Stupid History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions Throughout the Ages

by Leland Gregory

  In Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie’s first book featuring Peter Pan, the 1902 The Little White Bird, and the subsequent play from 1904, Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, Peter Pan flies with the Darling children to “Neverland,” not “Never-Never Land.” The latter became the popular reference because of the animated Disney film and Mary Martin’s popular musical adaptation in the early 1950s.

  A Fork in the Family Tree

  A man from Lancashire, England, Ian Lewis, spent three decades tracing his family’s roots back to the seventeenth century. Lewis traveled extensively in England, interviewing some 2,000 relatives, to map out his genealogy, and he learned something he didn’t know: He was adopted. It turned out his real name wasn’t Lewis at all, but David Thornton; he had been adopted when he was one month old. Lewis/ Thornton said he would start tracing his new identity immediately after he rooted out why his parents never told him he was adopted.

  George M. Cohan is one of the most-beloved composers in American history—giving us such classics as “The Yankee Doodle Boy,” which contains the lyrics, “A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam’s, / Born on the Fourth of July.” Cohan not only wrote these words but claimed July 4 as his birthday, too. But according to his baptismal certificate, apparently Cohan was yanking our doodle—he was born on the third of July, not the fourth, in 1878.

  The Winner of the “What Was He Thinking?” Was He Thinking Award

  Francisco Solano Lopez, president of Paraguay (1862-1870), after a trip to Paris, became obsessed with Napoleon (some say he even believed he was Napoleon). In 1864, to prove he had Napoleon’s leadership abilities, he simultaneously declared war on his country’s three neighbors: Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. The war was also known by three different names: the Napoleonic Wars, the War of the Triple Alliance, and the Paraguayan War. The outcome of the war? Paraguay was nearly annihilated. It is estimated that 90 percent of its population died during the war (as a result of battle, bad food, and disease). There is still debate over whether Lopez was a champion of smaller nations against more powerful neighbors or . . . well, a nut.

  Life Imitates Art Imitates Life

  The China Syndrome, starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas, was a 1979 film about a near-meltdown at a nuclear power plant. The term China syndrome sarcastically refers to highly radioactive fission products overheating and melting through the reactor’s container (supposedly melting “all the way to China”). The controversial film sparked fierce debate between anti-nuclear and pro-nuclear groups. One pro-nuke executive for Southern California Edison was quoted as saying, “[The movie] has no scientific credibility, and is in fact ridiculous.” The China Syndrome opened on March 16, 1979, and on March 28, Unit 2 nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, suffered a partial core meltdown—mirroring almost exactly the movie’s plot. The public’s negative reaction to the reactor became a core issue, causing a proactive meltdown against radioactivity.

  The lovable Muppet characters Bert and Ernie, from

  Sesame Street, were named after Bert, the cop, and Ernie, the

  taxi driver, in Frank Capra’s 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life.

  All Aboard the SS Guppy

  In the old Cap’n Crunch cereal commercials, the Cap’n’s nemesis, Jean LaFoote, the “barefoot pirate,” occasionally exclaimed, “Sacrebleu!” (He also said, “You can’t get away with the Crunch, because the crunch always gives you away,” but I digress.) So what does sacrebleu mean? Louis IX, who ruled France from 1226-1270, was very religious and didn’t allow “taking the Lord’s name in vain” in the form of swearing. In French, dieu means “God,” and it was common for people to exclaim “Pardieu!” (by God) or “Cordieu!” (God’s heart) or “Sacredieu!” (holy God). But since Louis, who was later canonized as Saint Louis, wouldn’t allow swearing anymore, people adapted their language and substituted the word dieu with the rhyming word bleu, meaning, well, “blue.” The words parbleu (by blue) and sacrebleu (holy blue) were born. Basically, it’s the equivalent of the American “holy cow.” And with that, I bid you adieu.

  Dropping a Load

  In January 1966, a KC-135 tanker collided with a B-52 during midair refueling, and the ensuing explosion released all four of the B-52’s 20-megaton nuclear bombs over Palomares, Spain. Two of the bombs’ explosive igniters detonated on impact, spreading radioactive plutonium over a large portion of the Spanish countryside. (Fortunately, no nuclear reaction took place.) The third bomb bounced off the ground and harmlessly nestled into a crater of its own making. The fourth bomb landed in the Mediterranean Sea. In order to retrieve that unexploded bomb, the U.S. Sixth Fleet, consisting of 33 ships and 3,000 men, searched for nearly three months before they could find and recover the weapon. I’m sure after they found the highly radioactive device, everyone was all aglow.

  Ten-gallon hats cannot hold ten gallons of anything—

  they don’t even hold one gallon. They are pretty much filled

  to the brim with three quarts.

  Bizarre Book Titles

  According to a report issued by the Book Industry Study Group, the number of books published per year is rapidly approaching 200,000. So they can’t all be blockbusters—heck, they can’t all even be good. Here are some examples of actual and historically bizarre book titles:• Animals as Criminals, J. Brand (1896)

  • A Pictorial Book of Tongue Coating, Anonymous (1981)

  • Fish Who Answer the Telephone, Professor Y. P. Frolov (1937)

  • Cancer: Is the Dog the Cause? Samuel Cort (1933)

  • The Romance of Leprosy, E. Mackerchar (1949)

  • The Baby Jesus Touch and Feel Book, Linda Parry and Alan Parry (1995)

  • Constipation and Civilization, J. C. Thomson (1943)

  A Healthy Constitution

  The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the United States and one of the most famous documents in history. The framers of the U.S. Constitution must have foreseen the document they crafted as being nearly flawless—but actually a lot of the delegates at the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787, hated it! Compromises had to be made in order to get some members of the convention to sign; fifteen never did. They all agreed that “something is better than nothing,” so they passed the Constitution with the proposal that new delegates could meet in a few years and draft a superior document. No new document was created and the Constitution as written remained. Alexander Hamilton was so unhappy with the document that in 1802 he called the Constitution “a frail and worthless fabric.”

  After his famous but failed midnight ride,

  Paul Revere submitted a bill for his expenses in the

  amount of ten pounds, four shillings.

  Telegraphic Liar

  The inventor of Morse code, Samuel Morse, we are told, invented the telegraph in 1844. It’s true he invented Morse code, but the telegraph itself was invented in 1831 by Joseph Henry, a Princeton University professor. So why is Morse given the credit? Because Professor Henry never applied for a patent. Morse obtained Henry’s sketches and papers and based his telegraph largely on the work already done by Henry. He even called the professor when he was stuck on a problem he couldn’t figure out, and Henry was always willing to assist and encourage Morse. But years later, when Morse became incredibly rich and famous, he would give no acknowledgment to Henry’s contribution to the creation of the telegraph—not a dot or a dash.

  Wagons, Ho!

  In movies about the westward expansion, we usually see settlers traveling in huge Conestoga wagons laden with family possessions and pulled by a team of horses. It’s a very romantic vision of the pioneers who trekked across the United States—but, of course, it isn’t true. Conestoga wagons were far too heavy, and horses were not strong enough to pull a loaded wagon over the rough terrain or for that distance. What settlers used were smaller more agile wagons called “prairie schooners” pulled by oxen or mules. Conestoga wagons are used in movies
because they look better—and isn’t that more important than the truth?

  Dumb Statements in History

  “I tell you, Wellington is a bad general, the English are bad

  soldiers; we will settle the matter by lunchtime.”

  (Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo, 1815)

  A Wolf in Sleak Clothing

  The Society of Indecency to Naked Animals (SINA) was founded by G. Clifford Prout and Alan Abel in the 1950s. The society’s goal was to clothe the millions of naked animals throughout the world, and they used such catchy slogans as “Decency today means morality tomorrow” and “A nude horse is a rude horse.” Soon Prout became a familiar face on television, and on August 21, 1962, he reached the apex of exposure when the society was featured on CBS News with Walter Cronkite. But it was also because of this appearance that the bottom dropped out of the creature cover-up—Prout was recognized as being comedian Buck Henry. But Abel kept the hoax going a few more years by means of a SINA newsletter to the human members, who were adamant about covering animals’ members. The team of Buck Henry and Alan Abel took the term clotheshorse to a whole different level.

  French poodles are not from France—

  they were originally bred in Germany.

  A Space All Your Own

  In 1984, Stanley E. Adams, president of the Lamar Savings and Loan Association of Texas, applied for permission to open a new branch of his S&L. The attorney general’s office concluded that Adams’s request was far too “speculative” and rejected it outright. The savings and loan was an established business, so how speculative could creating a new branch be? In this case, it was due to the proposed location of the new branch—on the moon. Or more exactly, in the words from the actual proposal, the savings and loan would reside in “‘outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies,’ as these terms are used in the treaty of Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies.” In 1988, Lamar Savings and Loan, along with hundreds of other S&Ls, collapsed in part of the largest theft in the history of the world, known as the Savings and Loan Scandal. No one ever saw an S&L built on the moon or anywhere in space, but people who had invested their money in S&Ls did see it sucked into a black hole.

  Now We’ll Have Dick Nixon to Kick Around Again

  John Hockenberry, host of Talk of the Nation, a program on National Public Radio, announced on April 1, 1992, that Richard Nixon, in a surprise move, was running for president again. An audio clip had Nixon’s voice announcing his new campaign slogan, “I didn’t do anything wrong, and I won’t do it again.” Hockenberry then opened up the phone lines to callers, who responded with anger, shock, and outrage. Hockenberry continued covering the breaking story until the second half of the show, when he finally admitted he had been a Tricky Dick himself—the story was a practical joke. Nixon’s voice had been impersonated by comedian/mimic Rich Little. Of course, a lot of people would say that Nixon’s presidency was itself a joke.

  Grover Cleveland was mayor of Buffalo, governor of

  New York State, and president of the United States—

  all within a span of three and a half years. He is also the

  only U.S. president to serve two nonconsecutive terms.

  Dead on Target

  In 1943, Great Britain was crafting a plan to invade Sicily but needed the Germans and Italians to think they were invading elsewhere. They needed a spy, but he had to be a stiff—and I don’t mean uptight, I mean an honest to goodness dead person. They gave the dead man a new name, Major William Martin, some fictitious history, English currency, love letters, and a cryptic letter outlining an imminent invasion of either Sardinia, on the right side of Italy, or Greece, on the left. The body was tossed from a British submarine off the coast of Spain, where it soon washed ashore. The Germans believed the information was correct and removed troops to the coasts of Greece and Sardinia. That night, thousands of British soldiers parachuted onto the relatively unguarded island of Sicily. They are credited with being the crucial first line of soldiers that ultimately made the D-Day invasion possible. A dead, fictitious man played a key role in one of the most decisive battles of World War II—I guess that’s truly esprit de corpse.

  Tennessee Williams was born in Mississippi.

  More Bizarre Books

  • The Pleasures of the Torture Chamber, John Swain (1931)

  • Teach Yourself Alcoholism, Meier Glatt (1975)

  • Build Your Own “Hindenburg,” Alan Rose (1983)

  • The Bright Side of Prison Life, Captain S. A. Swiggert (1897)

  • Children Are Wet Cement, Ann Orlund (1981)

  • Scouts in Bondage, Geoffrey Prout (1930)

  • Do Snakes Have Legs? Bert Cunningham (1934)

  • How to Become a Schizophrenic, John Modrow (1992)

  • The Day I Passed the Statue of Liberty, Selma Reitmeir (1990)

  • Reusing Old Graves, D. Davies and A. Shaw (1998)

  Casting a Wide Internet

  In the April 1994 issue of PC Computing magazine, John Dvorak wrote an article describing legislation going through Congress making it illegal to use the Internet while intoxicated or to communicate about sexual matters online. The bill number was 040194, which also stands for 04/01/94, or April Fools’ Day; in fact, the name of the contact person was Lirpa Sloof—or April Fools spelled backward. The fictitious bill gave the FBI authority to wiretap anyone who “uses or abuses alcohol” while accessing the Internet. “The moniker ‘Information Highway’ itself seems to be responsible for SB 040194,” went the article. “I know how silly this sounds, but Congress apparently thinks being drunk on a highway is bad no matter what kind of highway it is.” Soon congressional phone lines were jammed with angry protests regarding the phony bill. For Senator Edward Kennedy, the hoax was as clear as the nose on his face. He had his office immediately issue a press release that denied he was a sponsor of the bill.

  The titmouse is actually a bird.

  Nun but the Brave

  Sister Mary Luc-Gabrielle, of the Dominican Fichermont Convent in Belgium, was known for her music and, encouraged by the other nuns, recorded an album in 1963 under the name “Soeur Sourire” (or “Sister Smile”). The single from her album, “Dominique,” quickly ascended to the top of the music charts, and in the United States she became known as the Singing Nun. In 1963, she won a Grammy Award for Best Gospel or Religious Recording; in 1964, she appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show; and in 1966, a movie called The Singing Nun, starring Debbie Reynolds, was released. After some soul-searching, the Dominican nun decided to kick the religious habit, changed her name back to Jeanine Deckers, and vowed to make music her full-time career. But the sound of music ended when Deckers, after years of struggling to regain her former popularity, committed suicide on March 29, 1985.

  The men who in 1908 wrote and composed the anthem to

  baseball “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” Jack Norworth and

  Albert von Tilzer, had never been to a baseball game.

  History in the Making

  One reason history is so difficult to keep straight is that people have different perceptions of events and write about them accordingly. (Some purposely manipulate the facts for alternative reasons.) Here are three examples, published on the same day, from different newspapers in Europe:• “Latest figures show no growth in retail sales.” (Guardian, 11/18/1986)

  • “Retail spending holds up well in October.” (Daily Telegraph, 11/18/1986)

  • “October retail sales up 10%.” (Today, 11/18/1986)

  Here are two other examples published on the same date and on the same topic:• “Industry’s raw material and fuel costs rose by less than is normal at this time of year.” (The Times, 1/13/1987)

  • “Manufacturers’ fuel and raw material costs jumped sharply in December.” (Financial Times, 1/13/1987)

  Precooked Fish

  On the morning of February 5, 1958,
a B-47 bomber collided with an F-86 fighter jet. The pilot of the F-86 bailed out safely, and his plane crashed. The B-47 was damaged but flyable. The crew was given permission to jettison the 7,600-pound, 12-foot-long thermonuclear bomb into the Atlantic Ocean off Savannah, Georgia, and that is where the bomb still is to this day. An air force investigation concluded in 2001 that the bomb was “probably harmless” if left where it was, insisting that the bomb had been used for practice and did not contain the plutonium trigger needed for a nuclear explosion. In July 2004, a group led by retired air force lieutenant colonel Derek Duke said a large object was found underwater near Savannah, possibly the nuclear bomb, as it was emitting high levels of radioactivity.