All language subtitles for The UnXplained s07e17 Deadliest Assassins

Lone gunmen that shape the future with
one pull of the trigger.

Mysterious assassins brainwashed to
commit shocking murders.

And legendary killers who have taken
their deadly secrets to the grave.

What do historical figures like Julius
Caesar, Helena Hunnan, President

Abraham Lincoln have in common?

Well, for one thing, they were all
formidable leaders who faced death, not

bloody battlefield, but instead at the
hands of an assassin.

Since the dawn of civilization, hitmen
of all types have shaped our world by

eliminating political leaders, silencing
whistleblowers, and killing the

competition.

But what's the true motivation?

To assassinate someone in cold blood. Is
it money?

Ideology? Or how about a simple thirst
for vengeance?

Well, that is what we'll try and find
out.

Some individuals have made their mark on
history, not because of great

scientific achievements or works of art,
but for cold -blooded murder.

People like James Earl Ray, who gunned
down civil rights activist Martin Luther

King Jr.

Maturam Ghazi killed the leader of the
Indian independence movement, Mohandas

Gandhi, at point -blank range.

Mark David Chapman.

shot legendary musician John Lennon
shortly after receiving his autograph.

They're not just killers. They are
assassins.

An assassination is distinguished from
an ordinary murder when somebody wants

kill a major figure. Usually a political
figure could also be a cultural figure.

The reasons that people assassinate High
-profile individuals are

many. They can vary all the way from
somebody being disturbed to someone

who has a distinct agenda, a purpose to
actually change history. And they may

have to do with seeking to attain
personal fame or recognition, to make a

statement.

There is no question that an
assassination of a major public figure

has tremendous consequences, and they
can change a country, and they can

the world.

While history is filled with stories of
rulers, leaders, and religious figures

falling at the hand of an assassin,
there is a time not so long ago where

deadly practice was so prevalent it is
sometimes referred to as the Golden Age

of Assassinations.

The period between 1878, roughly, and
1914 has been termed the Golden

Age of Assassinations.

And that's a golden age driven by a
political ideology,

anarchism.

Anarchism was a system of political
belief from a revolutionary manifesto.

that basically argued that things like
states, government, hierarchies, now

kings, presidents, all symbols of
authority, were the fundamental evil of

world.

Anarchists agreed that they would follow
a new way of kind of pursuing

revolution. You wouldn't try to
influence people to vote.

You would plant a bomb.

You would shoot a politician.

And that would make ordinary people feel
that the world was unstable.

And the more unstable they felt the
world was, the closer you were to

and change.

A large number of monarchs and
politicians were assassinated, largely

anarchists. This starts in 1878 with a
failed assassination attempt

on the German Kaiser Wilhelm I.

Then it is the Russian Tsar, Alexander
II, in 1881, who is assassinated by

a Russian anarchist.

You then have the French president, all
falling victim to anarchist

assassins. Even the United States did
not escape this wave of anarchy, and

President McKinley was assassinated in
Buffalo, New York, in 1901.

By an anarchist, if you don't agree with
someone, you just try

and assassinate them.

Across the globe, anarchists,
revolutionaries, and terrorists were

assassination to destabilize governments
and overthrow existing political

structures.

Yet, no one could have predicted that
the murder of one aristocrat would lead

the death

of millions around the world.

Sorry for Bosnia and Herzegovina, June
28, 1914.

The occupation of this capital city by
the Austro -Hungarian Empire has created

heated tension with young Bosnian Serbs.

In anticipation of a formal visit from
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to

throne of Austria -Hungary, a secret
military society prepares

to execute a deadly plan.

An organization called the Black Hand,
also known as Unification or Death, were

several prominent members of the Serbian
army, including the head of the Serbian

military intelligence service.

So on the day, the group of...

Six main would -be assassins positioned
themselves around the city of Sarajevo

in strategic places.

The itinerary of the visit had been
publicized beforehand, so it was clear

route the cars would take that the royal
couple were traveling in, and they

positioned themselves along the route.

And the first would -be assassin threw a
grenade at the car.

which bounced off and exploded behind
the car that the royal couple were

travelling in.

But the Archduke and his wife were
unscathed and drove to the city hall

they took stock and decided what they
would do.

One of the assassins, a guy called
Gabriele Princip, basically thought,

blew it.

And he went to have coffee in a cafe.

and he was sitting outside the cafe
drinking his coffee, and Franz

car stopped in front of him on accident,
so he just wandered over with his gun

and shot the Archduke and his wife on
the spur of the moment.

The fascination of Franz Ferdinand is
one of the strangest fascinations ever,

because it's the one which really brings
out how much history is about accident.

If the car had gone somewhere else,
maybe 20 million people wouldn't have

killed in the First World War.

In retaliation for Franz Ferdinand's
assassination on July 28, 1914, the

-Hungarian Empire declares war on Serbia
and marks the beginning of World War I.

The four -year war would be fought on a
global scale.

never seen before in human history.

Some 20 million soldiers died and some
21 million civilians perished as well in

this conflict.

I don't think Gavrilo Princip, when he
fired those two fateful shots, could

imagined that some 40 million deaths
would result from the deaths of these

people. If, in fact, the assassination
hadn't taken place.

Would there have been a First World War?
Would history have developed along the

same lines? We don't know the answer.

So I think this really shows you how
relatively unimportant people who

would never have been known to us could
have such devastating consequences.

The Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles,
California, June 5th, 1968.

Robert F. Kennedy announces his victory
of the California presidential primary

to a crowd of supporters.

But hope will soon turn to tragedy.

As Kennedy makes his way through the
hotel kitchen on his way to a press

conference, he's ambushed by an
assassin.

A gunman appeared, later identified as
Sirhan Sirhan,

wielding a .22 caliber.

And by all accounts, began firing at
Kennedy, and rather wildly

in this case.

You seem to have a mad gunman, a lone
nut with unclear motivations,

who had gotten into this situation.

Kennedy was hit, fell to the floor.

He had been shot three times.

Sir Hahn fired all eight shots.

In the chamber of his revolver, there
was screaming, there was panic, there

fear. There were bodies on the floor,
and one of them was Senator Robert

Kennedy.

24 hours later, Kennedy died from those
wounds.

Sirhan Sirhan, a 24 -year -old
Palestinian immigrant, was quickly

for the assassination of Robert Kennedy.

Yet, remarkably, after his arrest, the
gunman claimed to have no memory of his

murderous rampage.

Sirhan was glassy -eyed and essentially
unresponsive after he was

arrested. He was completely placid. He
didn't seem to have any idea what had

happened, had no idea why he was
arrested.

It was definitely strange.

The last thing he can remember...

Earlier that evening, Sir Han was having
a cup of coffee with an attractive girl

who was wearing a polka dot dress in
another part of the Ambassador Hotel.

After that, it's a blank until he woke
up with people jumping on his head and

trying to wrestle the gun from his hand.

A succession of psychiatrists and
psychologists, both for... The defense,

and for the prosecution, examined Sahan.

They all accepted that his amnesia was
absolutely

genuine. Many of them said at the time
of the shooting, Sahan

was acting under post -hypnotic
suggestion. In other words, he had been

hypnotized and was shooting as a result.

Saran was convicted of first -degree
murder and is currently serving a life

sentence.

But is it really possible to hypnotize
someone into becoming an unknowing

assassin?

Well, from 1953 to 1973, there was a
shocking top -secret CIA program

that seemed to have explored that very
question.

Its code name was MK...

ultra the mk ultra program is a very
weird moment in american history

and the aim of mk ultra was to find out
how far you can manipulate the

psychology of individuals and get them
to do what you want them to do how deep

it went is very uncertain but that there
were people in the cia who had this aim

is a matter of historical record

In the early 1950s, the CIA was deeply
interested in combating what they

perceived as mind control research by
the Chinese and the Russians in

particular. And they embarked on their
own program to explore the mind.

But in the course of this research, the
U .S. government made efforts to

experiment with so -called brainwashing
of individuals.

through a variety of means.

One was hypnosis and the other was the
use of psychoactive drugs.

LSD in particular was proven to be
highly effective at putting people in a

of mind where they could be post
-hypnotically or otherwise suggested to

violent action.

Somebody who, without fully knowing what
they're doing or even knowing at all

what they're doing, can go out and kill.

They did experimentation on unwitting
individuals who had not provided

It was later agreed that this was
unethical, immoral, and illegal.

In 1973, CIA Director Richard Helms
ordered all MKUltra documents

to be destroyed.

But just four years later, a Freedom of
Information Act request led to the

discovery of around...

20 ,000 secret files that managed to
survive the purge.

And while the true extent of the CIA's
mind control program will never be

is it possible they actually created a
brainwashed assassin?

Now, among the MKUltra documents that
survive, we have a report, an internal

report, which a woman under hypnotic
control

who had previously expressed a morbid
fear of firearms, took a gun, held it to

the head of another woman, and pulled
the trigger, and then subsequently had

memory of what it was that she had done.

Now, this was all just a test in
clinical circumstances, but it was, by

accounts, done, which sounds, just for
the sake of argument, eerily like what

Sirhan Sirhan claimed.

that he had no memory of what had been
done.

We don't know whether Sirhan was
involved with the MKUltra program, but

possibility certainly exists.

We do know that many individuals were
put through very extreme

and it does appear to be scientifically
possible to utilize various techniques,

including hypnosis and applying
psychoactive drugs.

to create somebody who kills without
being knowledgeable about doing that.

Imagine the possibilities if only half
of this, a third of it, if

10 % of it worked, and most of the
records have been wiped. And that itself

should tell you something.

I don't think it was just because there
were things that were done illegally.

It was because there was stuff in that
that was never supposed to be known.

You're left with haunting possibilities.

It's frightening to think that mind
control can activate a person to commit

murder. Yet the sensory specialized
training of another kind has created

many believe are the perfect assassins.

It's a group of killers rumored to
possess supernatural powers that allow

to stealthily and silently eliminate
their targets.

Iga City, Miya Prefecture, Japan.

This town is home to the Igario Museum
that houses over 400 artifacts

and deadly weapons.

once used by the most iconic assassins
in all of history.

The ninja.

The ninja were master assassins.

Their name translates to hidden ones or
the concealed ones.

Traditionally in Japan, they were
referred to as shinobi.

They emerged in Japan probably around
the 14th or 15th century.

during a period of prolonged civil war
between various daimyos or local

regional lords vying for supremacy.

The skill set of ninjas was mainly
assassination as well as espionage,

infiltration, subterfuge.

The ninja arts or ninjutsu was seen by
the samurai as completely dishonorable.

But the ninja had no qualms about this,
and their main focus was achieving their

objective no matter what.

The ninja or shinobi made their mark on
history from the 12th to the 17th

century.

Today, the ninja are long gone.

But, remarkably, there's still one
shinobi left in Japan.

His name is Jinichi Kawakami.

I come from a family that has passed
down what is known as the shinobi

of the Koga region. In the old family
tradition, parents,

grandfather, and even grandmother passed
down these teachings to their children

and grandchildren.

And I learned it the same way.

Teaching starts around age six.

As muscles and bones develop, we
gradually progress to more intense

endurance exercises that require great
patience.

Shinobis are often associated with
assassins.

A shinobi is someone who does things
that are not visible to the public.

It involves technique related to
military espionage, strategy, and

attacks.

While ninjas are often thought of as
assassins, they functioned primarily as

spies trained in the arts of stealth and
deception.

Their mastery of weapons made them the
most feared special operatives in feudal

Japan.

Ninjas were famous for disguising
themselves as priests, sometimes even as

maidens, as laborers, and as merchants.

blending in with the general population,
and then they could strike at the

opportune moment to hit their target.

Their weapons, too, were unsuspicious.
The traditional ninja sword is

considerably shorter than the samurai
sword, which they could carry with them

very easily, hide them if necessary.

They could take a household item or
tools used in agriculture, so they would

attract attention if they were walking
down the streets with them.

and then turned it into a deadly weapon.

As for methods, the most common approach
was to injure someone using

conventional weapons.

Then, there are techniques such as
administering poison through the

They were extremely skilled at using
gunpowder.

There are various techniques, such as
mixing flammable substances with water,

creating explosions.

and even mixing substances to produce
poisonous gases.

Ninjutsu is a military art. For that
reason, I have stated that I will no

teach the aspects of ninjutsu.

While the ninja were very real, to this
day there's still very little we know

about them because their deadly
techniques were passed down.

In secret.

There were different families that
supported ninjutsu, and these families

trained in these arts.

But nobody knew or went on inside their
training.

These secrets were passed down from
father to son, from uncle to nephew, and

inside of secret schools.

And they had to write blood oaths to say
they wouldn't pass them on. It was only

later that these documents started to be
written.

So, we don't have many documents for the
ninja, but what we do know is that once

a ninja had targeted you, there was very
little chance of survival.

It was extremely rare to keep records,
as they were confidential, and the

techniques themselves could not be
disclosed to others.

There was a risk involved, and keeping
them secret was essential for survival,

as revealing them to enemies would
increase the danger.

Therefore, a culture of secrecy
naturally developed.

While the ninja may have hidden their
history, training, and techniques, there

may be an even greater secret yet to be
revealed.

Because according to Japanese folklore,
it is said that the ninjas were imbued

with supernatural powers.

The ninja really, really engaged with
the dark arts of magic.

What they would do is build up their
spells, get their ingredients, and then

before their mission, create something
that would allow them to see in the

They would be wearing talismans, magical
hairpins that they would put in their

hair to help them with the arts of
invisibility.

They believed they could bring the power
of the moon down to enclose them in

black clouds.

And in this way, they believed they
could get in and kill their target.

They believed this, and the people
around them believed this.

This image of the ninja as being endowed
with supernatural skills was...

historically not seemed to be a kind of
legend or lore. It was actually believed

by the populace, and as a result, they
were terrified of them.

So because of the lack of records
surrounding the ninja, it's a great

what extent we even understand the
ninjas and the full extent of their

abilities, and to what extent their
abilities might have been somehow divine

supernatural.

This massive part that is unknown about
them could be a lot more than what we

ever imagined.

The lore of the ninjas and their silent
supernatural powers has certainly ruined

them. Their iconic reputation.

But when it comes to the deadliest
slayers in history, there is one group

skills were so feared, their name became
the origin of the word assassin.

Masyaf Castle, Syria, 1176 A .D.

The feared warrior Sultan Saladin and
his mighty armies surround this imposing

mountain fortress as they continue their
conquest of the Middle East.

But these forces would be no match to
the powerful guardians of this castle,

a mysterious and deadly Muslim sect.

known as the Hashashin, or quite simply,
the Assassins.

During the 12th century, Saladin set up
a camp to encircle their fortress in

Masyar, which was the base of operations
for the Order of the Assassins.

And he set up a siege.

You know, people inside the castle would
be starved to death.

One night, he went to bed, as he usually
did in his tents in the camp.

and he always took extreme precautions
to defend against an eventual

assassination attempt.

He had a system with little bells that
would be triggered if someone passed a

certain perimeter, and the tent itself
was heavily guarded.

That night, however, he awoke feeling a
presence.

When he opened his eyes, he didn't see
anyone next to him, but he did see a

dagger. Next to his bed, stabbed through
a note.

And in the note, it said, if you do not
lift the siege, next

time you will be dead.

As a result, Saladin lifted the siege.

The message that had been sent to him
was clear.

If we wanted you dead, you would no
longer be breathing.

The Hashashin operated in Syria, Persia,
Turkey.

And throughout the Middle East, from the
11th to the 13th century, the word

assassin is literally derived from their
name, based on their mission and

menacing presence.

The assassins, their story begins in
1090 when a character called Hassan

goes to a castle, Alamut, which is in
the mountains now in modern Iran.

He hides himself away in this castle.

and trains young men to be killers.

His idea is to build a force of young
men who can

assassinate political leaders amongst
their enemies.

Almost immediately, they have a
fantastic success, where two assassins

to kill a character called Nizam al
-Mulk, who is the de facto leader of the

Islamic world.

at the time. That sends shockwaves
through the Islamic world.

After Hassan Sabah died in 1123, there
were a number of leaders who

took over and carried on the tradition.

So they had an enormous impact.

These Athens were bringers of death.

They began trying to expand their
influence by seizing more fortresses so

could form a coherent network.

They also started sending out people.

who essentially went on suicide missions
to assassinate political enemies,

ranging from local judges to the rulers
and leaders of entire cities.

And they're using daggers to hit their
targets.

You had no idea where they might come,
when they might come. All your life's

work might come to an end with a single
blow of a dagger.

That's always a very scary thing,
especially when put together with just

fanatical they were.

How did the leaders of the Hashishin
inspire such devotion?

Perhaps clues can be found with
intriguing claims made by the famed

merchant and explorer Marco Polo, whose
journey through the Middle East in the

13th century was chronicled in The
Travels of Marco Polo.

Marco Polo mentions the assassins and
talks about the

legend of the old man of the mountains,
this character Hassan Sabah, and how he

would command his young men to go and
kill for political reasons.

Marco Pello mentioned how they would
leap off towers at the command of Hassan

Sabah. He would just tell them, you
know, jump, and they would jump off the

of a castle and kill themselves.

Marco Polo comes to the Middle East in a
world where there's already a lot of

lurid tales circulating about the
Avathans and what they represent and who

are. And he claims in his book that the
old man in the mountain, he recruits

young men, drugs them with hashish,
takes them to a pleasure garden in

accosted with all sorts of beautiful
women, given all sorts of luxurious food

and drink.

And then once they sobered up a little,
the old man in the mountain would say,

look, what you've experienced was
paradise. And if you assassinate the

who I don't like, then you can
experience this paradise for eternity.

And so that has played a large role in
creating this image of how the assassins

or Hashashin would be in drug -induced
cases as they went around killing their

enemies.

Were the Hashishis really transformed
into fanatics from drug -fueled

experiences with hashish, a concentrated
form of cannabis in some kind of

pleasure garden?

While it was a story told by both their
enemies and Europeans alike, no one

knows the whole truth.

But one of the greatest mysteries
surrounding the group that helped coin

term assassin is how they managed to
survive.

For nearly 200 years.

The assassins were without armies and
without wealth, and yet mysteriously

survived for centuries.

The assassins were hunted and hated by
rival Islamic factions.

Historians believe the assassins were
among the first to wield assassination

a long -term strategy.

It's entirely possible that fear was the
assassins' most powerful weapon.

They didn't need an army.

Just a reputation.

While the half machine may be gone, the
fact that their name continues to invoke

fear centuries after their demise is a
testament to their deadly legacy.

But some ancient assassins were so
shadowy that we're still not certain if

actually existed.

Like in the case of a religious cult
based in India during the 13th century.

who many claim were responsible for the
murder of more than 2 million people.

India, the 1830s.

The British East India Company, an
organization that began as a private

corporation, is now the greatest
political and military power in all of

Commanding a private army of 250 ,000
soldiers,

They now occupy, control, and govern
much of the Indian subcontinent.

But during their colonial conquest, the
British are faced with a mysterious

group of killers they call the Thuggy,
or simply the Thugs.

The Thugs were a criminal fraternity, or
a mafia, who operated in India.

The thugs' way of working was to travel
the roads in India, the byways, and when

they came across groups of travellers
who had wealth, they would befriend them

and start travelling with them.

They would sometimes spend weeks worming
their way into the confidence of

groups.

And then, at a prearranged signal, they
would get into position and pounce.

One man would grab the hands of the
victim, another might kick the feet

and then finally a long scarf, the rumal
they called it, would be thrown around

the neck and they'd strangle the victim.

They were so practiced at it that they
could take out whole groups of people

simultaneously.

Once they'd killed everybody, they'd
strip them and search their baggage, and

then they would bury the bodies.

sometimes alive.

Before first light, they would be gone.

They were assassins in the way they
worked. They used stealth, they used

disguise, they would befriend you, their
weapons were concealed, but there was

no political aspect to what they were
doing. They were in it for the money.

It's been estimated that the thuggy, who
cemented the word thug in the English

language, robbed and strangled millions
of victims.

But the British authorities in India
believe this shadowy group of assassins

killed their victims for much more than
financial gain.

It was believed they were performing
ritual sacrifices.

The Thuggies were rumored to be devotees
of the Hindu goddess Kali.

who is commonly associated with a time
with death and destruction as well.

And they viewed their actions as a way
of offering these sacrifices to the

goddess in order to save off a larger
scale destruction of humanity.

So Kali would need to be propitiated
with these sacrifices, with the

of human lives.

And the Thuggis saw themselves as
fulfilling this.

for the goddess.

The image of Kali that is commonly seen
is of a woman with wild black hair, four

arms, one of them carrying a severed
head, another a bloody knife, wearing a

garland of human skulls and a skirt of
human arms.

It's a pretty terrifying image.

Did the thugs really assassinate
millions of travelers in order to

bloodthirsty goddess?

Perhaps the answer can be found with the
man who was largely responsible for the

eradication of the Fuggy, a British
officer with the East India Company

Captain William Sleeman.

Banditry wasn't unusual, but this seemed
to be something more than that.

And William Sleeman applied what you
might call more modern criminological

methods to try to deal with this.

And the way that Sleeman actually broke
up, Tuggy was through pretty much the

same method that the FBI uses to break
up the mafia.

You get informers, you catch people, and
you give them a lighter sentence to rat

out their comrades.

It works.

There was a tug which was arrested by
the name of Baram.

He claimed that he had been a witness to
more than 900 stranglings.

and that he personally had strangled
thousands of people. The activities only

became visible when you began to collect
and collate information.

When Sleeman started to capture the
thugs, he became convinced that they

religious cult, sacrificing victims to
Kali.

And I think those British in the 19th
century took this as a sort of demonic

cult.

The public hysteria in Europe grew to
such an extent that it was totally

accepted as truth that the thugs were a
cult of religious sacrifices, were

strangling people by the million in
India.

The question is, was that true, and to
what extent?

I mean, some historians believe that
thug gangs didn't exist.

And we'll never know, of course, how
many of the men Lehman arrested were

actually stranglers and how many were
innocent people.

We will never know for sure.

Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13th, 2024.

Republican presidential nominee Donald
Trump is giving a speech to a crowd on

outdoor stage when suddenly...

Multiple gunshots ring out.

On July 13, 2024, Donald Trump, then a
candidate for president of the United

States, was speaking in an open field.

As he was speaking, a young man who had
climbed onto a roof fired at Trump.

And miraculously, Trump turned his head
at the last second and the bullet merely

grazed his ear.

That man then was shot by a Secret
Service sharpshooter.

The recent attempt at assassinating
Donald Trump, had that succeeded,

and probably the world would be very
different places.

While Donald Trump would escape his life
and become the 47th president of the

United States, his attempted assassin.

20 -year -old Thomas Matthew Crooks was
shot dead.

To this day, his motives remain unknown.

But he's far from the only assassin in
American history that still raises

unanswered questions.

What do we really know about the
assassination of President John F.

The man officially credited with killing
JFK was Lee Harvey Oswald.

Who was Lee Harvey Oswald?

Well, it depends upon who you ask.

Loner, misfit, communist, Marine, all
-American boy.

That's still a matter of ongoing debate.

Of all the assassins I know, James Earl
Ray, who assassinated Martin Luther

King, he is the most enigmatic.

It's really unclear what was going on
with him, why he did it, did he act

It's a secret that's gone to the grave,
and I think we'll never know.

Do we know why there were two assassins
who tried to kill President Gerald Ford

in 1975?

We spend and have spent huge amounts of
time and money exploring how assassins

are able to shoot at and or kill their
victims.

We spend relatively little time
examining why.

While the true motives of many assassins
remain enigmatic, the most unsettling

truth is that they strike without
warning.

When will another deadly assassin
unleash their vengeance on a person of

and influence, and through unspeakable
tragedy, shape the future?

It's difficult to know what would happen
today if a high -profile person were

assassinated.

We would hope that an event like this
would not have a disastrous effect on

American democracy.

But the idea that the assassination of
leaders is a thing of the past, I think,

is clearly wrong.

Stories of assassination, they remain
puzzling.

They remain uncertain.

I think people are always going to delve
into them more deeply, to really unpack

the nuances.

the hiddenness, the strangeness of these
kinds of history -changing events.

They really do matter.

The idea that an assassin can change the
course of history is both profound

and deeply chilling. What would our
world be like if the bullets aimed at

had missed on that fateful day in
Dallas, or if Archduke Ferdinand had

his hitman?

Unfortunately, we'll never know.

But one thing is certain, as long as
humans' posture for power and political

gain will simply need their secrets kept
quiet, there will come a day when an

assassin makes another deadly mark on
history, and their motives and methods

may forever remain unexplained.