Uncle John’s
BATHROOM
READER®
PLUNGES
INTO
HISTORY
Uncle John’s
BATHROOM
READER®
PLUNGES
INTO
HISTORY
The Bathroom Readers’
Hysterical Society
Ashland, OR
San Diego, CA
UNCLE JOHN’S
BATHROOM READER
PLUNGES INTO HISTORY
© 2001 by Portable Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
“Bathroom Reader,” “Portable Press,” and “The Bathroom Readers’ Institute” are registered trademarks of Baker & Taylor, Inc. All rights reserved.
For information, write
The Bathroom Readers’ Institute
P.O. Box 1117
Ashland, OR 97520
email: mail@bathroomreader.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-60710-463-6
E-book edition: December 2011
Project Team:
Gordon Javna, Publisher
JoAnn Padgett, Director, Editorial & Production
Elizabeth McNulty, Staff Editor
Stephanie Spadaccini, Senior Project Editor
Susan Steiner, Project Editor
Allison Bocksruker, Project Manager
THANK YOU!
The Bathroom Readers’ Hysterical Institute
sincerely thanks the people whose
advice and assistance made this book possible.
Melinda Allman
Jeff Altemus
Rudy Babauta
Bernadette Baillie
Michael Brunsfeld
Dale Cornelius
Bruce Derkash
John Dollison
Kait Fairchild
John Fritzenkotter
Laurel Graziano
John “J-Ho” Hogan
Jack Jennings
Paddy Laidley
Georgine Lidell
Dan Mansfield
Kathy Missell
Mana Monzavi
Pam Lopez-Morlett
Janet Nelson
Ellen O’Brien
Kelly Padgett
Ken Padgett
John Rowinski
Arnold Schmidt
Annette Sobel
Sydney Stanley
Kent Steigerwald
Charlie Tillinghast
Cindy Tillinghast
Marty Vrabel
Cheri White
CONTENTS
A MOVING EXPERIENCE
It’s a Gas
The Quest for Longitude
Life Insurance with Your Latte?
They Called Her “Lady Lindy”
ARTSY-FARTSY
When Readers Moved Their Lips
Digitized History
Immanuel Kant Tries Comedy
Bad History! Bad!
Van Gogh: An Ear for Trouble
Unmasking Mona Lisa
AS THE WORLD TURNS
A Pox On Your House
Canada’s Red Baron
The Mongol Horde
How Mosquitoes Changed History
History’s Greatest Travel Bargain
The Great Leap Backward
Anagrams
The Ancient City of King Solomon?
Why Do They Call It the Dark Ages?
When Childhood Was Born
With a Little Help from Barbarians
BOUDOIR, BATH & BEYOND
Dirty Secrets in the History of Hygiene (Part I): Man on the Can
Dirty Secrets in the History of Hygiene (Part II): Rub-a-Dub-Dub
Dirty Secrets in the History of Hygiene (Part III): Smile
Class of the Head
CRUSADES & CRUSADERS
I Love a Crusade
The Crusade to End All Crusades
The Crusader Follies
Death of a Revolutionary
My Heroes!
Crusade of the Stars
The Crusade That Wasn’t
Finally, the Last Crusades
DEAD ENDS
A Taste for the Unusual
What a Way to Go! Immortal, But Dead
The Real Body Snatchers
Tombstone Territory
Here Lies
Grave Matters
Deathless Prose
Dear Departed: Burial Customs and Curiosities
Goodbye Cruel World
DON’T QUOTE ME ON THAT
Proven Wrong by History: Part I
Proven Wrong by History: Part II
Historical Hindsights
Proven Wrong by History: Part III
FASHION VICTIMS
A Hair Piece
Makeup to Die For
Men in Skirts
Tie One On
Uncovering Underwear
Abe Lincoln, Harbinger of Fashion?
These Boots Aren’t Made for Walking
FIGHTING WORDS
Them’s Fightin’ Words: Colonialism
Them’s Fightin’ Words: In the Trenches
Them’s Fightin’ Words: At Sea
Them’s Fightin’ Words: Korea
GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN
Lady Killer
Buccaneer Babes
She Was Only a Pharaoh’s Daughter. . .
Mata Hari, the Spy Who Wasn’t
Ladies First
HOAXES
World’s Greatest Hoaxes, Plus One
An 1844 Flight Over the Atlantic? Who Said So!
Grey Owl
IT’S ALL ANCIENT HISTORY
7 Wonders of the Ancient World
Port-a-Fortress
It’s All Greek to Me
Stomped to Death by “Little Boots”
“Vandal-ized”
Rome at the Fall of the Empire
LAW & ORDER
The Code of Hammurabi
The Dreyfus Affair, and No, It’s Not a Sex Scandal
Ye Olde Crime and Punishment
History’s Hannibal Lecter
From Italy to Little Italy, the Mafia Comes to America
LET’S EAT
Food a Millennium Ago
Coffee Klatch
My Dinner With Attila
The Rich History of Chocolate
Fiesta!
Want Fries With That?
Don’t Hold the Mayo!
MEDICINE
Pardon Me, Fritz—Is That My Leg Doing the Polka?
Breaking the Mold: The Discovery of Penicillin
Hippocrates, M.D.
Mr. Jenner and the Milkmaid
Nurse Nightingale
Dammit, Jim, I’m a Doctor! And a Medical Hobbyist!
Milk, Microbes, & Mad Dogs
MIXED BAG
How Short Was Napoleon?
The Hamilton Affair
Cowboys? We Call ‘Em Sissies!
Hey, What About Those Freemasons?
The Ambling Room
Best List of Bests
Handicap? What Handicap?
MUSIC TO MY EARS
White Guys with Small Heads Didn’t Invent the Banjo
What’s So Big About Wagner?
Hitting the High Notes
Paganini Has Left the Building
Taking Note: Musical Notation
History’s Hit Makers
PEOPLE-POURRI
Mother Goosed
Anna & the King: Fact or Fiction
Carousing Charisma
Gypsies: Tramps and Thieves?
Mister Sam, the Whiskey Man
Talking ‘bout the Titanic
The Invasion of America
The Strange Constitution of Stonewall Jackson
Pop Was A Pope and I’m a Poisoner. Who Am I?
Listen, My Children. . .
Pocahontas: The Non-Disney Version
ROYAL FLUSH
Best Hideously Inbred Royal Family: The Hapsburgs
8 1/2 Not-so-Victorian Things About Queen Victoria
The Swan King’s Castles
The Hunchback of Northern Fame: The Story of Richard III
Her Majesty’s a Pretty Nice Girl
The Adultery Awards
SAINTS & SINNERS
Pope-Pourri
The Pope was a Lady
Best Crackpot Religious Leader: Rasputin
Heavy Mettle
Saint ‘Hood
Three Wise Men
SCIENCE
Hear About the Big Bang?
Better Living Through Alchemy
Breaking the Code: Cryptanalysis
The Sticky Historian
Don’t Let Your Daughters Grow Up to be Poets
Darwin’s Cousin and the Apes
SPORTS
The Making of a Marathon
Nazi Olympics
The Olympics Exposed
The Game
STRANGE BUT TRUE
The Fish that Beat Napoleon
Without a Leg to Stand On
Peddling Pricey Petals
Deadly as Molasses in January
Waste of a Good Basketball Team
This Side Up
The King Who Stole the Congo
Would it Kill You to Become Emperor of Mexico?
Before They Were Nazis
THE REAL WORLD
The Real Count Dracula
The Real Jekyll & Hyde
The Real Braveheart
The Real Robinson Crusoe
The Real Lady Godiva
Will the Real Shakespeare Please Take a Bow?
The Real Spartacus
The Real Captain Bligh
WAR—WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR?
Catcher, Lawyer, Linguist, Spy
The Longbow: Not For Sissies
Is This the Smell of Progress?
Hitler the Bum
I Ain’t Giving Back That Medal
Double-Crossed by a Dead Man
Monumental Waste of Effort: The Maginot Line
Most Lopsided War: Spanish-American War
The 100 Years’ War
A Snowball’s Chance
What Were the Wars of the Roses?
The Phantom Army
The Original Dogfights
The Battle of Trafalgar
WHAT A FIND!
Poles Apart
Cortès and the Feathered Serpent
It’s Not Easy Being Marco Polo
The Real Legacy of Christopher Columbus
New World Order
Henry the Navigator
Who Conquered the North Pole?
Which Way Did They Go?
WHAT A GREAT IDEA!
Wear Computers Came From
Off With Their Heads!
The Monster That Philo Made
More Bounce to the Ounce
The Tooth About Dentures
To Hill and Gone
Magnificent Failure
WHEREWORDS: A QUIZ
WhereWords: A Quiz (His Closet)
WhereWords: A Quiz (The Bathroom)
WhereWords: A Quiz (Knight Life)
WhereWords: A Quiz (Countries of the World)
WhereWords: A Quiz (Cities of the World)
WhereWords: A Quiz (Her Closet)
WhereWords: A Quiz (The Kitchen Table)
WhereWords: A Quiz (Miscellaneous)
WORDPLAY
Being a Nosey Parker
Mesmerized
Riddles: A Serious Subject
Burning with Good Intentions
Spooner: The Man and His “Isms”
INTRODUCTION
* * *
Made it! We’ve finally reached the introduction, which is always the last stop on the Uncle John’s Express before press time. And as always, it’s been one heck of a ride.
We started putting out an annual Bathroom Reader in 1988. And after Uncle John’s All Purpose Extra-Strength— our lucky thirteenth edition—we decided that maybe it was time to flush out our system. . .a decision that brought us to our first Number Two in history.
For years, we heard all you history buffs out there who kept bugging us for “bigger, better, more history, now!” So in addition to our annual fall compendium of “All the Poop That’s Fit to Print,” we busted our hump (our second hump?) to give you yet another (whew!) authoritative Uncle John’s devoted entirely to. . .you guessed it. . .History.
In twenty-nine sections ranging all over the map, we’ve plumbed the depths of two millennia to bring you history at its best, funniest, and most interesting. Like the History Channel, but without the cheesy actors, Uncle John’s Plunges into History shows you knights and ladies and the pots they peed in; saints and sinners and the bloody battles they fought; kings, queens, and inbetweens, in fact, the entire Royal Flush is represented; as are the real people and events that make up the most bizarre episodes you’ve never heard of. From the grueling tales of the food our ancestors ate, to the dirty secrets of historical hygiene (there’s a whole other meaning to “wrong end of the stick,” friends), we think we’ve got it wiped.
We know that nobody, history buff or not, wants to lug a crusty old history tome to the throne, so we’ve selected all the best bits—sanitized for your protection—for your reading pleasure, with plenty of full-length articles for longer sittings. So here it is—our first attempt at packing 400-plus pages of the same great stuff, only all about one (well, one pretty big) category: history.
And now it’s up to you, our loyal readers, to let us know what you think. This is a new thing for us, and we count on you to share your opinions with us. If there’s one thing we’ve learned in all our years at the BRI, it’s that our readers know what they like and they like to let us know too. Keep those letters and email acomin’. We aim to please.
Now, join us, won’t you, as Uncle John’s makes history.
—Uncle John and the BRI Staff
P.S. Check out our website at www.bathroomreader.com.
And email us at mail@bathroomreader.com.
We’d love to hear from you.
HEAR ABOUT THE BIG BANG?
* * *
Believe it or not.
According to most scientists, our universe started out as this eensy-weensy piece of matter and metamorphosed into an ever-expanding universe. For SUV owners and people of great girth, this is welcome news. Creation scientists, on the other hand, don’t believe it happened. And you generally can’t convince them that maybe God set off the explosion.
HUH?
Explanations of the Big Bang usually cause headaches among people who can’t program VCRs. That’s because the theory states, in essence, “A really long time ago there was nothing, and suddenly there was a whole lot of nothing, which was actually something, but nobody could really see it, even if there was somebody there, which there wasn’t.” Ouch!
The theory depends chiefly on the early theoretical work of Albert Einstein, the man who invented the “Bad Hair Day.”
THE MAN WHO HEARD THE BANG
Russian-American physicist George Gamow announced the Big Bang Theory in 1948. It was based on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Cosmological Principle. (Liberal Arts majors: You may want to reach for the aspirin.)
HERE’S WHAT IT SAYS
Some 12 to 14 billion years ago, maybe longer, the portion of the universe we can see today was only a few millimeters across (that’s a little smaller than a gnat) and extremely hot (that’s HOT). The
bang in question is the expansion of this small, hot, dense state into the vastly expanding and much cooler cosmos we currently inhabit. The universe is still expanding, gradually increasing the distance between our galaxy and other galaxies. Astronomers have actually observed this, and it fits very nicely with the theory. For a theory to be taken seriously on its way to becoming accepted as fact, it has to undergo rigorous testing. Since 1948, when Gamow first mentioned it, scientists have found the Big Bang Theory consistent with a number of important observations:
• Astronomers can observe the expansion of the universe.
• There is an observed abundance of helium, deuterium, and lithium in the universe—three elements that scientists think were synthesized primarily in the first three minutes (wow!) of the universe.
• The existence of significant amounts of cosmic microwave background radiation.
The first ever income tax was levied in Great Britain, to fund the wars against Napoleon.
This last, the cosmic microwave background radiation, is an important observation because radiation appears hotter in distant clouds of gas. Since light travels at a finite speed, we see these distant clouds at an earlier time in the history of the universe, when it was denser and, therefore, hotter.
WILL THE UNIVERSE GO AWAY?
One of the questions that keeps paranoiacs awake most nights is whether the currently expanding universe will continue to expand or whether it will ultimately contract and implode. This last is a definite possibility, but it won’t happen tomorrow. We promise.
THE GRAVITY OF THE SITUATION
There’s lots more to it, all about how space and time are altered by gravity (yes, Space Rangers, in some models of space-time morphing, you may actually be your own grandfather!), and the possible shape of the universe—ball-shaped, saddle-shaped, flat, or maybe even doughnut-shaped. Which brings up the question of whether the universe is open or closed, that is, infinite or not.
THAT DOUGHNUT’S NOT FOR DUNKIN’
In a closed universe like the doughnut-shaped model, you could start off in one direction and, if allowed enough time, ultimately return to your starting point. In an infinite universe, you would never return. Which means that if Kirk and Spock were working in an infinitely expanding universe, they would never have returned to the Enterprise from Pralax V and we would have missed all those great syndicated reruns! And that would have been a shame.