A Samurai Walks Into The White House

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Ridiculous History – "A Samurai Walks Into The White House"
Hosts: Ben Bowlin & Noel Brown
Date: June 4, 2026

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Main Theme

This episode explores one of history’s most delightfully absurd “what ifs”: Could an actual Japanese samurai have sent Abraham Lincoln a fax? Combining a deep-dive into samurai history, the origins of facsimile technology, and Abraham Lincoln’s timeline, Ben and Noel walk us through odd convergences in world history that challenge our assumptions about “ancient” versus “modern”—proving how much happened concurrently across the globe, and why history is so much weirder and more interconnected than our schoolbooks let on.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Overlapping Timeline of History

• History is concurrent, not sequential: Ben points out that much of the history we view as separate or “ancient” actually overlapped with developments elsewhere (00:45).
  • “All of the history that you could imagine happened a lot more concurrently than your history books will have you believe.” – Ben (00:45)
• Pop-culture parallel: Revisiting the fact that Cleopatra lived closer to the iPhone than to the building of the Pyramids (05:31), and that “time realities” can mess with how we think about historical chronology.

2. The Samurai: Origins, Eras, and Surprises

• Etymology and Early Role: “Samurai” derives from “saburu” (to serve), originally referring to mid-to-low rank court administrators; only later did it mean armed guards (08:59).
• Diversity in the Samurai Class:
  • The samurai were more diverse than Western depictions: significant numbers of women and even a notable African samurai, Yasuke (10:36).
  • “Anywhere from 20% to as many as 50% of these frontline warriors were female by the early 1600s.” – Ben (11:22)
• Key Samurai Periods:
  • Heian Period (794–1185): Samurai as bushi—bands of mercenary warriors (12:32).
  • Kamakura Period (1185–1333): Samurai rise to administrative power after violent clan warfare (14:29).
  • Muromachi Period (1336–1573): Power decentralizes; emergence of regionally placed daimyo (16:17).
  • Sengoku Period (~1467–1600): Bloody civil war, honing of combat and war strategy.
  • Tokugawa/Edo Period (1603–1868): Samurai become bureaucrats and local politicians; ceremonial role replaces combative one (22:08).
  • “Wearing your sword starts to become ceremony and tradition… they’re a lot more like your upper management.” – Ben (23:35)
• Pop Culture vs. Reality: The iconic samurai image is a mash-up of eras popularized by film, not always historically accurate (22:51).

3. The Fax Machine’s Surprising Origins

• Alexander Bain—Scottish Inventor:
  • Born to a large crofting family, apprenticed at eleven, later a journeyman clockmaker in London (27:10).
  • Files his first patent with his boss, possibly for credit rather than invention (30:23).
  • Develops and patents the first machine able to transmit and receive drawn documents—a forerunner to the fax machine (36:35).
  • “By May of 1843, Bain had patented a machine that could transmit and receive drawings and documents, recognized widely as the ancestor to the modern fax machine.” – Noel (36:35)
• Parallel Inventions: Competing claims and independent development with Charles Wheatstone—example of “parallel thinking” in invention (35:20).
• Giovanni Caselli’s “Pantelegraph”: Further combines existing technology, leading to the first real-world fax transmission, with support from Napoleon III (38:42).

4. The Samurai Mission to America & Lincoln’s Timeline

• 1860 Japanese Delegation: During the Edo period, a group of 76–80 samurai visits the US to ratify the Treaty of Amity and Commerce. They enter through San Francisco and travel cross-country, inciting “Beatlemania”-level excitement in New York (39:46).
  • “A crowd of 500,000 something people shows up in New York for a parade. This is bigger than New Year’s.” – Ben (40:56)
• Lincoln’s Position: He’s on the campaign trail, within range of contemporary telegraph/fax technology; the Republican National Convention is in Chicago (41:31).
• The Thought Experiment:
  • All the timelines align: a samurai on diplomatic business in America could, hypothetically, have sent a fax to then-presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln (42:10).
  • “Technically...all of this together means that a samurai could have been on that diplomatic trip and he or she could have actually sent Abraham Lincoln a fax.” – Ben (41:31)
• What would they have sent? Speculation includes wrestling tips, hat compliments, or humorous modern messages. Jabari, in their research, jokes, "That's right. Folks go woke and last damn near a millennium or whatever kids say these days.” (12:17)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Time’s Strangeness:

  • “We’re close now to the, like, 60s as the 60s were to, like, the 20s. It’s just the way time compresses as you get older and you start viewing it in a different way.” – Noel (05:31)

• On Historical Diversity:

  • "A lot of the samurai were coed...The samurai, as well as the pirates, for example, they were pretty egalitarian." – Noel (10:58)

• On the Fax Possibility:

  • “All of this together means that a samurai could have been on that diplomatic trip and he or she could have actually sent Abraham Lincoln a fax.” – Ben (41:31)

• Hypothetical Fax Gags:

  • Ben: “Sick wrestling moves, man.”
    Noel: “Compliment on his reach or his stovepipe hat?”
    Max: “You up?”
    Noel: “New phone. Who this wid?” (42:37–42:48)
  • Jabari’s joke: “Go woke and last damn near a millennium or whatever kids say these days.” (12:17)

• On the Beauty of Historical Convergence:

  • “We stand on the shoulders of giants…a lot of our tech advancements come from what we call compounding innovation.” – Ben (37:31)

• On Samurai Stereotypes:

  • “What we think of as samurai period really is kind of a mix and match of all of these different periods...maybe not the most historically accurate way by pop culture.” – Noel (22:51)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:45: History is layered and concurrent, not linear
• 07:29: First associations with samurai: pop culture vs. history
• 08:59: Etymology and original function of “samurai”
• 10:34: Gender and diversity among samurai
• 11:22: 20–50% of samurai may have been women by the 1600s
• 14:29: Kamakura period and the birth of the samurai class
• 16:17: Decentralization under the Muromachi period
• 22:08: Transition to bureaucratic samurai in the Edo period
• 27:10: Alexander Bain’s early life and education
• 36:35: Bain’s patent for fax technology
• 38:42: Caselli's pantelegraph and its demonstration to Napoleon III
• 39:46: Samurai delegation arrives in the US
• 40:56: NYC parade for the samurai—“Beatlemania” reception
• 41:31: Lincoln's timeline overlaps with fax and samurai visit
• 42:10–42:48: Playful speculation about what would’ve been faxed

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Structure & Flow

• Fun, irreverent, but fact-packed: The conversation is peppered with asides, running jokes, and pop-culture references, but the backbone is a rigorous, well-researched journey through the timelines and interactions of disparate historical events.
• Personal anecdotes: The hosts relate their own (sometimes odd) eating experiences and travel plans, making the material accessible and lively.
• Recurring theme: “Parallel thinking” in invention and in historical development—a call to see history as curved, interactive, and surprising rather than flat and solitary.

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Conclusion

This episode drives home the “ridiculousness” that emerges when we truly examine the overlaps and coincidences of history. Through entertaining banter, pop-culture analogies, and infectious curiosity, Ben, Noel, and their research team show that even history’s weirdest hypothetical scenarios (“samurai faxes Lincoln”) reveal much about our assumptions—and the amazing complexity of the historical past.

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For Listeners

Prompt: What would YOU fax to Abraham Lincoln or a samurai if you had the chance? Share your ideas on the podcast’s Facebook page!

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Transcript

[Ben Bollen]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartradio. Welcome back to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you as always, so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our super producer, Max Kawhi Williams.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, he's just so cute. Look at him.

[Ben Bollen]

Like a little face, like a button, that guy.

[Noel Brown]

Those big old eyes just staring back at you.

[Ben Bollen]

That is none other than Mr. Noel Brown. They call me Ben Bollen. And we all three are huge fans of as you could imagine history. One thing that escapes a lot of people, I think, especially when we just look at what you learn in your grade school history books, is that all of the history that you could imagine happened a lot more concurrently than your history books will have you believe.

[Noel Brown]

Parallel timelines, baby. Not parallel universes. This stuff happened in the same universe at the same time, just very, very far away from one another. And we always talk about things like parallel thinking during times where these different cultures were so isolated, but kind of figured out the same stuff at the same time. Super interesting phenomenon. And we have discussion of just such a relationship coming to us from our brand new research associate, Jabbari, who really knocked it out of the park with this. With this research brief.

[Ben Bollen]

Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you. Jabari. We're still working on a nickname for you, man, but it'll reveal itself in

[Noel Brown]

the text, I think. Right.

[Ben Bollen]

To celebrate Jabari, to celebrate you, here we are, not blowing smoke. This is one of our favorite kinds of thought exploration. We're going to take three things that you're probably familiar with. The ancient era of Japanese samurai, the advent of facsimile technology, which leads to the fax machine, and the presidency of the notorious amateur wrestler Abraham Lincoln.

[Noel Brown]

Real reach on that guy. Real reach with his arms and with his hat.

[Ben Bollen]

And this means, as Jabari reveals to us, this means that technically, a Japanese samurai could have hypothetically sent none other than Abraham Lincoln a fax if he or she had wanted.

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I hate to say it, but I

[Dr. Joy]

don't trust much of anything.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It's the rage bait.

[Jana Kramer]

It feels like it's trying to divide people.

[Ben Bollen]

We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little.

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[Ben Bollen]

That's great.

[Noel Brown]

Like a samurai sending a fax to Abraham Lincoln. The punchline would be in whatever the facts said. Maybe that'll reveal itself in the text as well. So sort of like finding out the tidbit of information that Cleopatra, who lived from 69 to 30 BCE lived closer to the invention of the iPhone 2007 than she did to the construction of the Egyptian pyramids, 2560 BCE we're always, you know, as aging fellows and fans of pop culture, having these moments where we're like, gosh, we're close now to the, like, 60s as the 60s were to, like, the 20s, you know, it's just the way time compresses as you get older and you start viewing it in a different way. It's fascinating stuff, but it's true. It's not a factoid. It's a fact.

[Ben Bollen]

Right. A factoid is something that sounds true but is not, in fact true. Like carrots give you great eyesight. So. Which is A World War II myth, by the way.

[Noel Brown]

So this also started by Big Carrot, no doubt.

[Ben Bollen]

As you say, Jabari, time realities. These windows and relationships can throw us for a loop when we really start thinking about them. And this is what inspires the conversation we're having today. What might a samurai have sent to our 16th president? And as Jabari, as you put it, would our 16th president have left that samurai on red? At the time, he was a busy man.

[Noel Brown]

Unclear. He also seemed like a man of the people, so he might have. He might have responded.

[Ben Bollen]

And since both of us are going to end up in Japan at some point later this year.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, I've got a countdown going for it. Ben. I'm so excited.

[Ben Bollen]

That's awesome, man. We couldn't be more excited to talk a little bit about samurai. So, you guys, what's the first thing you think of when you hear the word samurai?

[Noel Brown]

I think of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.

[Ben Bollen]

Nice.

[Noel Brown]

But also, if we're going to stick with numbers, I also think of the eras of samurai and the various, I believe, the six kind of key periods involving the evolution of the samurai culture and tradition. I just think of Tom Cruise.

[Ben Bollen]

Oh, gosh, yeah. The Last Samurai. Thanks, White Savior. So I love the conversation about the eras of samurai because for most of us in the west, you have a titular image of what appears to be only one point in Japan's history. But we have to remember that stories about the samurai remind us of the deep age of other civilizations. The US Is still a relatively new kid on the block, geopolitically speaking, not pop music speaking.

[Noel Brown]

Right. And while we obviously don't quite have the time to go into the entire history of Japan's existence as a unified country, we are going to take a bit of a snapshot at the six distinct eras of the Japanese samurai. Given their nearly 700 year reign, perhaps it ought to come as no surprise to you ridiculous historians that it would in fact share a timeline at some point with some of these other historical touch points. But it's nonetheless a very interesting, as you pointed out, Ben, thought experiment. So let's talk first about maybe where the term samurai comes from.

[Ben Bollen]

Ooh, I love this As a guy who has cartoonishly bad Japanese, the term samurai has fascinating etymology. It comes from the word saburu, which means to serve. And it was first used in about CE or AD if you prefer.702. And it meant. It was a way of describing mid to low ranking court administrators. And only later did it describe armed imperial guards. And mostly, as you could tell from the etymology, the title was referring to their loyalty to the emperor, one who serves.

[Noel Brown]

And this would have been feudal Japan. Right. So these were like sort of in service to their lord of this particular region. Fiefdom, I guess you could call it. Right?

[Ben Bollen]

Yeah, like.

[Noel Brown]

Like knights.

[Ben Bollen]

Yeah, like knights. Consider that a knight in Western or central Europe may serve a particular, particular duke. Right. Or a particular noble or aristocrat or

[Noel Brown]

lord, what have you. Right.

[Ben Bollen]

But that. Some kind of lord. But that, that in turn, that aristocrat, that noble would have fealty to the king or the royal family until overthrow them. Until they tried to overthrow them, in this case would be the emperor. You're correct. Right. And so these guys were like, they were like the security guards, the police or military forces, you know, terrorizing the serfs. They were hired.

[Noel Brown]

Bit of a goon squad.

[Ben Bollen]

Yes, a bit of a goon squad. And one thing that Jabari, I love that you're pointing out here is right at the top, we refer to samurai as either he or she, him or her. It may surprise some of us to realize that a lot of the samurai were co ed.

[Noel Brown]

That's the thing, man. We often run into facts like this that are tricky upon first examination to kind of reconcile with what we maybe typically think about the past. The samurai, as well as the pirates, for example, they were pretty egalitarian. And they were also. They treated women with a lot more respect and equality than one might think.

[Ben Bollen]

Yeah. Now, historical figures vary on the total, but experts generally believe that anywhere from 20% to as many as 50% of these frontline warriors were female by the early 1600s. There's also a surprising amount of diversity in this, particularly in the case of Yasuke, the African samurai, which we covered back in a 2019 episode of ridiculous History.

[Noel Brown]

We sure did. And you can check that one out as Jabbari did. That was a fun one. And also, if I'm not mistaken, the inspiration for the pretty excellent, very graphic novel esque cartoon Afro Samurai.

[Ben Bollen]

I believe that is correct, yes. And as we always say in Hollywood adaptations inspired by or loosely based on.

[Noel Brown]

100%. 100%.

[Ben Bollen]

So, yeah, Anjabari the lion is too good. To not include. So we'll give you the quote verbatim. You say, that's right. Folks go woke and last damn near a millennium or whatever kids say these days.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, I think the kids would probably agree with that one, frankly. Moving on to the. I believe Ben helped me out here. The Heian period. Yeah, okay. Haiyan period, 794 to 1185, which is marked by the formation of these, I guess you could call them bands or like these sort of individual subgroups of warriors called Bushi. And I believe that is a term that you might be familiar with from the film Bushido Blade.

[Ben Bollen]

Yes, yes. This is also another way to call them would be mercenaries.

[Noel Brown]

And that might be a term ridiculous historians that you may recognize from the video game series Bushido Blade.

[Ben Bollen]

Ah, yes, yeah. And another word for these folks at this time would be mercenaries. They would get paid to maintain order. And when an estate was expanding or encroaching into another territory, it was their job to make that encroachment happen. At this point, again, they're mercs. Their story's similar to that Janissaries in some way. They're not rising to administrative power just yet until they reach the Kamakura period. And that's 1185-1333.

[Noel Brown]

Well, and much like the sort of codes of chivalry that we know, you know, from the feudal knights from the west, the Bushi adhered to a similar code of conduct and ethics called the Bushido code, which apparently in that series I've never played. Personally, I think there's several of them. Bushido Blade is a strict code of honorable combat that dictates the narrative progression of the story. Kind of like in certain RPGs, where your actions, whether they're positive or negative or neutral or whatever, can change the ending.

[Ben Bollen]

Absolutely. We also know in the Kamakura period that the rise to power of what we call the samurai class came from a decades long violent stretch of chaos between two powerful clans, Minamoto and Taina. And it ended with the Minam. Spoiler, everybody. The Minamoto win. This leads to the formation of what we now call the Kamakura Shogunate area ruled by a specific clan. Shogun. Similar to like a Mongolian Khanate.

[Noel Brown]

A warlord, right? Yes, pretty much something along those lines. I mean, definitely not much more of a totalitarian, militaristic kind of order, like martial law, practically.

[Ben Bollen]

Yeah, like a warlord who's heavy on the admin. You know what I mean? This is Japan's first feudal military government in all of known history. It's decentralized, so everybody is paying lip service to the Emperor of Japan. But it's more of a figurehead status. It's the shoguns and later the samurai who wield the actual power.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. And I love what Jabbari points out here. It's very similar to the arrangement that Tony Soprano in the incredible HBO series the Sopranos worked out with all of the other captains of their crime family, or capos, as they're referred to in the early series of Sopranos. Uncle Junior was meant to be the boss kind. I'm sorry, I'm saying the boss. I can't not say it that way in terms of his age and seniority, but he really just ruled as kind of a figurehead.

[Ben Bollen]

Yeah, exactly. And that's a great comparison. We know that power shifts continued, and the power sort of balkanized. It became more localized during what we call the muromachi period in 1336, all the way to 1573. This is where we see feudal lords, warlords, like you said, named the daimo, and they are regionally placed, strategically placed, to sort of franchise out the rule of the shogun. They maintain these large estates in these castles, which you should check out when you visit. This leads to armies of samurai.

[Noel Brown]

Right? And then in the mid 15th century, we start seeing the beginnings of the Sandoku period, which was 1467 to 1600. And we also started to see the complete fall of centralized authority due to an incredibly bitter and brutal civil war between the daimo overseers, which pitted the samurai armies against one another, causing tons of internal strife and conflict. Utterly brutal warfare for nearly 150 years. And this whole bloody affair is credited as the period where combat techniques were beginning to be honed and revolutionized. And some of the sophisticated war strategies that we credit to the Japanese and the samurai that we know today.

[Ben Bollen]

A lot of people die in horrific ways. So we'll just fast forward, fast forward along that while acknowledging it. And this leads to the unification of Japan under the Tokugawa Shogunate. This ushers in about 200 years of relative peace. And the warriors suddenly find themselves out of a job. You don't need people running around chopping heads off and committing seppuku if they mess up, which is ritualized suicide tied to these codes of honor.

[Noel Brown]

Right. And then failure to adhere to it or being dishonored. And then you would be more likely to take your own life ritualistically than live as a shame to your family or your clan.

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[Ben Bollen]

Now this is where we get to the key part of our thought experiment, right? This is a three act structure. Now we're at the Edo period, which

[Noel Brown]

is I think, the one many people really think of in terms of the real culmination of all of this samurai business.

[Ben Bollen]

Now we're at 1603 to about 1868, so keep that last date in your mind, folks. This is where we see the most consequential transition for the samurai class. They become similar again to the comparison of janissaries in the Ottoman Empire. They become bureaucrats, they become local power holders and politicians. And wearing your sword starts to become ceremony and tradition. So you're not really. It's like all those portraits of later medieval age kings in the west. They've got the armor on for the portrait, they've got the sword because it looks nice in the oil painting, but they're not actually using it.

[Dr. Joy]

Right.

[Noel Brown]

And I guess, you know, maybe I'm confused, cause certainly when I think of samurai, I often think of the Edo period. And maybe because that's what a lot of where a lot of the imagery comes from, like a lot of the paintings and a lot of the kind of classic samurai garb that we think of with those helmets. But it is also completely accurate that this was not the bloody warring period, this was samurai more as like diplomats and politicians wearing this stuff out of ceremony. So it's interesting for me certainly to clarify some of that and realize that what we think of as samurai period really is kind of a mix and match of all of these different periods, kind of, you know, that has been depicted in maybe not the most historically accurate way by pop culture.

[Ben Bollen]

Yeah, these samurai can still tangle if they have to, but they're a lot more like your upper management. They're a lot more like in response to your earlier facts kind of samurai instead of, you know, I will decapitate you samurai. But you know, what still happens? We want to be clear about that. And you may be asking yourself, guys, why did we need to take this quick trip down memory lane of Japanese samurai history. We think it's because it's cool, and it sets up one of our travel obsessions that Jabari, you obviously also share. And it also gives us the historical context that leads us to Act 2. So there's 800 years or over 800 years of samurai history. 700 of those years are effectively as part of Japan's ruling class. And now we have to travel around the world. So the Edo period is happening in Japan, but what's going on in Scotland?

[Noel Brown]

What is going on in Scotland? Well, some crafty Scots are cooking up some schemes. Well, yeah, there's definitely some culinary innovations going on in terms of, like, the turduckening of cow stomachs. Have you ever. I bet you have been. You've eaten haggis, surely?

[Ben Bollen]

Yes.

[Noel Brown]

Not me.

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[Noel Brown]

Not to say that I'd be against it, but I will tell you what I did have last night, Ben. I went to this incredible Polish restaurant called Karsima in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and had this thing they do called stuffed cabbage, where it's just like a bunch of meat and seasoning and stuff, like, stuffed inside a big old thick piece of cabbage. So that's about as close as I to the haggis of it all. Maybe try a little blood sausage. But no, the haggis is a little extreme for me, so. More for you.

[Ben Bollen]

But I'm okay with it. It's one of those things where I'm glad I tried it, but I don't find myself come lunchtime with a hankering for haggis.

[Noel Brown]

You don't have a haggis hankering?

[Ben Bollen]

I don't have a haggis hanker nor blood pudding, but I've tried that as well. It's just. It's something you should do when it's available so you can say you did it. And some people do.

[Noel Brown]

And I'll tell you what, I do like this. Maybe a bit of a hot take. I like just a good old piece of liver and that. That has that kind of coppery taste that a lot of people associate with awful and bloody kind of stuff. But I enjoy it. I think it's because I grew up eating it. Not something that I would order, necessarily.

[Ben Bollen]

But you grew up eating brains? I grew up.

[Noel Brown]

I did. I ate brains and eggs as well, because I had some real, real southern grandparents from North Carolina. And that was more liver for you, man. Scrapple. Remember, Ben, when we were on that road trip with. With our buddy Scott from Car Stuff, and. Yeah, we at scrapple or liver pudding.

[Ben Bollen]

Yeah. It looks like a shingle. It does look like a shingle, and it's not that bad. I don't know if that documentary of our road rally for car stuff is still on Amazon, but check it out if it is.

[Noel Brown]

It was a lot of fun. It was a good time. But back to Scotland after our organ meat detour there. At this same time, when the Edo period is in full swing in Japan, a Scottish inventor and engineer, as Jabari puts it delightfully, was kilt deep in his creation and development of of facsimile technology. This guy's name is Alexander Bain.

[Ben Bollen]

Not that Alexander Bain. Not the philosopher. Different guy.

[Noel Brown]

Nope, different guy. That guy was born 1818, died 1903. This fellow we're talking about, Alexander Bain, was born in either 1810 or 1811, depending on the source. His father, a man named John Bain, was a crofter. What's a crofter, Ben?

[Ben Bollen]

Well, you know, let's do it like an ad. Hey, are you tired of being a serf? Are you tired of not land rights or even human rights? Well, we can't make you a Scottish lord, but we can upgrade you a little bit. Consider crofting the comfort economy plus of sharecropping. It's slightly better. You have a little bit more equitable circumstances. And most importantly, your children have a better chance of advancing up the socioeconomic ladder of the time.

[Noel Brown]

Time and children he did have. My friend John Bane's wife, Isabella Waiters, sometimes referred to as Isobel waiters, reportedly had 12 of them, six boys and six girls and even dozen. That's wild, man.

[Ben Bollen]

Good luck, Isabelle.

[Noel Brown]

Thank you for your service. For sure.

[Ben Bollen]

So this is where we. This is why we're setting up the idea of socioeconomic educational opportunity. Bain gets his elementary education, per normal. He later pursues a trade. He's apprenticed to a local clockmaker named John Sellars. S E L L A R S and he's just 11. Basically the family. I don't want to say this disrespectfully, it's not human trafficking, but they did kind of pimp him out because all the money he made as the apprentice to this local clockmaker went back to his family. He was paid as a kid. He was apprenticeships of the time. They would pay you in room and board and any financial profit, if it was acknowledged in your agreement would go to your adult family. This works out. Bain learns a lot. He's not going to waste his life being a crofter. Not that there's anything wrong with that. He has higher ambitions. It's 1837, when he relocates to London, he works as a journeyman clockmaker for a little while. This is the natural path of learning the trades at the time. And even now in certain trades today, we think that his second boss, when he's a journeyman, we think this guy was named John Barwise because. And this happens all the time in academia as well, because Bain files his first patent and this guy, John Barwise is listed as a co applicant, which is kind of like when Quentin Tarantino was listed as executive producer on man with the Iron Fist. Like, he didn't really write the script, he didn't really invent the thing.

[Noel Brown]

But sometimes the executive producer is kind of a tastemaker, sort of there to kind of lend a little bit of expertise on set. But also sometimes it involves like, money and finance or credibility. It can mean different things, but yes, especially when they put it above the line, it adds some gravitas to. To a movie like that.

[Ben Bollen]

So we cannot prove it, but we have a sneaking Spidey sense that John Barwise just got his name on the patent, not because he helped with the idea, but because he was Alex Bane's boss.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, you go, yeah. And that's. Sometimes you get some of that in Hollywood too. Little, little Nepo baby type stuff. So In January of 1841, the two of them were granted their first successful patent for a clock with a pendulum that was moved by electromagnetic impulses. Ben, I know you and I are both fascinated by the art of clock making.

[Ben Bollen]

Oh, the complications.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, fascinating, dude. And like, just the tiny little pieces and the way they all have to work in concert and yes, the complications. So physicist and fellow inventor Charles Wheatstone had demonstrated a clock to the Royal Society, which is the UK's National Academy of Sciences and the oldest continuously operated operating scientific academy and the entire world around and operating, going strong since 1660. And that happened in December of the previous year. And this clock, yeah, was very similar, alarmingly similar, to use clock parlance, to the one that Bain and Barwise themselves had patented.

[Ben Bollen]

And Bain had a story about this. He responded to the maybe not accusations just yet, but the implications of IP theft. Check out our episodes on that. And he said the following. He said, look, I do know Charles Wheatstone, magazine editor, told me to visit Wheatstone and I did visit him. And Charles and I talked about stuff and Wheatstone told me my idea was poppycock and hogwash and I shouldn't pursue it any further. And then he stole it from under my feet.

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[Noel Brown]

I turned off news altogether.

[Ben Bollen]

I hate to say it, but I

[Dr. Joy]

don't trust much of anything.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It's the rage bait.

[Jana Kramer]

It feels like it's trying to divide people.

[Ben Bollen]

We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little.

[NBC News Announcer]

NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Ben Bollen]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Noel Brown]

Part of history honors 250 only on the history Channel.

[Ben Bollen]

Wheatstone did not like this accusation. Obviously these are strong words. So he said no, no, no, no, no no no no. I've been working on my Electric clock way before I ever met this Bane kid. And we don't know. We're never going to know for certain at this point because it was so long ago. But it seems entirely possible that these two guys did meet, but they came up with the idea independently of each other.

[Noel Brown]

There we go. Parallel thinking. It happens.

[Ben Bollen]

And that didn't stop Bain. He took out more patents. He was getting pretty prolific. And he was. Again, he was a very smart dude. He had this phenomenal idea. In December, he took out a patent for a series of applications of electric technology to railway locomotives and signaling. And he did this with the help of another collaborator, Royal Navy Lieutenant named Thomas Wright.

[Noel Brown]

Correct. Bain then introduced what would become a crucial modification to the transmission of telegraph signals and, of course, receipt reception as well, by inverting the existing method of creating these signals, which used a needle pivoting under the influence of an electromagnet by suspending a movable coil between the poles of a magnet. And this took off. By May of 1843, Bain had patented a machine that could transmit and receive drawings and documents, recognized widely as the ancestor to the modern fax machine. And when I say the modern fax machine, obviously it's easy to kind of scoff because it does feel like an outdated technology at this point in history, but it is still. Is still used by certain organizations.

[Ben Bollen]

Oh, and I have to warn you, man, fax machines are very common in Japan.

[Noel Brown]

Okay, okay. Interesting. Okay, well, let's get to it. Even though Bain was applauded and lauded for his inventions and just his, you know, innovating spirit, his imagination, he was able to complete a series of successful lab tests over the next couple of years. But it was just ahead of its time. And it didn't quite result in the immediate adoption and use for practical applications that he had hoped.

[Ben Bollen]

Yeah, it reminds me of an excellent Mitchell and Webb sketch about all of da Vinci's other inventions that just don't apply. He's trying to explain how a computer mouse works to his patron who they neither of them know what a computer is. Or he invents windshield wipers before windshields and cars.

[Noel Brown]

That's hilarious. That is like the very definition of being too ahead of the curve. Yeah.

[Ben Bollen]

And that's. That's what. Yeah, you're making paraphernalia for a core invention that does not yet exist. That's kind of where Bane is. We know there's something really beautiful about this, too, which is in the world of invention, it is extraordinarily rare for a single person to be the luminary, the Moses coming down from on high, or the Promethean with the fire. We stand on the shoulders of giants. So if you look around at anything in your area, including statistically, the phone you're listening to this on, then you have to realize that dozens, if not thousands of people made tiny inventions and tiny improvements that led to the thing you're seeing now. So a lot of our tech advancements come from what we call compounding innovation. Standing on the shoulders of giants, or combinatorial innovation, which is when you take an existing technology and then you take another existing technology and you put them together.

[Noel Brown]

Yes, indeed. Like peanut butter and jelly.

[Ben Bollen]

Just so. Just like that.

[Noel Brown]

It's what they call a synergistic effect.

[Ben Bollen]

There we go. And a big fan of combinatorial innovation is an Italian guy, physicist, inventor, Giovanni Caselli. He takes the technology of the telegraph and something called the pantograph and combines them with, speaking of synchronization, pendulum synchronization, to invent the first real fax machine, which he calls the pentelgraph.

[Noel Brown]

Pentelegraph. I love it. In 1860, Napoleon III. No, not that Napoleon. His nephew, however, and the emperor of France at the time, would take in a demonstration of the Pentelgraph. And, you know, they were on board with it. They decided to place orders for the service to work within the French national telegraph network. And with the help of Napoleon, Napoleon iii, but with access to the telegraph network as well as financial support, the Pentelegraph was successfully tested over a span of 800 km, stretching between Paris and Marseilles.

[Ben Bollen]

And now we get to our third act. We're tying the whole thing together. It is the spring of 1860. The Tokugawa shogunate has sent an official delegation of somewhere between 76 to 80 samurai to the United States of America to ratify what's called the Treaty of Amity and Commerce. They obviously arrive at the West Coast. It's San Francisco, right. Because Trans Pacific flights are not a thing yet. They're on the USS Powhatan in February. That's when they arrive. And then they travel across the country. It takes a while, by the way, because the interstate's still not a thing. They get to Washington D.C. philadelphia and New York City. They have to go via Panama. It's a whole thing. And the American public loves them. You know, this is.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, they get a Beatlemania esque welcoming.

[Ben Bollen]

They do. And it's problematic because it's exotic and they're treating them like aliens. A crowd of 500,000 something people shows up in New York for a parade. This is bigger than New Year's.

[Noel Brown]

At the time, it would seem so, yeah. Roughly half a million people. That is wild. Meanwhile, during all of this, the soon to be president Abraham Lincoln was making the campaign rounds. He was on the trail, and it wouldn't be long before he was actively dealing with the lead up to a little thing called the War of Northern Aggression or the Civil War, something along those lines. But in terms of this timeline, his travels would have actually taken him well within the range that that technology we're talking about could transmitted communications.

[Ben Bollen]

And on May 16, 1860, it must be said, the Republican National Convention convened in Chicago. Their platform condemned proposals to allow slavery in U.S. territories. And they called, rightly, the reopening of the African slave trade, a crime against humanity. Because the Republicans of that era were very different. Different from the Republican Party in the US Today. This all brings it together beautifully. We think we know how things wound up playing out in that election, but we're baffled by the commonality and commingling of history. Because technically, as you point out, Jabari, all of this together means that a samurai could have been on that diplomatic trip and he or she could have actually sent Abraham Lincoln a fax. Let's end on this. What would the samurai have faxed Abraham Lincoln? Nice. Sick wrestling moves, man. Sick suplex.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, yeah. Compliment on his reach or his stovepipe hat? No.

[Ben Bollen]

Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

What you got, Max?

[Ben Bollen]

I said you up?

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, you up?

[Ben Bollen]

Yeah, you up?

[Noel Brown]

New phone.

[Ben Bollen]

Who this wid?

[Noel Brown]

No, I love Jabari's suggestions here. Perhaps, perhaps a preemptive little on your left or watch your back might have helped. And that would work real well for the political cartoon that we set up at the top. I think this is a really fun way to kind of do a little grab bag history episode in a really fun trajectory that you set up for us, Jabari. So thanks a lot for the research on this one.

[Ben Bollen]

Big, big thanks to our super producer, Mr. Max Williams. Huge thanks to our brand new research associate, Jabari Davis, as well as Alex Williams, the musical genius who compose this track.

[Noel Brown]

Christopher Odis and Eve Jeff Coates here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland, the Quizter. A.J. bahamas Jacobs, the Puzzler.

[Ben Bollen]

Dr. Rachel Big Spinach Lance, the world's foremost authority on underwater explosions. What a weird flex. Speaking of cool flexes, Big, big shout out to the rude dudes of ridiculous crime. If you dig us, you'll love them. Now tell us maybe over on our Facebook page, ridiculous historians, what you would have faxed either a samurai or Abraham Lincoln.

[Noel Brown]

We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Jana Kramer]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway for you. Save days are here now through June 23rd. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Chobani, Vitamin Water, Jelly Belly, Nutella, Haagen, Dazs, Nestle and Outshine. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online. Online for easy pickup or delivery. Restrictions apply. See the website for full terms and conditions.

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