showing up at weird times in history. It gets really popular and mischaracterized in Western Europe thanks to one of the best selling books of the medieval era, the Travels of Marco Polo. It's this book alone spreads so many claims about the order, and if we read it through the lens of the modern day, it sounds like Marco is telling us the assassins are a cult. There's there's this idea that the elder, the old man in the mountain, starting with Hassan himself, has been brainwashing his followers, has been doping them with some sort of substance. Again, we don't know the exact nature of that substance, but Hashisham assassins Hashishuh the the rumor is, or at least what he says in the book, is that the old Man of the Mountain is giving his followers a drugged potion during their training, right, and this is breaking down the usual human moral qualms with things like assassination. And then before he sets him off on an assassination mission, he gives them some version of this again, so it has a lot in common if you think about it with reports of like Manchurian candidates, people who are through systematic psychological tactics and through the ingestion of substance. Uh, they're turned into zombies, you know, uh, or you know, here's the deal is it? Are we saying we think, at least according to that book, we think it might be hashish is that and and that is cannabis a weed? Right? It's uh, it's it's basically like it's the stuf that's the sticky crystal stuff that sticks to the outside of cannabis. When it's cured, they can shake it off and you essentially make it into like you press it and make it into a resinous kind of material that is able to be smoked. So I've heard, but we're saying, we're saying, or the travels of Marco Polo is saying that that's the substance that made them in some way become a Manchurian candidate, like they went out of their minds about. It's interesting though, because so Hashisham Hashisham is the nickname for the sect that was used by a lot of its enemies or uh in casual conversation about this group, and it was believed to have derived from the Arabic word hashish. So naturally you can see how that didn't come directly from Marco Polo's book that was already around. But Marco Polo mentioned this drugged potion. It's cemented the image of this order in in the zeitgeist of the time. So they were like, these are shadowy, drug crazed fanatics. They may have powers that the average undrugged human being doesn't have, you know what I mean? And to a degree psychologically that might be accurate. But you could say that about any number of um, any number of groups who institute systematized suicide attacks. Hey man, look we're all the same. But I just gotta assassinate you, bro. I'm sorry. Yeah, here hit this verse. It'll make you way more toill. Exactly assassin e. So if this is true, think about it. If this is true, it boggles the mind. Uh, how is this not brought up more often, especially during these moral panics. I love that you mentioned Reefer madness and all, because if again, if this is true, it's one of the best p s a s against the use of cannabis in human history. Right, like smoke a joint and then go kill the king. That's what You're a mindless murder machine, right right? And I love that that rhymes thank you this. There's a reason, I guess there's one reason that this didn't show up in a lot of p s a s uh. Well, first, most people wouldn't be familiar with this story. But secondly, it turns out that Marco Polo is the primary propagator for this hash claim. If you look at the sources from the Islamic world, even among the Assassin's enemies, even among the cell Jukes and the Syrians who hated them, they don't they don't really mention the use of hashi. So maybe a more convincing explanation for that nickname comes from the Egyptian Arabic word hash ma sheen, and that that means something totally different. It's a little silly. It means like noisy people or the troublemakers. Wasn't Marco Polo known to be a bit of a exaggerator too, and possibly inventing some stuff just like out a whole cloth to make himself look like more of a badass explorer. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's true. It's a a curated version of reality, right, But a lot of the a lot of the things he says Uh didn't bear up to scrutiny. Still, it was the best information people had at the time. So this is why modern scholars, people like Bernard Lewis, who was a Middle Eastern historian and expert on the assassins, believes that hashi she or hashim was a popular Syrian pejorative. It was a term of abuse. Were discrediting these people. You know, sure they're effective killers, but their drug addicts and you know, it's the it's the devil's tobacco, it's the jazz as cigarettes and the left hand smokes that are making them such effective monsters. So you can see already that the image people have of assassins in the modern day, and the image people had of assassins when they were around Uh kind of became larger than life. They were living legends. There was a lot of disinformation about them, and we can only assume they probably used it to their credit, because it's the kind of pr you can't buy. But this is just one of the misconceptions. So I propose we take a break for our sponsor, try our best not to get assassinated and come back and explore some of those misconceptions. Uh in just a moment, what do you guys think? It sounds great? Everybody crossed your fingers and hope that it's a CBD sponsor. Okay, cool, let's go, and we've returned earned misconceptions about a group of killers in ancient Persia slash Syria. This is the slightly awkward part where we defend their character. But uh so, a lot of medieval Europeans knew about the Order, especially once the travels of Marco Polo were published. They believed that this group was specifically targeting Christians. So this is fuel to the fire for the Crusades and other campaigns. Right now, we're now we're fighting to protect good Christian people against this threat. Make you a cog in our Holy war kind of situation. Right, But this thing was not entirely true. In fact, it turns out this happens all the time in the world of politics. It turns out these people who were like publicly enemies to each other, behind closed doors, they would not infrequently get together and be like, hey, you know what, man, I know because there's a lot of stuff going on in the bridge under the water. Um, are you guys high, and don't worry about it. Let's just let's let's work something out. Maybe we can make an alliance. You know, well, you know that we're about to talk about something here coming up, which is another part of the misconceptions. But there are some realities that this group faced that makes me wonder if there was use of cannabis or some other drug like that, if it didn't have more to do with their situation and less to do with tactics for battle. It's a bit of a spoiler, but we'll keep going here. No, I think it's I think it's foreshadowing, Matt. We So we want to pull one example of times that Christian forces and Assassin forces got together. Right in twelve fifty one, the King of France, Louis the ninth, sent some invoys to meet the assassins, to go and find the Old Man or the elder of the legends, and this meeting. They took the meeting because it suited their diplomatic needs at the time. Otherwise it seems like the sect was they were Yeah, they were killing people when they had to or when they wanted to. But they were largely uninterested in Christians, at least at that time. They were primarily focused on all the crazy changes happening in the Muslim world and the events that had had shaped them. They were also shaping these events in turn. Uh. And that's because of their assassination tactics. Let's go to what you said, Matt, about not just the rumors of drug use, but about how these tactics came came to be. It wasn't so much a matter of like religious belief for what is the moral right way to kill someone? It was necessity, it was desperation. Uh. Even if you take that sixty thousand number in good faith, we have to remember only a few people in the Assassin's order were actually killing folks, were actually going out on these missions. Hassan was outgunned and outnumbered the whole time. He was out gunned, out manned, out numbered, out planned. I guess, yes, yes, yes, he was very much so. Uh. And he was also I guess everybody was outgunned at that time. Knives probably, this is like the knife age, right, these guys are using knives, they're using daggers to kill, arrows are around, swords around. But there That's that's how they were. Yeah, they pop out from the wrist. Uh. Yes, So he knew he that there was no way they could wage what we would call like conventional war of the time, so he had to resort to being more crafty. And we're talking about some James Bond level here, guerilla warfare, espionage, spying, UM, targeted killings, assassinations, UM. There would be sleeper agents that would basically travel in disguise and you know, pose as members of the community in which they were trying to infiltrate to get a better beat on their targets, uh, and insert themselves into these very important strategic positions so that they could you know, have the upper hand, right. Yeah, I mean it may sound familiar again, like we just dropped a reference to the Revolutionary War, a version of a telling of the Revolutionary War. Um. But yeah, whenever I think this is a commonality whenever you have a small force that needs to operate effectively. Ali's Mulligan a spy. Wasn't that his deal? Her past spoilers on that, right, Yeah, I think I think so. Well, that's that's also no, No, don't like Hercules. Mulligan is a real guy was a spy. Like he also got firebars. Yeah, yeah, that was his first love. I think that and being a Taylor and then you know, Third America. But but think about that. You know, we always think of sleeper agents in the context of I guess like the Cold War here in the West, right, that was the worry deep cover sleeper agents from the US going into the USSR and vice versa. But they existed in these ancient times. These guys would say, Okay, we're gonna kill this person. We're going to do it in two years. So tonight I'm going to travel with this caravan and I'm gonna set up shop and I'm just gonna you know, I'm just I'm gonna sell drinkets and chats for a while until the time comes. That's why I break out my drugged potion, break out my dagger about being bout a boom. They did not say about it being about a boom. We're pretty did they say drugs potion? Though, because God, I love that phrase. It just sounds like a good good time drugs potion. I want to we should refer to things as potions more often, right, I know there's some like there are probably some craft breweries that use the phrase a lixer. But let's bring back potion. Oh. Remember Philip Simore Hoffman's character and the Paul Thomas Anderson movie The Master, Um, he was really taken by Freddie Joaquin Phoenix is kind of unhinged, like you know that character, because he would make this hooch out of rocket fuel and like you know, the photography chemicals and and uh and this is character of PHILIPI. Mo. Hofman's character refers to it as give me another taste of that delectable potion or something. Potions, bring back pans. Uh. That's okay. So, so we've mentioned this special core. The people who are actually doing the assassinations. They're sometimes also known as the fedaen. They they were very very effective, and they were very very selective. The name translates to those who sacrifice themselves. They were drilled to This is the most mind blowing part. So they weren't just drilled to accept the possibility of death, the possibility of torture. They were taught to find and eliminate their target and then wait to be discovered and then willingly submit to torture execution. That's terrible for the individual, but imagine how amazing that is for the order. Yeah, exactly, setting a precedent that this is gonna this is what's gonna happen. You know who did it? Yeah, you don't get any information out of them, and you can torture them until they die. And oh god, how many are there? Wait, there are a lot of them like this. We'll send another one, yeah, exact, and and a lot of assassination, as we'll see in part two of this series, is about sending a message, and that's what they were doing. So we would today consider this a kind of asymmetrical warfare. Why do you fight an entire network? Why do you attempt to go against an entire system? When you can pop one link in the chain, right, you can get that, you can get that individual dot at the top of the command structure, and you can create all the results you aimed to achieve. You so discord, Uh, you make the opponent squander their resources and uh, you make them expect even more terrible things from you in the future, and you put them on the defensive. So there. I don't know. It can lay out a hundred different ways, but one example of this comes to us in ten just to give you an actual snapshot of how this group successfully conspired and carried out these murders. Yeah, and this example comes to us from ten ninety two. This is when this group of assassins murdered or assassinated the visier nism Al Mulk. He was a powerful member of the Seljuk Sultanate. And the records that that were available from that time they say that Nassari disguised himself as a Sufi mystic and was able to infiltrate, get in close, close enough to stab this person and kill them. Pray with me, my son. Yeah, yeah, it's it's intense. And assassination had a real domino effect as we've been describing exactly because shortly after the murder of Nizam al muk, who was sort of think of him like, um, if the sultan is the president, this guy is one of the secretaries of the cabinet kind of, so it's it's as if a secretary of the cabinet was murdered. People are freaking out. And then a little bit later, the sultan himself, the said Sultan Malik Shah is murdered and at this point historians argued back and forth over whether that second murder was the assassin's. But it doesn't matter because this domino effect goes into play very quickly, the seljuks and chaos. Who is supposed to be in charge here there are people wearing disguises and killing us, Like, I can't trust anyone. You know? What about that guy? How long does he been in town? Well that that guy says he grew up here, but is that true? Uh? And then the attacks continued. The assassins started killing more rulers, generals, governors, clerics, anyone anyone who h was seen in their eyes as an enemy. And they seemed to be everywhere and nowhere. You know what I mean. There's not an official uniform. It could be the mystic next to you, It could be the merchant two stalls down in the marketplace. So people got really paranoid, right. They started hiring bodyguards, even if they thought they might not be the number one target. They wanted to also wear chain mail under their clothing, like think about these are terroristic tactics, you know, Ben, It's really this is very reminiscent to the fear that permeated the United States, and I would say a lot of the Western world and probably the entire world following the September eleven attacks of two thousand one, where it felt like anybody could be a target, right, Like, even folks that were separated from like big urban centers like in Middle America really felt vulnerable in that way where maybe there's a sense of, oh, we're away from all the big cities were somehow safe or not on the radar, but that whole kind of comfort level really went out the window. Yeah, and for very good reason, you know, I mean, humans back then aren't that different from humans today. We just have more toys. We're talking about the assassins in the past tense at least this group, this origin story, because eventually they did fall. They were active and effective for the better part of three centuries, and they continued after the death of their founder. The Old Man in the Mountain died in eleven four sometime around then, and the sect continued without him. In eleven thirty eight, his successor, Won Boozer Need died. Uh died as well. I'm laughing because we we know the date of his death thanks to their big fans, the Sunni chroniclers. One Sunni chronicler described his death in the following way. He says, brazog Omed died crushed under the heel of perdition, so hell was heated by the fuel of his carcass man. The sick burn very very literally, very very visual. Wow, what a what a wonderful, wonderfully hateful way of referring to somebody. Yeah, it's very nice, spit on your grave style as obituaries go. But the order continued on, and that means that the murders, especially high ranking Sunni figures, continued. In the eleven sixties, leadership fell to Hassan the second Hassan too. He took the branch in a different theological direction. This is really interesting. Remember we talked about the propaganda saying, look, implying heavily like, look, these guys aren't even real Muslims. They pork, they're marrying their siblings. Don't fall for the hype. But Hassan two did something interesting. He said, you know, if you're a true believer, if you're willing to die for this cause, you are relieved, you are absolved from moral customs. Pray when you can where you can. If you can't turn the direction of Mecca, that's fine. You can do things that are regarded as openly sinful as well, because you were ultimately in service of, wait for it, the greater good. Snap. I didn't realize it was the greater good that this whole thing was about. Okay, now changes everything, right, I mean, it's the greater good. It's about the regular good anyway, that's the next level good. It's the most good is But that's just an argument such it's just a common argument for doing terrible things throughout history and politics and war and all. It's, oh, it's for the greater good. Yeah, we gotta murder all these people, but it's okay because you know, the greater good will benefit. So don't think about this thing, think about the big picture. It's just it's a way of pivoting responsibility from the you know, the people that are actually doing the bad the bad stuff too, I don't know, like it's it's it's interesting because the greater good too, is also very very subjective, right, what that even means? But why why? Why isn't it the greatest good, the goodest, just the best. It's for the best. That what people do say about too, don't they It's for the best, But that means something different. Doesn't it for the best just means well, come secome sah. Yeah, it's just that's just the way it went, and it was for it was for the best. It's just that it's a lie we tell ourselves, which I believe. So is the greater good? Yeah, I mean I maybe we should Maybe we should think about it as just make up a word here, will churchify a little? Maybe we should think about it as, uh, the good ocity the speed and direction of a given good, right, because yes, so you know, mileage may vary in terms of where you what direction you feel is good, and what speed you feel is good. That's a weird one, but it is important for this episode, this period, you know, like, hey, throw some of the rules out of the window. We can cut some corners, because ultimately we have to remember we're the good guys. Uh, this is probably what are we good guys? But are we the goodest guys? What's our good aucity? Uh? But this is probably influenced Marco Polo. As a matter of fact, it's certainly influenced what he wrote later and then Europeans read that and it didn't matter. Remember we print retractions in the back of the paper, right, It didn't matter that later the sect went back to a more um, a more strict or austere interpretation of Islam. The damage was done, and everybody who didn't like these folks, Christian and Muslim alike, was able to say, well, are they really some sort of religious warriors? They don't even bother following the rules at home, you know, which is a great argument to make. And that's that's part of why no one came to help in the thirteenth century when Mongol invaders breached the stronghold. They breached Alamoot Castle in twelve fifty six, and they put an end to the Nazari the assassins, at least at least that's what that's what we believe exactly. Guys, do you have any favorite assassin sects from pop culture? From video games, from movies, TV series, books Like I really like the Faceless Men from Game of Thrones. I think that's one of the coolest assassin sects in in literature in a lot of ways. I'm wondering if you guys have any other cool references for folks to check out. For me, is the Elder Scrolls? One Ben, remind me what that is? The Dark Brotherhood, Yeah, Dark Brotherhood that they're great. They have the same taste and logos as us as well. Uh yeah. Then there's of course the Assassins and Assassin's creed, and they're more of like an anti hero kind of vibe. Uh. And then I would say faceless Men is great assassin groups. I guess he could say, you know, it's weird. Uh is is James Bond and Assassin? I mean yeah, right as he is, he contains multitudes. Yeah, he definitely does assassinate people for sure. Yeah. I like the Kingsman's vibe, you know what I mean. I like the gadgets and the suits. Uh. And this these are all these are all cultural artifacts or cultural descendants of this real life group, the Assassins, because even after they were wiped out, the word assassin had passed into the common parlance in the thirteenth and fourteen centuries, and you can trace it through fiction and entertainment all the way to the modern day. And I think, is that is that part of what you're getting out here a little bit? Uh? Yeah, I mean for sure, it's certainly something that is has captured the imagination of of folks that are into this sort of thing, you know, fantasy and fiction, because there is this sense of like like you said, Matt, the assassin's Creek character is almost an anti hero, but at the same time you root for them, you know, so the assassins won't always have to be the bad guy. But one thing I think the interesting about assassins that we haven't really touched on is that by nature there's sort of not a moral but like they are a tool, especially the faceless men. They don't take a stance politically. They just do whatever they're paid to do, which I think is a really interesting facet of being an assassin. It's like we talked about having um a political motivation or you know, some zella you know, zelotry kind of driven ideology, but ourn't. Assassin is usually kind of just a tool of whoever is paying them, and they don't really have a stance. We'll see. That's where you bring things like the assassins. They that exist in john Wick in the John Wick universe. Right, that's a good that's that's I love that. I love those But yeah, you you you pay for a job, right, I mean, they're hit men, right, more so than political tools or something like that. I don't know. I mean, yeah, we started off the episode talking about semantics, and I think we're still hovering in this gray area of like what is an assassin? What is a hit man? We know what a murderer is. We know a manslaughter is, or human murder. What would you call it? It's human death. But but it's it's defined. I mean, it is pretty clearly defined, at least in the common usage in English usage as a political killing, right, I mean, or killing of importance in the modern day, you know, but think about like it's it's weird because the motivation can be spread a cross multiple individuals. Right. I am the owner and CEO of United kum Quats Global Incorporated, LLC whatever, And I am so tired of the government, that of the government that rules the land where most of my kumquat plantations are. And so I am motivated to kill them and have them replaced with a government that's more pro kum Quat or pro pro my organization, more sympathetic to the kum Quat lobby. Right, And so my motivation, uh, my motivation is financial gain and power. So I enlist the help of a let's say, a religious sector offshoot of secessionists in that country and they kill the prime minister of the president. For me, they may be doing it because they're getting paid. They may be doing it because they believe their legion will be better represented by a different government. So the thing is, at the end of the day, the prime minister is dead and the villains walk away happy. Yeah, and United Kumquat is victorious. I got really I felt uncoverable every time we said that word. Isn't that like? Is that a tiny orange? Isn't that what it? Kume? Quote is it's like a little tiny or what do you even do with them? Do you just eat them? With the skin on and everything? Like? It seems like an awful lot to peel such a tiny fruit. I would imagine you would just pop it right in your mouth. It's like the size of an olive. Yeah, but it's like it's central. It looks like an orange in shape and color. Um. I don't know. I just chose it as a memorable I love it's a beautiful word. So could we maybe say that not all hits are assassinations, but all assassinations are hits. Perhaps that's kind of what we said at the top. Okay, just to just to lead with that from my own you know, clarif clarity. I think this is so fascinating. But I think it's interesting how there's that intersection because it all depends on the prominence and perhaps the the end result, you know, as to whether it qualifies as an assassination. Yeah, and speaking of in results here we are. We know that the military might of this group or what or the assassinatory might of this group faded over time, but it's important to know the faith itself survived and and doesn't have anything to do with assassination. So we want to be very careful not to vilify this religious community. You can find Ismaali in twenty five different countries today, at least Central and South Asia, Africa, the Middle East. The reputation of the group we refer to as assassins nowadays, I think we built a pretty good case. It was. It was founded on some exaggerations by their enemies, right, some propaganda, but their tactics were effective. And it's strange should realize that such a small group of people could have such a profound impact on history. More importantly, it's disturbing to realize just how much influence and inspiration they gave to their imitators ever since. And that's that's where we end today's episode. How much of an impact do you think, fellow conspiracy realists, that the assassins had on the world in their time, and how much of that impact, if any uh, remains with us in the modern day. That's that's a great question. And can't wait to hear what you all think. Uh. This is going to conclude this episode of assassins, but guess what, there's another one coming. We're gonna delve into more modern day assassins. We're gonna get closer to the present. Are there still people out there in groups that are specifically designed and operated to commit assassinations? I bet you know the answer to that, at least a little bit. We're gonna tell you all about it next episode. In the meantime, right as tell us your favorite assassin groups or individuals lone wolf assassins from pop culture. We'd love to hear all about it. You can find us on the usual social media spots. I think our preferred place on the internet are are happy places, the Here's where it gets Crazy Facebook group. You can join the conversation there. I'm sure this is gonna generate some great memes and posts from you and your fellow conspiracy realists. Check that out. Here's where it gets crazy on Facebook. Just name one of anybody involved in the show some reference to let us know that you're a real human being and you are in. And if you don't care to communicate via social media unless you use really up to means like the Lake City Quiet Pills guys, Uh, then go ahead and just give us a phone call, you know, luke Ma bell into this guy conversation. Hit us up. We're one eight three three st d w y t G. You've got three minutes. Uh, you'll just hear voicemail and it'll set you up. Let us know your thoughts about anything related to this episode, suggestions for a future episode you think your fellow listeners would enjoy, and most importantly, let us know whether or not you are comfortable with us using your name and or voice on air. Don't forget to head over to YouTube dot com slash conspiracy Stuff. It's the channel that's been around for many, many a year and we are uploading videos again with these conversations with our faces. Um, you know, hopefully you're into that. We think it's okay, it's the Castle. Yeah. Um, but please subscribe. Let other people know if if you know, share that stuff out if you if you feel inclined. One other thing, if you want to and you feel inclined, please leave a review on Apple podcast for this show. It really does help us out, makes us a little more visible to uh, to everybody else and UH. If you don't want to do any of that stuff, but you still want to connect with us, send us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.