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!
Very irresponsible of Blue to skip over the most infamous failed assassination attempt in which four men attempted to overthrow
the supreme chancellorthe Senate without any backup.Ah yes I am John Johnson and I work for job in place.
Blue alluded to it in the video, but some of the plots against Castro were just so outlandish it was hilarious. My personal favourite? The scheme to make his beard fall out because the CIA thought it was the source of his power.
John Johnson how memorable