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

by Leland Gregory

  Farting contests were held in ancient Japan, with prizes awarded for loudness and duration. And in the classic “He who does not know his history is bound to repeat it” category, farting contests are back in vogue in Japan (just check out YouTube.com).

  Pressing His Luck

  Johannes Gutenberg (1398-1468) is credited not only with inventing a printing press with movable type but also with ushering in the Renaissance period in Europe. In 1447, Gutenberg borrowed 800 guilders from his partner, Johann Fust, and along with Fust’s son-in-law, Peter Schöffer, established his printing business with the intention of printing the Bible and quickly paying back his debt. But things didn’t work out for Gutenberg, and his first Bible didn’t come out until 1455—and by then, he was 2,000 guilders in debt. Fust took Gutenberg to court, where the judge declared him bankrupt and threw the book at him by awarding control of the types and plates used in his Bible, plus the printing equipment, to Fust. Fust-Schöffer printed the first book that included the printer’s name (their names) and date and explained the mechanical process by which it had been produced, but it made no mention of Gutenberg. Although Gutenberg never made a penny from his invention or received any fame during his lifetime, he is bound forever in the pages of history as one of the most influential inventors of all time.

  Fun with Racist Stereotypes

  Gypsies are portrayed as a band of nomads who travel around in wagons and are usually considered unscrupulous. Gosh, where to start with this one. First of all, there is no such thing as a Gypsy. The people referred to as Gypsies are actually the Roma people (singular, Rom), who originate from northern India. Gypsy is just a designation put on them by the gadje (that means “barbarian,” and anyone who isn’t a Rom is a gadje). In any event, the term Gypsy is inaccurate—it comes from the Greek word aigyptoi in the erroneous belief that the Roma are natives of Egypt. (Gypsy, Egypt—see?) And what about Gypsies, tramps, and thieves (with a nod to Cher)? It is from this racist image that we get the words gyp and gypped, meaning “cheat.”

  Frédéric Chopin’s “Minute Waltz” was not intended to be played in a minute, and the normal rendition time is one and a half to two minutes. Chopin had meant for the word minute to mean “small,” not as a sixtieth part of an hour.

  More Fun with Racist Stereotypes

  In a horrible twist of fate, the Roma are technically classified as Aryan, but not the blond-haired, blue-eyed “Aryan race” Adolf Hitler envisioned. Aryan comes from the Sanskrit arya, which historically refers to the people of northern India—the Roma. Hitler absolutely hated the fact that Roma were the true Aryans and not his Aryan/ Nordic “master race.” In fact, other than Jews, the Roma were the only racial group specifically targeted for extermination by the Nazis. It is estimated that between 200,000 and 500,000 Roma died in German concentration camps. So a Gypsy isn’t someone with a nomadic, fun-loving, free-spirited lifestyle, but a race of persecuted people referred to by a derogatory name. Talk about getting gypped!

  Rain Forest Go Away, Come Again Some Other Day

  During a trip to Costa Rica in the spring of 1996, President Bill Clinton stopped off at the Braulio Carrillo National Park—a government-protected rain forest—to give a speech about environmental protection and preservation. His address included the line “We destroy these resources at our own peril.” Too bad Bill’s staff didn’t agree. Clinton’s people thought the speaking platform was too far from the road, especially since the president was on crutches at the time. They decided to bulldoze, level, and asphalt a 350-foot path for him—right through the rain forest. Later, a White House staffer tried to put a good spin on it: “The Costa Ricans were eager to pave the walkway for the president. They seemed to understand how important a photo op this was for us.” Sounds like an example of not being able to see the trees for the forest. Any more photo ops like this, and we won’t be able to see the trees or the forest.

  The Final Edition of Bizarre Book Titles

  In case you’re looking for more unique books to fill your shelves, here’s my final “best of the worst” list of book titles:• Games You Can Play with Your Pussy, Ira Alterman (1885)

  • Preserving Dick, Mary D. R. Boyd (1867)

  • How to Avoid Huge Ships, John W. Trimmer (1993)

  • Unmentionable Cuisine, Calvin W. Schwabe (1979)

  • Nasal Maintenance: Nursing Your Nose Through Troubled Times, William Alan Stuart (1983)

  • Old Age: Its Cause and Prevention, Sanford Bennett (1912)

  The Swanee River, immortalized by Stephen Foster in his song “The Old Folks at Home” and by Irving Caesar and George Gershwin in “Swanee,” doesn’t exist—it never existed. Foster’s original lyrics in 1851 experimented with the Yazoo River and the Pee Dee River and settled on the Suwannee River—but shortened the spelling to rhyme. Caesar and Gershwin reused the popular name in their 1919 song, and it was made world famous by singer Al Jolson.

  The Spirits of the Republic

  The fifty-five delegates who attended the Constitutional Convention from May 25 to September 17, 1787, had more on their minds than creating a new form of government—they were also there to party! One receipt dated two days before the official signing of the U.S. Constitution listed, among other items, 156 bottles of liquor. Alexander Hamilton, one of the main framers of the Constitution, was under doctor’s orders to consume no more than “three glasses of wine” per day, and the fact that this regimen was considered moderate says a lot about the drinking habits of our forefathers or fifth fathers. To be able to drink that much and still have the wherewithal to formulate a new government means our Founding Fathers had a pretty strong constitution.

  An American missionary in Japan invented the rickshaw

  around 1869 to transport his invalid wife through the streets

  of Yokohama. And just in case you’re wondering, his name

  was not Rick Shaw—it was Jonathan Scobie.

  Our Way or Ye Olde Highway

  When we think of the Puritans, we usually think of wholesome, God-fearing, uptight people in black clothes with buckles on their hats. But were the Puritans “puritanical”? They left Europe because of religious intolerance, but once in Massachusetts, they denied their own settlers any religious freedoms of their own. In fact, religious dissenters were expelled from the colony. They weren’t big fans of democracy, either—the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, described democracy as “the meanest and worst of all forms of government.” Justice to the Puritans meant “just us.”

  The Puritan Penal Code

  “Ralph Earle, for drawing his wife in an vnciuell [uncivil]

  manner on the snow, is fined twenty shillings.”

  (From the General Court of the Plymouth Colony, October 5, 1663)

  Caesar or Seize Him?

  Julius Caesar, dictator of the Roman Republic (later the Roman Empire), was one of the most influential and powerful men in world history. He was a great military strategist and political leader who expanded the territory of the Roman Republic all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. With all these credentials, why was Caesar’s nickname “the Queen of Bithynia”? I’ll tell you. In 80 B.C., young Julius Caesar was an ambassador to King Nicomedes IV in Bithynia, a Roman province in Asia Minor, and reportedly had a fling with the king. Most of the writers of the time mention the alleged affair, and Mark Antony even charged that Caesar’s adopted son, Octavian (Emperor Julius Caesar Octavianus), earned his adoption through sexual favors. Was Caesar really in love with Cleopatra, or was he just in denial?

  Dumb Statements in History

  “Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers,

  unable to breathe, would die of asphyxiation.”

  (Dr. Dionysus Lardener, 1845)

  An Unusual Stock Exchange

  In Boston, Massachusetts, in 1634, a carpenter named Edward Palmer was commissioned by the town’s elders to build the first wooden stocks intended for public punishment. After completing th
e work, Palmer submitted his bill for one pound, thirteen shillings, and seven pence, which nearly blew the buckles off the elders’ shoes. Puritan officials felt the price was so high as to be considered extortion and voted to punish Palmer. He was fined five pounds and also ordered to “be sett an houre in the stocks,” becoming the first victim of his handiwork. A classic example of someone taking stock of himself.

  Myth

  The United States of America is made up of fifty states.

  Truth

  Technically, no. There are only forty-six states in the

  United States—Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,

  and Virginia are commonwealths.

  Where’s the Lock Box?

  In October 1937, the stock market crashed again—almost as drastically as in October 1929. The reason? In 1936, Social Security taxes were withheld from paychecks for the first time. Consumer spending dropped because people had less of their own money, the economy shrank, and unemployment shot up to 22 percent. Social Security was social (or socialism), but there was little security, because the money skimmed off people’s paychecks didn’t reenter the economy until January 31, 1940, when the first Social Security check was issued. A woman named Ida Mae Fuller, who had been in the system only two years and had paid in a total of $22, was the first recipient. Ida Mae lived to be 100 and ended up collecting $22,000 in Social Security benefits. And they say people don’t fall for pyramid schemes anymore.

  Riptides aren’t tides, they are actually currents.

  The Circle of Lies

  A common safety rule these days, if your clothes catch on fire, is to stop, drop, and roll. But a safety rule for the pioneers of the Westward expansion was, if Indians attack, circle your wagons. Stop, drop, and roll could save your life, but circling can kill you. Can you imagine the time, labor, and logistics that would go into circling even a few wagons? Accomplishing this task would be a load off the pioneers’ minds—but before it could ever happen, the Indians would have taken a load off the pioneers’ minds by scalping them. Circling the wagons was an invention of Hollywood filmmakers who liked the way it looked on film. Some wagon trains did form a circle when they stopped for the night, but not to protect themselves against attack—they did it to create a makeshift corral to contain the animals.

  August 8, 1945, two days after the U.S. Army

  Air Force dropped the nuclear bomb

  “Little Boy” on Hiroshima and one day after

  “Fat Boy” devastated Nagasaki, the Soviet Union

  declared war on Japan. By doing this, the Soviets

  were able to partake of the spoils of the Pacific war

  without actually having to fight in it.

  Cherries Jubilee

  You’ve probably never heard of them before, but in their heyday, they were a staggeringly popular act: the Cherry Sisters (and no, they weren’t strippers). The sisters’ popularity didn’t grow out of their talent; in fact, just the opposite, they were billed as “America’s Worst Act.” And people in the late 1800s flocked to hear them warble and clump around the stage—no one was disappointed at the horrific spectacle of the Cherry Sisters. The sisters went along with the billing as “America’s Worst Act” and were under the delusion they were actually popular for their act and that the billing was just a publicity stunt. After a show at Hammerstein’s Theater in New York in 1896, a reviewer compared their singing to “the wailings of damned souls.” But when the review was reprinted in their hometown, Des Moines, Iowa, newspaper, the sisters sued for libel. During the trial, the Cherry Sisters were asked to perform their musical act for the court—they did . . . and they lost their case. From the Cherry case stems the protection of “fair comment and criticism” as part of libel law. The verdict popped the Cherry Sisters’ spirit, and they went from Wild Cherries to Sour Cherries as fast as you can say Bing.

  Shhhh, Don’t Tell Anybody We’re Here

  On April 14, 1865, one of President Abraham Lincoln’s last acts before retiring for the evening was establishing the Secret Service (originally for the purpose of preventing counterfeiting of currency). Later that night, John Wilkes Booth assassinated the relatively unguarded Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre. Congress soon debated adding presidential protection to the duties performed by the Secret Service, but like most things in Congress, they only thought about it, they didn’t actually do anything. Finally in 1894, the Secret Service was commissioned to begin informal, part-time protection of President Grover Cleveland. This was a full twenty-nine years after the assassination of Lincoln and thirteen years after the assassination of President James Garfield. I guess the Secret Service’s services were secret a little too long.

  Drats, Foiled Again!

  Since they first appeared in the 1860s, cigarettes have caused a lot of harm, but one good thing has come out of the manufacturing of cigarettes—aluminum foil. Richard S. Reynolds (the nephew of tobacco king R. J. Reynolds) was looking for a new way to protect cigarettes from moisture and to replace the tin-lead wrappers in use at that time. In the 1920s, the price of aluminum dropped, and it clearly became the answer he was looking for. In addition to the price, aluminum was shinier and more appealing to consumers. Two decades later, Reynolds’s company Reynolds Metals introduced the world to the lightweight, noncorrosive foil, Reynolds Wrap—and where would we be without it?

  There is no proper side to a sheet of aluminum foil:

  The shiny side and the dull side function identically.

  One side comes in contact with a metallic roller

  during the manufacturing, and it becomes the

  shiny side; the duller side stays in contact with

  the conveyor belt. The shiny side being better for

  cooking food is just an old wives’ tale.

  How Much Was the Bill of Rights—and Who Paid It?

  Some people argue that protecting freedoms of “religion, speech, assembly, press, and petition” were the most important issues, and that’s why they’re in the First Amendment. James Madison, who is credited with writing the Bill of Rights, initially proposed twelve amendments to the Constitution, but only ten were approved. The now-famous First Amendment was actually the Third Amendment in Madison’s original draft. What were the first two? They dealt with congressional pay raises and reapportionment. So even at the beginning stages of our country, politicians were first and foremost interested in money and power.

  Poison ivy isn’t an ivy, and poison oak isn’t an oak.

  They are both anacardiaceous shrubs,

  members of the cashew family.

  The Number You Are Trying to Reach Is No Longer in Service

  Alexander Graham Bell, who is credited with creating the telephone—or stealing the idea from Antonio Meucci, depending on how one looks at it—decided to cash out on the invention early by selling it to Western Union. One would think an invention of this importance would have been snatched up immediately—but surprisingly, Western Union just gave Bell static. The committee that was formed to review Bell’s proposal stated the following: The telephone is named by its inventor A. G. Bell. He believes that one day they will be installed in every residence and place of business. . . . Bell’s proposal to place his instrument in almost every home and business is fantastic. The central exchange alone would represent a huge outlay in real estate and buildings, to say nothing of the electrical equipment. In conclusion the committee feels that it must advise against any investment in Bell’s scheme. We do not doubt that it will find users in special circumstances, but any development of the kind and scale which Bell so fondly imagines is utterly out of the question.

  The people at Western Union must have been off their cradle.

  Shaking Things Up

  It’s so common today that it’s even referred to as common: common table salt. Salt is in such abundance these days, it only makes sense that it was always readily available—but it wasn’t. In fact, salt was very expensive and not always easy to come by right up to the 1900s. Traders in
ancient Greece bartered their slaves for salt; and a lazy or unruly slave was considered “not worth his salt”—an insult still in use today. Our word salary dates back to Roman times, when soldiers were paid an allowance, called, in Latin, a salarium argentums (which translates to “salt money”), so they could buy salt. The Latin words salus, for “well-being,” and salubritas, for “health,” both derive from the Latin sal, meaning “salt.” In Mali, West Africa, salt was once worth its weight in gold; or another way of looking at it is that gold was worth its weight in salt.