1 00:00:00,590 --> 00:00:05,259 This is the oldest known British passport to still exist; it was issued in 1636 and 2 00:00:05,259 --> 00:00:09,660 signed by King Charles I; it’s a little hard to read, but, basically, it says, “Hey, 3 00:00:09,660 --> 00:00:13,299 uh, King Charles here, please do not kill Sir Thomas Littleton while he’s in your 4 00:00:13,299 --> 00:00:16,440 country, or at least don’t kill him for the next three years, after that I don’t 5 00:00:16,440 --> 00:00:17,440 really care.” 6 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:21,100 Nowadays, passports aren’t issued by kings, they’re issued by national governments… 7 00:00:21,100 --> 00:00:23,400 except, of course, for when they’re not. 8 00:00:23,400 --> 00:00:27,949 You see, the vast majority of passports are documents of national identity—they prove 9 00:00:27,949 --> 00:00:32,980 that you are the citizen of a certain country—but there are a handful of rare, non-national 10 00:00:32,980 --> 00:00:35,579 passports that aren’t affiliated with any countries at all. 11 00:00:35,579 --> 00:00:38,660 And if you want to know what they are, all you have to do is not stop staring at your 12 00:00:38,660 --> 00:00:40,039 phone for the next four minutes. 13 00:00:40,039 --> 00:00:41,350 Here we go! 14 00:00:41,350 --> 00:00:44,450 The first kind of non-national passports are passports issued by, well… nations. 15 00:00:44,450 --> 00:00:49,570 But not the kind of nations that I’m referring to here, I’m talking about nations that 16 00:00:49,570 --> 00:00:51,070 aren’t countries. 17 00:00:51,070 --> 00:00:54,220 There are two main examples of this kind of passport, and both of them are in kind of 18 00:00:54,220 --> 00:00:58,710 a legal gray area, but both of them have also sometimes worked, so I feel like they’re 19 00:00:58,710 --> 00:01:00,460 at least worth an honorable mention. 20 00:01:00,460 --> 00:01:04,769 The first is the Iroquois passport, issued to indigenous members of the Six Nations in 21 00:01:04,769 --> 00:01:07,170 the US and Canada by the Grand Council of Chiefs. 22 00:01:07,170 --> 00:01:11,000 Both the US and Canada have stressed that this is not really a passport, but it has 23 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:16,420 been used by Iroquois people to successfully enter Japan, Israel, Ireland, and, yes, Canada—despite 24 00:01:16,420 --> 00:01:17,860 the best efforts of Canada. 25 00:01:17,860 --> 00:01:22,630 A similar document exists in Australia, issued by the self-declared Aboriginal Provisional 26 00:01:22,630 --> 00:01:26,240 Government—Australia doesn’t technically recognize the Aboriginal passport, but has 27 00:01:26,240 --> 00:01:29,350 allowed people to re-enter Australia with it on the condition that they wouldn’t do 28 00:01:29,350 --> 00:01:33,060 it again, which means it exists in roughly the same legal gray area as wearing a hat 29 00:01:33,060 --> 00:01:35,899 that says “The Civil Aviation Safety Authority Are A Bunch Of Dweebs.” 30 00:01:35,899 --> 00:01:40,399 The next passport on our list is this one—that of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta; 31 00:01:40,399 --> 00:01:45,220 it is one of the rarest passports I’m gonna talk about, with only about 500 in existence, 32 00:01:45,220 --> 00:01:49,469 but it’s 100% legitimate, ICAO-compliant, and officially recognized by… 33 00:01:49,469 --> 00:01:51,090 some countries, at least. 34 00:01:51,090 --> 00:01:54,070 For those of you who aren’t up to date on the latest sovereign military orders, the 35 00:01:54,070 --> 00:01:57,930 Sovereign Military Order of Malta is a religious order of the Catholic Church who—between 36 00:01:57,930 --> 00:02:01,000 the time that they were gifted the island of Malta by Siciliy in 1530 and the time they 37 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:05,270 were gifted an ass-kicking by Napoleon in 1798—controlled the island of Malta. 38 00:02:05,270 --> 00:02:09,060 The French occupation of the entirety of their territory might’ve made weaker-willed nations 39 00:02:09,060 --> 00:02:12,390 give up, but the Order of Malta said, “Oh you think we’re not going to be a country 40 00:02:12,390 --> 00:02:14,349 just because we don’t have a country anymore? 41 00:02:14,349 --> 00:02:15,819 Well we’ll show you!” 42 00:02:15,819 --> 00:02:18,280 And then just didn’t stop being a country. 43 00:02:18,280 --> 00:02:19,280 Kind of. 44 00:02:19,280 --> 00:02:22,410 They’ve continued, without any territory at all, to enter into diplomatic relationships 45 00:02:22,410 --> 00:02:27,140 with other countries, sign treaties, mint coins, and yes, issue passports. 46 00:02:27,140 --> 00:02:31,370 Nowadays, the Order mostly exists as a humanitarian organization, and the passports are issued 47 00:02:31,370 --> 00:02:35,030 to high-ranking members, their families, and as temporary “service passports” to anyone 48 00:02:35,030 --> 00:02:38,590 else in the Order who needs to travel for special assignments, which expire at the end 49 00:02:38,590 --> 00:02:39,590 of their trip. 50 00:02:39,590 --> 00:02:43,970 A similar type of service passport is issued by the UN, the EU, and a few other supranational 51 00:02:43,970 --> 00:02:48,010 non-quite-countries—it’s called a “laissez-passer,” which pretty much just translates to “I’m 52 00:02:48,010 --> 00:02:49,750 a French guy saying passport.” 53 00:02:49,750 --> 00:02:52,720 If a UN staff member needed to travel to a foreign country to waggle their finger at 54 00:02:52,720 --> 00:02:56,420 a human rights violation, they would likely travel with one of these; in addition to serving 55 00:02:56,420 --> 00:03:00,250 as a passport, it also grants them certain perks like immunity to border control inspections 56 00:03:00,250 --> 00:03:02,510 and an excuse to keep telling people you work for the UN. 57 00:03:02,510 --> 00:03:08,950 Now, if you’re a big hotshot over at the UN, you might get one of these—a red laissez-passer. 58 00:03:08,950 --> 00:03:12,380 This passport gives the holder all of the same legal immunities as a foreign diplomat, 59 00:03:12,380 --> 00:03:16,260 making it one of the few objects in the world that you can legally beat someone to death 60 00:03:16,260 --> 00:03:17,260 with. 61 00:03:17,260 --> 00:03:21,000 Speaking of beating people to death with no legal repercussions, our next subject is the 62 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:22,000 police. 63 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:26,030 Specifically, the International Police—or Interpol—who, since 2009, have been able 64 00:03:26,030 --> 00:03:29,220 to issue themselves non-national passports. 65 00:03:29,220 --> 00:03:33,189 Interpol primarily serves to track criminals and terrorists across national borders, meaning 66 00:03:33,189 --> 00:03:37,500 that crossing those borders is something that they do a lot and, preferably, pretty quickly. 67 00:03:37,500 --> 00:03:40,920 The Interpol passport was created as a way to get the officers through customs as quickly 68 00:03:40,920 --> 00:03:44,640 as possible, but as far as I can tell, the only thing that it actually does is waive 69 00:03:44,640 --> 00:03:46,920 visa requirements in certain countries. 70 00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:50,480 The Interpol website mentions all sorts of “state of the art technologies” built 71 00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:54,519 into the passport, but it never actually clarifies what those are or what they do, so I can only 72 00:03:54,519 --> 00:03:57,680 assume that the passport is also somehow an NFT. 73 00:03:57,680 --> 00:04:01,109 And finally, that leaves us with a question: what kind of passport can you get if you don’t 74 00:04:01,109 --> 00:04:04,620 have a nationality, but you also don’t happen to be part of a Catholic military order or 75 00:04:04,620 --> 00:04:06,750 international crime-fighting syndicate? 76 00:04:06,750 --> 00:04:11,400 Well it turns out, there is an answer—and for a good reason: at any given time, somewhere 77 00:04:11,400 --> 00:04:15,840 between 5 and 10 million people around the world are stateless, meaning that they don’t 78 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:19,530 belong to any country, and that’s kind of a problem if you need to go to anywhere that’s 79 00:04:19,530 --> 00:04:20,530 not Antarctica. 80 00:04:20,530 --> 00:04:23,040 If you’re one of these people, you might be able to get your hands on what’s called 81 00:04:23,040 --> 00:04:26,729 an “alien’s passport”—calling this a non-national passport is a little weird 82 00:04:26,729 --> 00:04:30,539 because they are usually issued by national governments, but they exist, specifically, 83 00:04:30,539 --> 00:04:33,280 to say, “hey, I’m sorta between countries right now.” 84 00:04:33,280 --> 00:04:36,461 Unlike the two previous passports on this list, the Alien’s passport doesn’t come 85 00:04:36,461 --> 00:04:39,919 with any fun perks like drunk driving, and, generally, comes with some additional headaches 86 00:04:39,919 --> 00:04:43,639 like alternate visa requirements and banned re-entry to the country that issued it. 87 00:04:43,639 --> 00:04:47,470 So if you were thinking of becoming a refugee just for the cool travel document, you might 88 00:04:47,470 --> 00:04:49,110 want to skip this one. 89 00:04:49,110 --> 00:04:52,660 Now, if you have one of these incredibly restrictive passports, or just want to get the feeling 90 00:04:52,660 --> 00:04:56,570 of travel without having to get off your couch, then I have some video recommendations for 91 00:04:56,570 --> 00:05:00,509 you: first, I’d watch our series Crime Spree—we made it about a year ago as a Nebula-exclusive 92 00:05:00,509 --> 00:05:03,920 series, and the jist of it was basically that the two HAI writers, Ben and Adam, chased 93 00:05:03,920 --> 00:05:07,290 me around the US, literally just trying to tag me, while I tried to break all sorts of 94 00:05:07,290 --> 00:05:09,110 those weird laws that you’ve probably seen HAI videos about. 95 00:05:09,110 --> 00:05:11,790 It’s a little weird but y’all seemed to love it. 96 00:05:11,790 --> 00:05:15,840 Then I’d watch City Beautiful’s fantastic series Great Cities, which not only transports 97 00:05:15,840 --> 00:05:19,260 you to cities around the world, but to their biggest moments in history. 98 00:05:19,260 --> 00:05:24,400 Both of these series’, and so, so much more, are exclusive to Nebula—the creator founded, 99 00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:27,970 owned, and operated streaming site where you get the best viewing experience and exclusive 100 00:05:27,970 --> 00:05:32,410 content from all sorts of creators that you probably already watch, including HAI, Wendover, 101 00:05:32,410 --> 00:05:35,520 Jet Lag, Real Life Lore, Legal Eagle, and so many more. 102 00:05:35,520 --> 00:05:39,400 What’s crazy about Nebula is how cheap it is to get access, thanks to CuriosityStream. 103 00:05:39,400 --> 00:05:43,160 They’re a whole other streaming site with this huge catalog of nonfiction shows and 104 00:05:43,160 --> 00:05:46,690 documentaries from big names like David Attenborough and Sam from Wendover, and they’re running 105 00:05:46,690 --> 00:05:51,680 a deal where by heading to our link, CuriosityStream.com/HAI, they’ll include a Nebula subscription for 106 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:55,110 free for as long as you stay subscribed to them, even when you get the annual plan that 107 00:05:55,110 --> 00:05:58,430 they have discounted right now to less than $15 a year. 108 00:05:58,430 --> 00:06:02,139 Over 30,000 HAI viewers have already signed up, and we can see with our daily-active-user 109 00:06:02,139 --> 00:06:05,449 stats that they’re actually using Nebula regularly—not just singing up and forgetting 110 00:06:05,449 --> 00:06:09,630 about it—so click the button on-screen or head over to CuriosityStream.com/HAI to sign 111 00:06:09,630 --> 00:06:11,850 up, and thanks in advance for your support.