Afterlife Savings
How did Ancient Egyptians prepare the brains of the deceased for mummification?
Burning Irony
How did the Great London Fire of 1666 save more human lives than it took?
Afterlife Savings
The Egyptians didn’t care about the brain. They believed that the heart was the source of thought and feeling, and that the brain was an insignificant mass of tissue. Before carefully preparing the heart, liver, intestines, and other vital organs for the trip to the next world, Egyptian embalmers inserted a type of whisk into the cranium through the dead person’s nostril and then whipped the brain into a gooey liquid for easy extraction—also through the nose.
Burning Irony
In 1666 the Great London Fire started in a bakery on Pudding Lane and burned for several days. By the time it was out, 80 percent of London’s structures were gone, leaving tens of thousands of people homeless. Although only a handful of deaths were reported, there were probably many more because most of the dead were peasants, and they weren’t counted.
But one thing is known—untold thousands of lives were saved. How? The fire occurred not long after a breakout of the bubonic plague. The plague was spread by fleas that jumped from rats to humans. The rats, in turn, lived in London’s homes and other buildings. After the fire, with most of the buildings gone, the vermin had no place to hide…and became easy prey for London’s hungry dogs and cats. Result: The plague outbreak ended.
Unholy Matrimony
Two world conquerors, centuries apart. One from the East and one from the West. Two weddings. Two disastrous wedding nights. Who were they?
Urban Sprawl
What ancient city’s population grew so large that its leaders literally expanded the ground beneath it?
Unholy Matrimony
Attila the Hun and Napoleon Bonaparte. On Napoleon’s wedding night in 1796, Josephine insisted on letting her dog—a pug named Fortuné—sleep in the bed with them. When Napoleon climbed in to the bed, Fortuné bit him on the leg, leaving the French conqueror terrified that he’d contracted rabies. Napoleon didn’t get rabies, but his one-night relationship with dogs was over. (He was, in fact, a cat person, and later enacted a law that no French dogs could ever be named “Napoleon.”)
At least Napoleon survived his honeymoon. In A.D. 453, Attila the Hun wed a young woman named Ildico. After the wedding, Attila hosted a feast that lasted long into the night. When Ildico awoke the next morning, she discovered Attila’s lifeless body. Although some historians believe that he may have been murdered, most say the death was accidental: Attila likely suffered one of his chronic nosebleeds and was so drunk that he didn’t wake up…and drowned in his own blood.
Urban Sprawl
The Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. Built in the early 1300s, the city was home to 60,000 people. That was way too many for its location—an island in what is now Mexico’s Lake Texcoco. Solution: The people built large rafts from wood, covered them in mud, and used stakes to secure them to the lakebed. The floating outskirts supported homes and farmland.
The Riddler
The Romans first built it out of wood 2,000 years ago. A Norwegian prince named Olaf tore it down 1,000 years after that. It was rebuilt, then destroyed by a storm, and then rebuilt again, only to be destroyed by a fire. Roughly 500 years ago, a stone version was built that included homes, businesses, and a church. In the 1960s, it was moved thousands of miles away. Then it was rebuilt yet again near its original spot. What is it?
The Riddler
London Bridge—and yes, it has fallen down quite a few times over the years.
The bridge has had a storied history, to say the least. From the 1300s to the 1600s, the heads of England’s slain enemies—including, most famously, William Wallace and Thomas More—were displayed on the Stone Gateway on the bridge’s southern end. During that time, London Bridge was a bustling little village in its own right: Thousands of people passed over it and under it, lived inside homes that were built on top of it, shopped in its stores, and worshipped in its churches. (But there were no food stores, because there were no cellars to keep food cool.) It became so crowded that a separate bridge was erected nearby for pedestrians who needed to get over the river quickly.
After nearly sinking into the Thames because the foundation couldn’t support all of the weight, London Bridge was rebuilt yet again in 1831. The first ship to pass underneath it was the HMS Beagle, later made famous by the explorations of Charles Darwin. The bridge was replaced again in the 1920s, and yet again in 1962 after an American named Robert McCulloch purchased the old one for $2.5 million and moved it piece by piece to Lake Havasu City in Arizona (Guinness World Records lists it as the “world’s largest antique”). A new London Bridge was built in 1973 out of steel and concrete. Although it lacks the splendor of its glory days, thousands of people still cross London Bridge every day—just as they have for centuries.
Joe Ming?
Who was China’s Ming Dynasty named after?
The Wrath of Kon
Archaeologists trace the beginning of the Inca Empire back to A.D. 1150 in the Cuzco valley, now Peru. According to an Inca creation myth, why are the jungles full of monkeys?
Joe Ming?
That’s a trick question, because Ming was not a man but an adjective: It’s the Chinese word for “brilliant.”
In 1368 a Buddhist monk named Zhu Yuanzhang led a peasant rebellion that toppled the Mongol-ruled Yuan Dynasty, which was oppressing and overtaxing the ethnic Han people. For the next three centuries, Yuanzhang’s “brilliant” dynasty lived up to the name: Slavery was abolished, and peace, technology, wealth, and artistry flourished.
The Wrath of Kon
There are two Inca creation myths, both revolving around a god named Kon Tiki. In one myth, he was benevolent and began civilization. End of story. In the other, he took the form of a boneless man and created the sun, called Inti, as well as the first people and everything they needed to thrive. But over time, the people forgot about Kon Tiki’s gifts and rebelled against him. So Kon Tiki stopped the rain from falling, sending famine throughout the “Four Corners of the Earth,” as the region was called by its citizens. While the people lay dying, a new god emerged called Pachachamac. He battled Kon Tiki and drove him away…and turned the dying people into monkeys. Then Pachachamac created the Inca people, who (along with the monkeys in the forests) flourished for centuries. Then the Spanish arrived in South America and virtually wiped out the Incan culture.
Mother of Invention
What did a Japanese madame named Izumo no Okuni invent in the 1600s?
Satan Claus
Who is Santa Claus’s evil counterpart?
Mother of Invention
Kabuki theater, a precursor to modern musical theater. Okuni was a Shinto priestess (and rumored brothel owner) who trained her ladies to perform the first Kabuki plays in the dry river beds of Kyoto. The women played both male and female roles. The plays remained popular for three decades until women were banned from performing. Kabuki theater went on, but with men performing all the roles, which was seen as less scandalous. In the 20th century, women once again returned to the Kabuki stage.
Satan Claus
In Alpine European traditions dating back to pre-Christian times, there have been tales of “wild men” roaming the forests. One of these Pagan anti-heroes was turned into Santa’s satanic counterpart—the anti-Claus, as it were. His name is Krampus. The word comes from the German tern krampen, meaning “claw” (but it has nothing to do with the Claus in “Santa Claus”). Demonic in nature and appearance, Krampus has a snarling goatlike face, sharp teeth, and curved horns. He accompanies Santa on his Christmas journey, but instead of bringing gifts to the good kids, Krampus carries a collection of bad things for the naughty ones—switches, nightmares, and beatings.
Well, he used to. In recent years, Krampus has been deemed too scary for kids, so grown-up Austrians have adopted him as their mascot for a bo
ozy three-day weekend at the beginning of December known as Krampustag.
Really?
Whose head did Elizabeth Throckmorton carry around in a leather satchel for 29 years?
Really?
The embalmed head of her husband, Sir Walter Raleigh.
Before he lost his head, Raleigh, born in 1552, was a well-to-do English admiral, politician, explorer, and aristocrat. Most famously, he brought tobacco back from an expedition to the New World and popularized it among London’s elite. At the age of 28, Raleigh became a favorite courtier of Queen Elizabeth I and later named the Colony of Virginia after her (Elizabeth was known as “The Virgin Queen”). But Raleigh’s true love was the queen’s handmaiden, Elizabeth Throck-morton. The two secretly married in 1592. When the queen found out, she was devastated and briefly imprisoned the couple. After their release, Raleigh tried to win back Her Majesty’s favor by leading an expedition to find a legendary gold-rich land known as El Dorado in Venezuela. He failed.
The queen’s successor, King James I, disliked Raleigh and in 1600 imprisoned him for an alleged plot to overthrow the monarchy. After serving 12 years of a life sentence, Raleigh was given another chance to redeem himself. He set sail again to find El Dorado…and failed again. Even worse, he attacked some Spanish soldiers against James’s orders. Relations with the Spanish were strained, so in 1618, Raleigh, now 66 years old, was made an example of and beheaded. Throckmorton was inconsolable: She kept his embalmed head in her satchel for three decades until she died in 1647. Then the head was reunited with the rest of his corpse. You can visit both in the church of St. Margaret’s, Westminster.
Tick Tock
If Earth’s history were squeezed into one year, at what time on what day would humans appear?
Tick Tock
If Earth’s entire history were compressed into one 365-day year, modern humans wouldn’t show up until about 15 minutes to midnight on December 31.
This calculation is based on the prevailing theory that Earth is 4.6 billion years old. So, by this model, our planet was “born” on January 1 when it solidified into a ball. After a few “months” (a billion years or so) of wind and rain wearing down mountains and creating oceans, bacteria came along in late March. In June, most of North America was still underwater. In July, the first plant life appeared. In August, the first fish. In September, the first insects. Starting in October, the dinosaurs ruled for about a month. Then, right around the time a huge asteroid hit Earth just after Thanksgiving, the dinosaurs disappeared. On Christmas, the Colorado River began its long, slow process of carving the Grand Canyon. The first true mammals didn’t scurry about until sometime on December 28.
Finally, at noon on New Year’s Eve, hominids started standing up on their own two feet. At 11:00 p.m., the Neanderthals showed up. Modern humans didn’t join the party until 11:45 p.m., and they didn’t start building cities until about 11:55. At about 20 seconds to midnight, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. The next five centuries—though a blip on the geologic timescale—have seen a lot of things change on planet Earth. Let’s see what happens next year!
UNCLE JOHN’S
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Uncle John’s Impossible Questions & Astounding Answers Page 14