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Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One Bank Guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Oh really? Thanks Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com bank Capital One NA member FDIC.
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Welcome to Erin Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities Japan is known for many things. Samurai and beautiful castles, cherry blossoms and Mount Fuji. It's a very distinctive nation that has stayed that way in part due to a roughly 200 year isolationist period which kept outsiders outside and the Japanese. Nowadays that isolationist streak is long past and Japan is a commercial powerhouse. They're known for their massive corporations that exports all kinds of goods all over the world. Look around you right now and you'll probably see an electronic device, car, camera or other piece of machinery manufactured in Japan. But any nation is an amalgamation of its past and its present, and the intersection of Japan's history and the modern world can be very curious. Such is the case at Okunakin Cemetery on Mount Koya in southern central Japan. Mount Koya is a temple settlement said to have been founded in 819 by Kobo Dashi, an ancient Buddhist monk. Some refer to him as the Eastern Leonardo da Vinci due to his many contributions across a variety of disciplines including calligraphy, poetry and philosophy. And he is also the founder of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, which is a Buddhist sect wherein the monks orally pass on instruction through the generations. Using a variety of nature based wisdom, they compare a clouded mind to the different phases of the moon. For example, like many Buddhists, they are also vegetarians and do not believe in the taking of life. Kobodashi was so renowned that when he passed away he was sealed in a tomb instead of cremated. This was so that he could continue to meditate on what is best for humanity. The monks on Mount Koya still bring him two meals each day. They believe his tomb isn't a tomb at all, but a meditation chamber. As the centuries passed, the temple settlement experienced many ups and downs, especially in the isolationist period that I mentioned earlier. In the 17th and 18th centuries Shoguns who were threatened by the popularity of Buddhism occasionally attacked the place or put several restrictions on the temple. Even so, they respected and even feared the legend of Kobodashi. So much so that in 1643, Tokugawa Iemitsu, the third Tokugawa shogun, had a shrine built on Mount Koya to honor his father and grandfather. If this place was holy, he said, he wanted their spirits to have a home there. And surprisingly, that very ancient attitude has persisted to this day, with curious results. If ancient Japan was all about the loyalty and honor of samurai clans, modern Japan is all about the loyalty and honor of corporations. And some of those corporations revere Kobodashi and Mount Koya just as much as their ancestors did. Okunoyin Cemetery has thousands of graves, many belonging to that samurai era that I just mentioned. But they are now joined by graves belonging to modern corporations, including Panasonic Canon and Shinmaiwa, an aircraft company. The graves are dedicated to their deceased employees and feature unusual markers. You see, while most gravestones at Okunoin are in the shape of a pagoda, the more recent corporate ones can take any form. Shinmaiwa has a large stone rocket ship as part of its gravesite. But the most unique memorial in the cemetery probably belongs to the Japan Pest control Association. In 1968, they erected a memorial on Mount Koya to the thousands of termites they've killed as part of their work. Remember, I told you that the Buddhists are vegetarian and don't believe in the taking of life. That makes being a Buddhist exterminator very difficult. With this memorial, the Japanese Pest Control association expressed regret that their existence was incompatible with the existence of termites. It's a humorous coda to a long history, but it also shows how much the modern world is still very much informed by the past. Mount Koya has existed for over a thousand years, but humans have only changed so much. They may have traded in their swords for smartphones, but they still feel sadness, guilt, and a desire to honor the dead. So the next time you swat a bug in your house, the least you can do is light a candle for the life you just took. Or if that sounds silly, you can just wait for Kobo Dashi to finally wake up and lead us all into enlightenment.
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Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Oh, really? Thanks. Capital One bank guy, what's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com bank Capital One NA member FDIC.
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Eleanor Bull had not paid any mind to the four gentlemen staying in her house. Tenants came and went freely, and as long as they paid for their food and lodging, they got no trouble from her. All day long, the three men had drank, eaten and spoken among themselves. Ingram, Nicholas, Robert and Kit were their names, but there were men like them at every tavern across London. However, on May 30th of 1593, Eleanor Bull's place at Deptford bore witness to one of the era's most infamous tavern brawls. These four men, having just had a meal, retired to a private room. Not long after, raised voices came from within. Then whatever argument the men were having became aggressive commotion followed shouts, chairs overturned and violent exclamations. When the dust settled, one of the four men lay dead upon the floor, a dagger through his head. It was the one that the others had referred to as kit. He was 29 years old. According to his companions, they had argued over the bill. Kit, who was hot headed by nature and possibly drunk, had grabbed the dagger from Ingram's belt and attacked him. Although Kit had managed to stab Ingram twice in the head, the wounds were shallow and Ingram was able to fight back and gain the upper hand. An investigation began almost immediately because Kit wasn't a nobody. He was Christopher Marlowe, a talented poet and author of seven plays. These included Edward II, The Massacre at Paris, and Dr. Faustus, all of which would remain popular long after his death. William Shakespeare would include references to Marlowe in his own work, a sign of respect from one legendary playwright to another. The man who killed Marlowe, Ingram Friser, was pardoned on June 1. The other two men spoke up for him, all agreeing that Marlow had been the aggressor and that the killing was self defense. But ever since that day, rumors have persisted that this was more than just an argument gone wrong, because Kit Marlow was an enigmatic man whose life seemed full of danger and mystery. He'd long been a lifelong rebel, someone who got into fights regularly and defied authority as a matter of course. Writings by others from the time condemned him for being an atheist, a dangerous allegation at the time. Throughout Marlowe's short life, he was arrested multiple times for charges that included counterfeiting money and heresy. But surprisingly, none of these arrests ever stuck. It honestly seemed as if someone was in a high position of authority wanting to protect him, and this would be more or less confirmed by historians centuries after his death. You see, while he'd been writing his first plays as a student, Marlowe had communicated regularly with Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council, seemingly as a spy or counterspy for the British government. A letter from the council to his university referred to him as employed on matters touching the benefit of his country. It's an intriguing idea. And helped out by the fact that the men who witnessed Marlow's death were not random people. Ingram, Friser, Nicholas Scares and Robert Polly all had suspicious reputations. Nicholas and Ingram were both conmen. And Robert Polley had been imprisoned in the Tower of London five years earlier for his role in the Babington plot, a failed plan to assassinate Elizabeth and replace her with her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. Now, to be fair, men of ill repute were not strangers in Marlowe's life. However, their political affiliations and criminal histories cast doubt on their testimony against him. We may never know why these gentlemen were all in the Same Tavern on May 30. If it was an arranged murder. Scholars have proposed a number of theories with suspects, including Sir Walter Reilly, various powerful critics of Marlowe's plays, or even Queen Elizabeth herself. Had Marlowe outlived his usefulness? Had he seduced the wrong man and provoked a deadly response? Had anti Christian themes in his work put a target on his back? Or are we all just jumping at shadows? After all, when you have to invent a motive for a theory to work, you're writing fiction rather than searching for the truth. One thing we know for sure though, this famous poet died as he lived, providing drama, entertainment and intrigue to us all, living a life as adventurous as any character in a play. To quote his Doctor Faustus, he that loves pleasure must for pleasure fall. 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 curiositiespodcast.com this show was created by me, Aaron Manke, 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@theworldoflore.com and until next time, stay curious.