Die Hard

defend their home or country. But while a bad leg or limited eye sight might not seem like a hindrance to them, it could put their fellow soldiers in trouble at the worst possible moment. Samuel Whitmore, however, didn't care about any of that. In fact, on the very first day of the Revolutionary War in seventeen seventy five, he defied all the odds by charging into battle when he

should have been at home instead. As the old joke goes, Whitmore was born at a young age in Charlestown, Massachusetts. After education and marriage, he and his wife started a family. Unfortunately, that domestic life would be turned upside down by international conflict. He enlisted with the third Massachusetts Regiment during King George's War,

where he fought the Crown. In fact, his involvement with the forces of Colonel Jeremiah Molton took him all the way up to Nova Scotia, where he helped capture the fortress of Louisburg from the French. He also managed to capture a beautiful ornate saber belonging to a French officer, which he took home as a souvenir. Some years later he returned to war, this time against Chief Pantiac of the Ottawa in the Great Lakes region. Fun unrelated fact, I grew up near the Illinois towns of both Pantiac

and Ottawa. It has no bearing on the story, but reading those names compelled me to tell you, and now you own, Chief Pontiac. Youcy had taken up arms with other Native Americans against the British. He and his men objected to the deadly policies put forth by General Jeffrey Amherst and attacked a number of English forts in the area, killing dozens of colonists in the process. Whitmore and other English troops went up against Pontiac, killing many of the

native warriors. According to legend, he defeated one adversary in hand to hand combat and took a pair of dueling pistols from the warrior's body afterward. Whitmore eventually moved to the town of Monotomy, which exists as part of present day Arlington, Massachusetts. He became a farmer and it seemed like his fighting days were over. From now on, any

battles would be those of words, not rifles. In seventeen sixty six, following the British repeal of the Stamp Act, the town elected Whitmore as part of a committee to inform Massachusetts General Court Representative Andrew Boardman on how to vote. Whitmore and the other committee members were wary of the British and their countless acts and taxes, and even though the Stamp Act is repealed this time, they remained suspicious.

In their instructions to Boardman, the committee told him to always be watchful of any further danger coming from Parliament. Whitmore was also elected to the Massachusetts Committee of Convention, where he voiced his opposition to various revenue acts. He also spoke out against the King's requirement that Boston provide living quarters for the British soldiers occupying the city. Whitmore's

uneasiness only grew. A new war was brewing in the colonies, and this time, despite fighting for the British before, he would defend the people of his province instead. On April nineteenth of seventeen seventy five, the British quickly realized that they were outgunned against the colonial minutemen and retreated from Lexington and conquered to Boston. On their way back to the city, they passed by Samuel Whitmore's farm, where he

was tending his fields. When Whitmore caught sight of them, he dropped what he was doing, fetched his musket, and opened fire from behind a stone wall. After his first shot took out one soldier, he dropped his musket, pulled out his twin dueling pistols, and shot two more. By then, another group of British soldiers had figured out where he was hiding and rushed for him. Before they could reach him, he drew his saber and charged towards them, but the

Red Coats had the upper hand. They shot him in the face, then bayonetted him several times before butting him with their rifles. Whittemore was left on the ground bleeding to death. He was seventy three years old. A group of colonial soldiers eventually found him and took him to a doctor a few miles away. Things looked grim and he wasn't expected to make it through the night, not

after such a brutal attack, but survive he did. Samuel Whitmore was one tough soldier, and he lived for eighteen more years, eventually dying in seventeen three at the ripe old age of nineties six. He had spent much of his life fighting, and he never let his age or being stabbed, shot and beaten keep him down, and in the process he proved the old saying to be true, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. The Edo area of Japanese history is something like a bloody soap

opera when you really look closely at it. A bunch of regional rulers engaged in territorial disputes, striking alliances to advance their goals, and very little effort toward anything even remotely resembling unification, not to mention the severe class lines preventing any sort of merit based advancement and focused entirely

on bloodlines and birth. It's not exactly the kind of stage where you'd expect to see a hammer blow against inequality, but that's exactly what we find in the unsuspecting character of Daimio Oda Nobanaga. No Banaga was something of a visionary with all of the side effects that usually come with it, a dacious, daring, perhaps even a bit well unhinged, but he had the bold idea to unify Japan, and

he knew he couldn't do it alone. He also knew that in order to accomplish something that had never been done before, he'd probably have to try some things that had never been tried before, maybe even with some people who had never been given a chance before. That included giving a peasant like Hideyoshi Toyotomi a chance, and it includes seeing past traditional barriers and recognizing the value in someone like the man who would be known only as Yasuki.

When Yasuki arrived in Japan in fifteen seventy nine, he must have been quite the site for the local populace, arriving alongside a Jesuit named Alessandro Vallegnano Yasuki served as bodyguard for the religious man, and an imposing one at that. Yasuki boasted a frame that stood over six ft tall, with according to onlookers, the strength of ten men, and when the average height of a man in Japan at the time was around five feet tall, you can see

how he stood out quite literally. Oda Nobunaga was immediately impressed by Yasuki. Perhaps it was just the spectacle of him, but being the same man who gave a peasant a chance, he extended the opportunity to Yasuki as well to fight alongside the man, doing what had never been done before, and Yasuki accepted. And while records are scarce as to what exactly he did for Nobanaga, it's believed that he reprised his role as a bodyguard for the Japanese warlord

and in the process became quite close with him. In Fight two, Nobunaga was caught in an ambush at a temple, but rather than face defeats, he took his own life through the ritual act known as sappuku. And not only was Yasuki in the building with him, he very well may have been the one to remove Nobanaga's head to save it from falling into enemy hands. This was something that only the nearest and dearest vassals would do, and of all the vassals Nobanaga had a massed at the time,

it was Yasuki who had collected the head. It's fair to say that yes Suki kept his head in a critical moment, so much so that he ended up keeping two heads. It's unclear what, if any larger chord Yasuki struck in a war stricken Japan after that ambush in two there is no record of him whatsoever. He briefly served Nobanaga's son, but the younger Daimyo followed his father to the grave. The last we hear of Yasuki he was taken during a battle and led to a Jesuit camp.

Perhaps he became a ronan, a masterless samurai, and wandered the land, or perhaps he settled into something loosely resembling a retirement. But whatever ended up happening to him, he would give the world one of its first glimpses at what it looks like when you actively engage in that simple principle of treating others the way you'd want to

be treated. You see Yasuki wasn't like other samurai, not just because he was not native to Japan, and not just because he was six ft tall and strong as a bull, but because he was from an African tribe, which made him the first her black samurai. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how

Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Ye