Podbit · Empire: World History
When Founders argued the British had 'enslaved' them through tyranny, they were signalling something to the people literally serving them in the room. Historian Jane Kaminsky calls it perfectly: 'the liberty talk is leaky.' Everyone heard it. Everyone wanted it. Of course they did.
Where this was said
At 17:40 · chapter starts 14:53
American schoolchildren know Washington as the father of the nation. The Haudenosaunee knew him as something else entirely. [1] — Ken Burns "American schoolchildren know Washington as the father of the nation. The Haudenosaunee knew him as the Town Destroyer. Washington ordered G…" 14:53 Many Native tribes allied with the British not out of love for the Crown, Burns explains, but in the hope — ultimately false — that a British victory would forestall the 'hated Bostonians' from taking their land. In practice, a British victory would have meant exactly the same dispossession under a different flag. The specific origin of Washington's Haudenosaunee name comes from the Sullivan campaign: pressured by the governors of New York and Pennsylvania to act against Native resistance during the Revolution, Washington ordered General Sullivan — from Burns's own home state of New Hampshire — to destroy everything in the Iroquois Confederacy's territory. The result was the razing of 40 to 50 separate towns, a campaign that functioned as a scouting expedition for future white settlement. Burns also corrects a popular misconception: these were not romantic teepee villages — many had clapboard houses, glass windows, chimneys, and would have been indistinguishable from European settler towns until you saw who lived there.
American schoolchildren know Washington as the father of the nation. The Haudenosaunee knew him as the Town Destroyer. Washington ordered General Sullivan to raze 40 to 50 Native American towns in upstate New York — a scouting expedition for future white settlement.
The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy comprised six nations — Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Tuscarora, Oneida, and Mohawk — who formed their own political union more than 150 years before the Revolution.
Washington sent General Sullivan to destroy Native American settlements in upstate New York, resulting in 40 to 50 Indian towns being razed — earning Washington the name 'Town Destroyer.'
Factories that replaced coal engines with electric ones in the early 1900s got only 6% efficiency gains. Those that redesigned their entire factory around electricity got a 3x productivity improvement. Swapping AI tools into your existing structure will give you 6%. Rebuilding around AI will give you 10x.
Lebanese terrorists backed by Iran were holding American hostages throughout the Reagan presidency. Reagan had loudly campaigned against negotiating with terrorists — putting him in an impossible position that his team quietly decided to ignore.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the US openly supplied Iraq with weapons, training, and intelligence. At the same time, Oliver North was secretly funneling missiles to Iran. The US was playing both sides of a shooting war.
Oliver North traveled to Iran under the alias 'William P. Goode' with a fake passport. CIA Director William Casey allegedly gave him cyanide pills so he could kill himself rather than be tortured if captured. He returned safely and the deal moved forward.
The Pentagon sold missiles to the CIA for $3,700 each. The CIA sold them to Richard Secord at cost. Secord sold them to Iranian middleman Ghorbanifar for $10,000 each. Ghorbanifar charged Iran even more. The profit — including $3 million in interest in one Swiss account — was diverted directly to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran in 8 shipments over more than a year. Only 3 of 7 hostages were released. Three more were taken. The net result was zero freed hostages and a full-blown constitutional scandal.
On October 5, 1986, a CIA Contra supply plane flew a weapons drop at 2,500 feet in broad daylight. A Sandinista soldier shot it down. The only survivor, Eugene Hasenfuss, had borrowed a parachute from his skydiving brother. He was captured, paraded in front of cameras, and told the Sandinistas everything he knew.
The CIA supply operation used a front company called Southern Air Transport, widely known to be a CIA cover. Crew members of the downed plane carried their Southern Air Transport employee IDs in their wallets. One also had a business card directly linking him to Oliver North's office in Washington.
When the scandal broke, Oliver North and his secretary Fawn Hall conducted what became known as a 'shredding party,' destroying a day's worth of documents. The full truth of Iran-Contra may never be known because of what was fed through that shredder.
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