Heavy Is the Head That Wears the Crown
When King Charles II fell ill on the morning of February 2, 1685, a team of six doctors were immediately at his side—and it might have been the worst thing to ever happen to him. The following are some of the procedures used on the king:• They let (drained) sixteen ounces of blood.
• In order to “stimulate the system,” they applied heated cups to the skin that formed large round blisters.
• They let eight more ounces of blood.
• They induced vomiting to cleanse his stomach, gave him an enema to purify his bowels, and made him swallow a purgative to evacuate his intestines.
This type of torturous treatment continued for four days. More bleedings, more blistering, more purging, more vomiting, more enemas, a concoction made from pigeon droppings, a cure of “40 drops of extract of human skull” of a man who had met a violent death, a force-feeding of the gallstone of a goat, and finally, “extracts of all the herbs and animals of the kingdom.” The result? The king died. In comparison, dealing with an HMO sounds pretty good.
If We Took the Bones Out, It Wouldn’t Be Crunchy
If the phrase “You are what you eat” is true, people who consumed a particular brand of peanut butter in 1972 must be pooped all the time. That year, the Oregon Health Department revealed that the chunks in Hoody’s Chunky Style Peanut Butter were not peanuts but rat droppings. Hoody executives were sentenced to ten days in prison for health violations and were hopefully fed peanut butter sandwiches. To ensure better quality control in the future, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued strict new guidelines on the amount of “allowable” foreign matter in packaged foods. They include:• No more than 50 insect fragments or 2 rodent hairs per 100 grams of peanut butter
• No more than 10 fruit fly eggs in 100 grams of tomato juice
• No more than 150 insect fragments in an 8-ounce chocolate bar
A research study conducted by Ohio University in
December 2005 reported that Americans unintentionally eat
one to two pounds of insect parts per year. The study didn’t
say, however, how many insects are eaten intentionally.
Deadly Gases Found on Uranus
In 1996, AOL’s five million subscribers were met with more than the familiar “You’ve got mail”—they were also informed that a “government source reveals signs of life on Jupiter.” Statements from a planetary biologist supported the claim, and Ted Leonsis, AOL’s vice chairman, stated that his company possessed documents proving the government was hiding the facts about life on Jupiter. The story quickly generated over 1,300 messages on AOL as well as hundreds of calls to NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. It turned out to be AOL’s little joke . . . sort of like their customer support.
Myth
Alan Shepard coined the phrase “A-OK” during his first
space flight in the Freedom 7 spacecraft on May 5, 1961.
Truth
No. Colonel “Shorty” Powers, the “voice of mission control”
and NASA’s public affairs officer at the time, introduced the phrase
but attributed it to Shepard, hoping it would catch on.
Line, Please!
Fortunately, as time goes by, fewer and fewer untalented impersonators attempt to do a takeoff of James Cagney. But if you’re ever unlucky enough to hear one, you will inevitably hear the line “You dirty rat!” (along with the shrugged shoulders and the overbite). But Cagney, famous for his portrayal of gangsters in more than seventy movies, never said this line. The closest he ever got was in the 1932 film Taxi!, in which Cagney delivered the line “Come out and take it, you dirty, yellow-bellied rat, or I’ll give it to you through the door!”
In 1928 in Altendorf, Germany, a high wind caused a farmer’s
windmill to spin so quickly that it caused a tremendous amount
of heat to be generated through friction, which caused the
windmill to catch on fire and burn to the ground.
In Sickness and in Health—for Richer or for Poorer
Robert Meier watched as his comatose girlfriend’s vital signs got weaker and weaker and made the decision to marry her before she died. People in the hospital thought it was a romantic gesture as Meier and his girlfriend became husband and wife only hours before her death. But later, in July 1996, Meier was arrested in Tampa, Florida, for using his dead wife’s credit card to rack up more than $20,000 in expenses. Did Meier claim to be distraught over his wife’s passing and driven by depression to go on a shopping spree? No—he blamed her dog. According to police records, “[Meir] said the dog told him she [his wife] would want him to have a better life, so it would be okay to use her credit cards.” It makes sense that Meier would speak to a dog—it sounds like he was a real son-of-a-bitch.
Dumb Statements in History
“If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of
lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one.”
(The National Cancer Institute, 1954)
Are the Noises in My Head Bothering You?
At one time or another, we’ve all been accused of not acting like ourselves. But Cathleen Byers, former manager of the Oregon Urban Rural Credit Union, used this as a legal argument in February 1997, after she was arrested for embezzlement. Byers confessed to stealing $630,000 over six years but claimed she was innocent because it wasn’t really her—it was one of her other personalities. Byers allegedly suffered from multiple personality disorder, so Ava, Joy, Elizabeth, Tillie, Claudia, C. J., Katy, Roman, Cookie, Mariah, Frogger, Chrissy, or Colleen must have been embezzling all that time without her knowledge. An expert testified that Byers’s other personalities didn’t know right from wrong, and Byers’s right personality didn’t know what her wrong personality was doing. The judge rightly didn’t believe Byers was wrongly accused, stating: “[Byers] should have been clued in by the new house and the luxury cars.”
How Much Are the One-Cent Stamps?
If said with enough authority, a great number of people won’t question what they read or hear and then will pass the erroneous information on to others. Here’s an example of an actual ad from the U.S. Postal Service from 1996, defending its policy to raise the price of stamps: In 1940, a one-pound loaf of bread cost 8 cents, and in 1995 cost 79 cents; a half-gallon of milk went from 25 cents to $1.43 in the same period; and a first-class postage stamp went from 3 cents to 32 cents. Which, bottom line, means that first-class postage stamps remain well below the rate of inflation.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? But do the math: These examples actually prove the price of stamps rose 9 percent faster than the price of bread and 105 percent faster than the price of milk. But the post office is a monopoly, and their express priority is selling stamps and services, even if that means stretching the envelope on honesty.
According to the Mormon religion, anyone who isn’t Mormon
is called a Gentile—anyone. So in essence, in Utah,
even Jews are considered Gentiles.
One More Time from the Top
Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest was leading his Confederate troops to Alabama in late September 1864 to attack the Union post located in Athens. But there was an overwhelming problem: The post was well manned and heavily fortified. The general knew he was greatly outnumbered, and he knew Union reinforcements were on the way, but he had a plan. He sent a message to Union commander Colonel Wallace Campbell requesting a personal meeting. Campbell agreed to the meeting, and on September 24, 1864, Forrest escorted Campbell on a tour of his Confederate troops. Campbell took the opportunity to secretly count the number of soldiers and artillery he saw surrounding his fort. But what Campbell didn’t count on was that Forrest had ordered his men, after being inspected and tallied, to pack up their belongings and quietly move to the back of the line to be counted again. After counting continuous counterfeit Confederates, Campbell returned to his fort, believing he was heavi
ly outnumbered, and surrendered without a fight.
A Cramped Expression
Some common phrases we take for granted don’t make a lot of sense unless you know the context in which they were created. Like the term charley horse. We know what a charley horse is—it’s a muscle cramp. But how did it get such a weird name? Here’s the answer: In 1640, Charles I of England expanded the London police force. The nickname “Charley” was given to new recruits in mock honor of the person responsible for their hiring, Charles I. The new recruits soon discovered there wasn’t enough money to supply them with horses—so they were forced to patrol on foot. After a full day of walking the beat, the new officers joked that their sore feet and legs were the result of riding “Charley’s horse.”
Rice paper is not made from rice, but from the pith, the spongy, fibrous tissue, of an evergreen shrub called the tetrapanax.
Pennies from Heaven
“Every cloud has a silver lining,” but residents of the Gorki region of the former USSR had the silver lining rain down on them when several thousand rubles’ worth of silver coins fell from the sky on June 17, 1940. Authorities offered the official explanation that a landslide had uncovered a hidden treasure that was carried away by a passing tornado and dropped on Gorki. Doubt was shed on this theory, as the coins were the only thing that rained down—there was no debris.
French fries didn’t come from France—but they are fried. The origin of French fries is nineteenth-century Belgium, where patates frites (fried potatoes) were served on the street in paper cones. The French in French fries originally referred not to the country of origin, but to the way the food was prepared.
Stop Calling Me a Weenie Dog!
If you’ve ever owned a pet, you know the helpless feeling of not being able to explain to them when something is wrong—especially if it involves the embarrassing topic of sexual frustration. So veterinarians and pet owners alike were pleased when an article came out in The Independent in 2000 reporting on Feralmone, a Viagra-like pill that could help pets overcome their feelings of inadequacy. “It’s not unknown for a guinea pig to sit in its cage thinking, ‘I haven’t had sex for months. Am I so unattractive?’” the article read. Unfortunately, the article was a joke—forcing dogs all around the world to once again resort to humping table legs.
Myth
The Bible says, “Pride goeth before a fall.”
Truth
No. What Proverbs 16:18 says is, “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
Colonel Bat Guano . . . If That Is Your Real Name
Countries have invaded other countries for centuries in order to increase their size or to lay claim to natural resources like gold, silver, copper, and oil. But in 1865, the United States passed an act to acquire by “peaceable possession” any uninhabited, unclaimed island, mainly in the South Pacific, for the sole purpose of taking their crap. The Guano Act of 1865 authorized the United States to occupy these islands to mine guano (bird droppings), which is rich in nitrogen and phosphorus and highly valued as a fertilizer. The United States claimed nearly 100 islands under the act and still owns 6 or so today. As to the amount of crap the government still has—that’s for you to decide.
Lincoln’s Résumé
Abraham Lincoln was a great president and a great leader, so he must have developed his greatness from his former positions . . . but most of his former positions were flops:• He ran for the Illinois state legislature in 1832 and lost—he also lost his job.
• In 1833, his grocery business failed. (It took him fifteen years to pay off the debt.)
• He was elected to the state legislature in 1834, but he lost races for Illinois house speaker in 1836 and 1838.
• In 1843, he ran for Congress and lost.
• He was elected to Congress in 1846 but lost his renomination bid in 1848.
• In 1849, he lost the race for land officer.
• He lost the U.S. Senate race in 1854 and, in 1856, was defeated for the nomination for vice president.
• In 1858, he again lost his bid for U.S. Senate.
• In 1860, he was elected president and then reelected in 1864 (and we all know how well that worked out for him).
This Is My Good Friend, Harvey
In 1726, an English maid, Mary Toft, reported to the authorities that she had been accosted and molested by a six-foot rabbit. Some of the townsfolk were skeptical, and some actually believed her, ordering their wives and daughters to stay inside at night and, of course, not to open the door to any six-foot rabbits. Five months after the rabbit rape, Mary collapsed in a field and was declared pregnant by a local doctor. A little over a month later, Mary gave birth, and the baby looked just like its father—a rabbit. Over the next few days, Mary gave birth to seven more rabbits, all of them dead. News of the bunny babies reached King George I, and he sent two of England’s finest physicians to investigate. The doctors performed various tests on the dead rabbits and amazingly declared the births genuine. Under the direction of a third expert, Mary was moved to a London hospital and put under round-the-clock surveillance. During that time, Mary didn’t move a hare. A gardener confessed to supplying Mary and her husband with baby rabbits, and Mary finally admitted the ruse. She told authorities the motivation behind the hoax was her husband had lost his job and they were hoping for a pension from the king. The king did give Mary something—a prison term for fraud. I guess the king was angry about the deception—you could say he was hopping mad.
Guinea pigs are not pigs, and they are not from Guinea
(West Africa). They are rodents native to the Andean region
of South America.
Animal Sounds
“Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast” gives the impression that if you played a violin for a charging bull, it would stop in its tracks and softly sway to the music. I wouldn’t suggest doing that because the above-mentioned statement is misquoted. What British playwright William Congreve actually wrote in his play The Mourning Bride (1697) is “Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast.” Of course, if a “savage breast” is charging you, I suggest you’ve seen too many Woody Allen movies.
Raggin’ on Wagons
A much-beloved image of the Old West is that of wagon trains traveling in straight, single-file lines across the prairies. Wagon trains, whenever possible, traveled side-by-side, up to ten miles wide, to avoid the billowing clouds of dust as well as the furrows, ruts, and potholes of previous travelers. If they had in fact traveled single-file, every wagon behind the lead would not only eat their dust, they would also wear it and have it clog their nostrils and cake over their eyes.
The term cowboy was not created in the Wild West. The Spanish created what we consider the cowboy tradition in the sixteenth century with the vaquero (Spanish for “cowboy”). In the United States, the word cowboy originally referred to a member of a team that rustled cows in New York in the 1800s.
When Walter Met Elizabeth
The scene: Queen Elizabeth I walks down a London street followed by her entourage and stops in front of a puddle of mud—suddenly Sir Walter Raleigh breaks through the crowd and drapes his cloak over the puddle so the queen can walk on unmuddied. It’s a scene that’s been duplicated and parodied in theater and films for decades, but usually one small detail is overlooked—it never happened. This romantic story is the invention of Thomas Fuller, a seventeenth-century historian, who embellished otherwise boring historical stories or, in this case, made them up altogether. In 1821, Sir Walter Scott elaborated on the falsehood with an exchange between the two famous sixteenth-century personalities: Raleigh says admirably he will never have his cloak cleaned, to which the queen graciously offers him a tailor-made suit for his gallant actions. Very sweet, very poignant, very much made up.
Emily Dickinson wrote 1,789 poems in her lifetime
(1830-1886). Seven were published—all anonymously
and probably without her knowledge.
But, Dad
, Everybody’s Wearing Them
Three teenage girls in Tokyo became fatally ill, and their deaths were blamed on a silk kimono possessed by evil demons (not the butler this time). In February 1657, a priest was summoned by the girls’ fathers to see if he could perform an exorcism on the garment. At the cleansing ceremony (or the dry-cleaning ceremony), the fathers of the young victims watched as the priest reverently took a torch and, while deep in prayer, set the cloth aflame. As if on cue, a strong wind blew the kimono to the floor, catching the house on fire. The wind fanned the flames of the burning house, and soon fire engulfed the wooden dwellings throughout the city of Tokyo. Before it was contained, the notorious “Long-Sleeved Kimono Fire” (Furisode-kaji) incinerated three quarters of the city and took the lives of more than 100,000 people. Things could have been worse—the noise of the destruction could have awoken Godzilla!
Stupid History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions Throughout the Ages Page 10