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

by Leland Gregory

  And just in case you’re wondering, “saved by the bell” did not originate from these grave signals—it originated from the ringing of the bell during a boxing match.

  More Quotable Misquotes

  “Why don’t you come up and see me sometime?” The public must not have liked the sentence structure of Mae West’s seductive invitation to Cary Grant in the 1933 movie She Done Him Wrong. Ever since she first uttered the line, it was misquoted—what she really said was, “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?”

  And speaking of Cary Grant, he never spoke the phrase “Judy, Judy, Judy” that imitators (and Goober from The Andy Griffith Show) always use to portray him.

  English muffins are popular in the United States

  but not popular in England. Why? Because the

  English didn’t invent the English muffin—if they

  had, they would have just called it a muffin.

  The closest thing in England would be a crumpet—

  not an English crumpet . . . just a crumpet.

  In Case of Emergency, Break Glass

  The award for weirdest “deceased detector” goes to a device patented in 1899 by M. C. H. Nicolle of France. His creation utilized a hammer that, activated by any movement of the corpse, would swing down and break a glass window situated over the head of the departed. This would allow air to enter the coffin, and the noise of the breaking glass would serve as an alarm (used only before burial). I have a grave concern about this invention: If anyone did awaken from a coma and try to sit up, his or her head would smash through the glass window, followed shortly by a solid clobbering by the hammer. But what better place to be for such an occurrence than in a coffin and already dressed up?

  Nothing up My Sleeve, Nothing in My Head

  In 1977, a woman calling herself a “psychic escapologist” announced she was going to drive a car sixty miles per hour over a course of one mile while wearing a blindfold. Her only source of direction, she boasted, was by tapping into the minds of people in the crowd, who would communicate to her which way to turn. “No sooner had I started than I felt myself reading the mind of someone in the crowd,” the psychic steerer said. “This thought-transferee began by giving me explicit instructions. But just as the alarm bell told me I had reached fifty, they stopped beaming.” Although her GPS (Group Paranormal Supervision) was out of whack, she felt compelled to corner the car—which she did, right into the corner of a barn. The psychic was knocked unconscious and was taken to a hospital to recover from her extensive injuries. She assured her fans she would soon complete the rest of her planned routine—escaping from a large, heavy-duty plastic bag in only twenty minutes. The one thing this psychic escapologist couldn’t escape was her own stupidity.

  Digging for Research

  Of all the topics for a scientific study, why did researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison pick rhinotillexomania? The answer was right in front of their noses—rhinotillexomania is the scientific term for what we laypeople call “nose picking” (or “snotis-diggus-outis”). In 1990, the university mailed out questionnaires to 1,200 people trying to dig up the answers to such penetrating questions as “What finger do you use when picking your nose?” and “After picking your nose, how often do you find yourself looking at what you have removed?” And of course the question on everybody’s mind: “Did you eat it?”

  January 4, 1961, was a great day for all the longhairs in

  Copenhagen, Denmark—it was the day that barbers’

  assistants ended their thirty-three-year-long strike.

  A Very Queer Relationship

  The truth may never come out of the closet on this one, but then again there might not have been a closet to come out of. It’s the story of two men: James Buchanan and William Rufus de Vane King. One became the fifteenth president of the United States; the other, vice president under Franklin Pierce. But when they first met each other while serving as members of Congress, they became immediately inseparable. It has been rumored for years that Buchanan and King were a “couple,” but it’s never been proven—Buchanan was, however, the only bachelor ever elected president. What is known is that Buchanan and King were commonly referred to by other members of Congress as “Mr. Buchanan and his wife” and “Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy.” So when Buchanan was passing legislation in Congress and King said, “I’ve got your back,” he might have meant something completely different.

  East Is East and West Is West

  In studying the history of America’s western expansion, you’ll inevitably hear or read Horace Greeley’s immortal line “Go west, young man.” And as you’ve probably guessed by now, Mr. Greeley never said this particular line—he did, however, write it. You see, John Babsone Soule first wrote this advice in an article in Indiana’s Terre Haute Express in 1851, and Horace Greeley reprinted the article in his New York Tribune. In Greeley’s reprint, he pointed out that Soule was the original author of the article and the quote—but that didn’t stop the general public from giving Greeley all the credit, and now the quote and the man who reprinted it are forever synonymous.

  In 1205, Moloji Thorat filed a lawsuit in India

  and was amazed at how slowly the wheels of the

  legal system turned. So slowly did they turn that it

  took 751 years for them to come full circle and reach

  a judgment on the case. The courts ruled

  in Thorat’s favor and in 1966 paid an undisclosed

  sum of rupees to his family.

  He Was Still a Brave Soul

  Sitting Bull, Pocahontas, Tecumseh, Iron Eyes Cody—these are some of the more famous Indians (American Indians or Native Americans, to you PCers) that leap to most people’s minds when questioned. Iron Eyes Cody, if you don’t remember, acted in nearly 100 movies but was probably most famous as the “crying Indian” of the Keep America Beautiful ad campaign “People Start Pollution, People Can Stop It” that first aired in 1971. But there’s one thing about Iron Eyes that sets him apart from other famous American Indians—he wasn’t an American Indian. Iron Eyes was born Espera “Oscar” DeCorti in Kaplan, Louisiana, in 1904 to Italian immigrant parents (father, Antonio DeCorti, and mother, Francesca Salpietra). Iron Eyes assumed his Indian identity in the 1920s in order to get acting work in Hollywood films. From then until he was laid to rest in 1999, Iron Eyes insisted he was a member of the Cherokee tribe—and everyone believed him. In fact, in 1995, Hollywood’s American Indian community honored Iron Eyes for his long-standing contribution to American Indian causes. The question isn’t “why” Iron Eyes posed as an Indian all those years, the real question is “how.”

  So What’s Your Act Called? The Aristocats!

  The Life and Adventures of a Cat was a “racy” and risqué book published in England in 1760. The book centered on a ram cat (the name male cats went by back then) named Tom the Cat. The book was so amazingly popular that from that point on, male cats have been commonly called tomcats.

  Maryland is the only state in the contiguous United States

  with an official state sport. The sport of Maryland? Jousting.

  Yes, guys on horses with long pointy sticks charging each

  other. I suppose Maryland is also the gateway to Dork City.

  Old Flames Burn the Brightest

  All our lives, we’ve heard about the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Of these seven wonders, only one is still standing—the Great Pyramid of Giza. (All the others were destroyed by fire or earthquake.) The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus burned to the ground in 356 B.C. when an arsonist, hoping his name would live forever for his destructive feat, put a torch to it. The arsonist was executed, and to make sure his wish of everlasting fame wouldn’t come true, it was ordered that his name be stricken from all records and never mentioned again. But
you know how people talk. Despite all their best efforts, the man’s name leaked out, and Herostratus, the arsonist, is remembered as one of the most notorious firebugs in history.

  Wrong Place at the Wrong Time—Three Times Running

  Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s eldest son, is the only person to have been at the scene of three presidential assassinations. On April 14, 1865, the day his father was shot, Robert Todd rushed to Ford’s Theatre to be with his fatally injured father. In 1881, he was in the room with President James Garfield the day Garfield was assassinated. And twenty years later, he was to join President William McKinley at the Pan American Exposition, arriving shortly after McKinley was assassinated. There are many a mysterious and bizarre happenstance about Abraham Lincoln’s life and death, and so too with Robert Todd. You see, the son of the president would never have witnessed any of these assassinations had he not narrowly escaped death at a young age. While standing on a crowded railroad platform, he stumbled and nearly fell onto the tracks. He was grabbed by the back of the shirt and pulled to safety in the nick of time. The person who saved his life was Edwin Booth—the brother of John Wilkes Booth. Yeah, I got chill bumps, too!

  No, I’m Talking About the Kind That Holds Back Water

  Near the Spaarndam lock, in the municipality of Haarlem in the Netherlands, stands a statue of Hans Brinker, undoubtedly the most famous boy in Dutch history. You might not know his name, but if I said, “He stuck his finger in a dike,” you’d know to whom I’m referring. American author Mary Mapes Dodge first published Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates in 1865, and it soon became a favorite of American schoolchildren. After that, when Americans visited Haarlem, they asked the locals to direct them to the location where the courageous boy heroically saved their town. Instead of getting directions, visiting Americans usually got blank stares. Why? Because there was never a Hans Brinker. But after years of trying to convince foreigners that the story was made up, not part of Dutch history, and written by an American, they finally gave up—and put up a statue in 1950. I never fingered Hans Brinker as a hero as much as a blockhead—if he had been really smart, he would have stuck a rock in the hole and gone to get help.

  A Grain of Truth

  What does “sow wild oats” mean? Okay, we know the phrase means to commit youthfully foolish acts, but what does that have to do with sowing (not sewing) wild oats? During the eleventh century, many farmers and peasants left their farms to fight against a multitude of armies who were perpetually invading England. With the farms unattended, many of the domesticated grains reverted to their wild strains. When the warring settled down, a lot of the younger men were eager to settle down, and with no experience in farming, they began collecting and planting the seeds from the wild strains of oats. The plants produced were basically useless, as they grew very few “heads” that contained the edible seeds. So it was foolish of these inexperienced young men to waste their time sowing wild oats.

  Presidential Poundage

  Someone’s got to have the distinction of being the fattest president, and that honor goes to William Howard Taft. Taft varied in weight from 300 to more than 350 pounds (when he was depressed). One day, President Taft relaxed in the presidential bathtub to soak off the stress of the day—and stayed there for longer than he had anticipated. He was stuck. It was an embarrassing thing to have happen, and as soon as he was rescued, he ordered an enormous, personalized tub for himself. The J. L. Mott ironworks made the tub to Taft’s specifications and installed it in the White House. When it was being delivered, four White House staffers had their photograph taken—all four men fit comfortably inside the new tub. This is possibly where the nickname “Tubby” came from.

  Springtime for Hitler

  In most film studies of World War II, one will inevitably see the infamous footage of Adolf Hitler doing a bizarre little victory jig after the French government surrendered to Germany on June 22, 1940. What’s interesting about the Footloose Führer (or the Two-Stepping Goose-Stepper) is that the film was actually a little propaganda fakery. Hitler forced the French government to surrender in the same railroad car in Compiègne, France, where Germany had signed the armistice in 1918 that ended World War I. When he emerged from the railroad car, Hitler leaped slightly, and that’s all the Allied film propagandists needed. They took the single jump and looped the film over and over to give the illusion that Hitler was dancing (like the dancing cats on the Purina Cat Chow commercials). The film had the desired effect. Hitler’s silly dance proved to everyone how monstrously childish Hitler really was and solidified in the minds of Americans, who hadn’t entered the war, that he was a deranged sissy-man.

  Dogs of War

  Pop quiz: What started the War of the Stray Dog? What? Never heard of the War of the Stray Dog? On October 22, 1925, a Greek soldier ran after his dog across the border separating Macedonia from Petrich in Bulgaria. A Bulgarian sentry shot the Greek soldier (no word on what happened to the dog), which prompted Greece to declare war and invade Bulgaria. They quickly occupied Petrich but left the area a week later under the pressure of the League of Nations. The League sanctioned Greece, demanding both immediate withdrawal and compensation to Bulgaria. Greece agreed to the terms and paid Bulgaria £45,000. The War of the Stray Dog, also known as the Incident at Petrich, claimed the lives of fifty people before Greece withdrew its forces.

  I Only Get It for the Articles Anyway

  On the cover of every Saturday Evening Post from 1899 to its demise was the claim: “Founded A.D. 1728 by Benjamin Franklin.” This would have come as a shock to Franklin, as he never heard of the Saturday Evening Post due to the fact that he had died in 1790, thirty-one years before its first issue—on August 4, 1821. The only possible connection between the Saturday Evening Post and Benjamin Franklin is that in 1729 (not 1728), Franklin took over a struggling newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, which continued publication until 1800—and the Post used the same print shop that the Gazette formerly used. This is a case of either six degrees of separation or 200 years of lying.

  A Voyage of Titanic Proportions

  It’s either a case of the worst luck in history or the best:• In 1829, a ship called The Mermaid was four days away from her destination of Sydney, Australia, when a massive storm struck and drove the ship into a reef. All twenty-two people on board survived and were able to swim to safety.

  • Three days later, the Swiftsure rescued them.

  • Five days later, the Swiftsure sank.

  • Victims from both ships were rescued by the schooner Governor Ready.

  • Three hours later, the Governor Ready caught fire.

  • The Comet pulled everyone from lifeboats and brought them aboard.

  • Five days later, the Comet sank. (The crew went for help in the longboat, leaving the passengers floating in the water.)

  • Eighteen hours later, the mail boat Jupiter pulled everyone out of the ocean.

  • In under twelve hours, the Jupiter sank.

  • Everyone was rescued by the passenger vessel The City of Leeds.

  • Four days later, The City of Leeds docked in Sydney, Australia.

  The bad luck was that five ships were lost—the good luck was that not a single person died.

  He Was a Dick from the Very Start

  “Wanted: Congressional candidate with no previous political experience to defeat a man who has represented the district in the House for 10 years,” read an ad that appeared in several southern California newspapers in 1946. “Any young man, resident of district, preferably a veteran, fair education, may apply for the job.” The ad wasn’t a joke. The Republican Party, in hopes of finding a maverick politician to defeat incumbent Congressman Jerry Voorhis, had placed it. To everyone’s surprise, a maverick politician did answer the ad—and did go on to defeat Voorhis for California’s Twelfth Congressional District. The want-ad-answering politician’s name . . . Richard M. Nixon.

  No Return—No Deposit