by Joe Rhatigan
SIDE NOTE: Johnson had what is perhaps the worst campaign slogan of all time. While running for vice president, he campaigned with this nugget: “Rumpsey Dumpsey, Rumpsey Dumpsey, Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh.” (He supposedly killed the Shawnee chief during the War of 1812.)
Genghis Certainly Khan
The Mongol Emperor Genghis Khan (1162–1227) once said, “The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them before him. To ride their horses and take away their possessions. To see the faces of those who were dear to them bedewed with tears, and to clasp their wives and daughters in his arms.” Well, according to a study in an article called “The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols,” Khan took his “clasping” seriously. The article states that nearly 16 million men living today in Asia carry Khan’s Y-chromosome, which means about 0.5 percent of the male population of the world is descended from Genghis Khan or his brothers.
Nero’s Greatest Hits
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was Roman Emperor from 54–68 CE and was known for his many tyrannical acts. However, he is probably best remembered for something he didn’t do: sing and play his lyre while Rome burned. In fact, he was out of town at the time, but returned upon hearing the news and personally took part in search and rescue operations. He also opened his palaces for the homeless and made sure survivors had provisions. Not bad for a guy who killed his mother and stepbrother, threw the requisite orgies, and started the whole Roman leader fad of persecuting Christians. He blamed them for the fire (deflecting the blame that was being placed on him) and, in the words of the ancient historian Tacitus, “covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination when daylight had expired.”
Oh, but that’s not all! What did Nero do with the area that had been destroyed by the fire? He built a gigantic palatial estate for himself. Named Domus Aurea, or Golden House, this one to three hundred–acre complex featured a pool the size of a lake, buildings shaped like cities, ceilings that rained perfume and flowers on guests, and a 120-foot statue of the man himself. Upon its completion, Nero supposedly said, “Good, now I can at last begin to live like a human being.”
Perhaps worst of all, Nero fancied himself an actor and singer. He gave public performances in which no one was allowed to leave until he was finished. Another ancient historian, Suetonius, wrote that pregnant women who went into labor had to give birth during his recitals and that men pretended to die so they could be carried out.
Foundering Fathers
America’s Founding Fathers were the leaders who in words and deeds fought to create the United States of America. They signed the Declaration of Independence, fought in the Revolutionary War, and framed the Constitution. Today, they are revered as manly heroes with bad teeth who walked around wearing stockings and wigs. But, like the rest of the leaders in this chapter, they, too, acted badly.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
THE GOOD: First US secretary of the treasury, aide-de-camp to George Washington during the Revolutionary War, and author of the Federalist Papers.
THE BAD: Became embroiled in a love affair with Maria Reynolds. Reynolds’s husband blackmailed Hamilton during the affair, even trying to secure a job in government from Hamilton. Hamilton published a detailed confession of his affair (too much information, Alex!) that shocked his constituents and his wife and damaged his reputation.
THE UGLY: Fought a duel with Aaron Burr and died.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
THE GOOD: First president of the United States.
THE BAD: As a young man, wrote several love letters to a married woman. Did anything physical happen between the two? Nobody knows for sure.
THE UGLY: He never chopped down a cherry tree and he didn’t have wooden teeth. (His falsies were carved from hippopotamus and elephant ivory.)
THOMAS JEFFERSON
THE GOOD: Author of the Declaration of Independence, third president of the United States, and overall Renaissance man.
THE BAD: First president to propose the idea of a formal Native American removal plan. He also, according to historian Richard Morris, “detested intellectual women.” While giving a free pass to Abigail Adams, Jefferson was annoyed by “the political chatter of women in Parisian salons,” and wrote, “The appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public is not prepared, nor am I.”
THE UGLY: While officially against slavery and the slave trade, he not only kept slaves and most likely fathered children with one of them, but he also believed blacks were inferior to whites “in the endowments both of body and mind.”
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
THE GOOD: Scientist, author, inventor, and US ambassador to France.
THE BAD: Womanizer and father to an illegitimate son who remained loyal to the British during the Revolutionary War.
THE WEIRD: Threw parties where guests had to drink from glasses wired to batteries. They’d get a shock after each sip. He’d also electrocute turkeys to the amazement of his guests and then feed it to them.
JOHN ADAMS
THE GOOD: First vice president, second president, delegate to the Continental Congress, and good ol’ Puritan at heart.
THE BAD: Signed the Aliens and Sedition Acts, which allowed the president to deport any foreigner he thought dangerous to the country and made it a crime to publish “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” against the government.
THE UGLY: Called “the crankiest Founding Father” by historian Jack D. Warren, Adams was a hater who had a gripe with just about everyone. Called Benjamin Franklin “the old conjurer” and fought with him throughout their lives. He believed Washington didn’t deserve the adoration he received and that Washington’s greatest talents were his looks, graceful movements, and his gift of silence.
The Dog Shogun
Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (1646–1709) was the fifth shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty of Japan. He was known as a religious man and a very strict ruler. And he liked dogs. Born in the Year of the Dog, he felt canines should be treated well. In a series of edicts on “Compassion for Living Things,” Tsunayoshi commanded his people to protect dogs at all costs. Under these edicts, if you injured, killed, or even ignored a dog, you could be put to death or be forced to commit suicide.
At one point, three hundred people were put to death in one month for failing to live up to the edicts, and anywhere from sixty thousand to two hundred thousand people were killed or exiled during Tsunayoshi’s reign for violations. Soon the city became so overrun with dogs that Tsunayoshi had fifty thousand dogs sent out from the city to live in special kennels where they were fed rice and fish each day—all at taxpayers’
I Like Big Butts
Ibrahim I was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1640–1648. In the short time he ruled, he nearly single-handedly destroyed it all. He supposedly suffered from stress, though his obsession with extremely obese women may have relieved some of it. He sent his attendants out to find the largest woman possible. They returned with a 330-pound woman from either Armenia or Georgia. Ibrahim named her “Sheker Pare” (piece of sugar), gave her a government pension, and made her Governor General of Damascus. He supposedly drowned all 280 women in his harem after a rumor that another man had slept with some of them. Ibrahim was also seen feeding coins to the fish that lived in the palace’s pool. He was strangled to death in a coup in 1648.
William the Corpulent Conqueror
When one thinks of kings and queens, brave deeds, loyal attendants, and dignified ceremonies usually come to mind. None of these were in the cards for William the Conqueror, who suffered a fate worthy of a Monty Python skit. After attacking a French garrison in 1087, the once strong (and now fat) William got thrown off his horse and ruptured his intestines on the metal pommel at the front of his saddle. It took a little while to die, but once he did, things only got worse for the king. First, his attendants ran off after stripping the body of
all valuables and removing all the king’s weapons and furniture. Then, during William’s funeral procession, his pallbearers had to drop him to go fight a fire. Finally, the king’s giant body, which had swollen considerably, didn’t fit in the stone sarcophagus reserved for him. The bishops attending the body pushed and squeezed to no avail. Finally, the stomach burst, showering everyone with dead body pieces. Everyone in the church made a run for it.
NOTE: Late in life, William fought more bravely in the dining room than on the battlefield. He became so corpulent that King Philip I of France said that he looked like a pregnant woman.
Bad Dad
Peter I of Russia (1672–1725) deserved being called “the Great” for many reasons. He was the father of Russian modernization and expansion that transformed Russia into an empire and major European power. Unfortunately for Alexei, Peter was also father of … Alexei. Brought up by his mother, who didn’t much care for Peter, Alexei was torn from her at age nine, when Peter sent her to a convent. Alexei fled Russia as an adult, and when suspected of masterminding a plot to overthrow the tsar, he was tracked down, captured, and returned to his home country for a few rounds of torture. Alexei confessed during the torture, and died before he could be put to death. Thanks, Dad!
Nice Day for a Dwarf Wedding
In October 1710, the same Peter the Great had the pleasure of marrying off his niece Anna Ivanovna to Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Couland. He threw a lavish banquet that lasted two days. Soon after, he held another lavish wedding, this time for the royal dwarf Iakim Volkov and his dwarf bride. See, the six-foot, seven-inch tsar had a thing for dwarfs. Some might say he collected them. He had dwarf servants and entertainers surrounding him. He liked surprising his guests by having naked dwarfs jump out of giant pies, and some historians say he was interested in breeding a race of small people. So, needless to say, this dwarf wedding was a big deal for the tsar.
Back in August of 1710, he had instructed all the dwarfs in Moscow to be rounded up and sent to St. Petersburg. They were “given” to the lords and ladies of his court, who were told to care for them and make sure they were dressed in the latest Western fashion. When the wedding took place in November, seventy dwarfs were in attendance. During the ceremony, the full-sized guests remained on the sidelines and laughed—especially since Peter made sure that elements of the wedding resembled his niece’s recent nuptials. At the feast, the dwarfs sat at miniature tables in the center of the hall, while again the full-sized guests watched from the sidelines, roaring with laughter as the dwarfs danced, drank, and even brawled. Crazy? Certainly. Mean-spirited? Definitely. But was there a deeper meaning to his madness? Could it be that Peter was using the dwarf wedding as a mirror held up to the laughing lords and ladies, who, though they thought themselves cultured, couldn’t yet hold a candle to the European elite? Hmm …
SIDE NOTE: Not to appear overly attentive to people of diminutive stature, Peter also threw a wedding for a seven-foot, six-inch giant named Nicolas Bourgeois who he found in France. He then located a Finnish giantess for Nicolas, but since giants were more difficult to find than dwarfs, Peter didn’t insist on a basketball player wedding party. The tsar was disappointed when the couple didn’t produce any huge children, but he kept Bourgeois on salary just to have him show up at his wacky parties and ceremonies … sometimes dressed as a baby.
Making Uncle Peter Proud
Anna Ivanovna, Peter the Great’s niece, ruled Russia from 1730 until her death in 1740. She didn’t care much for actually ruling Russia, but she enjoyed parties and tormenting the aristocracy. Her court included a nobleman who was not only forced to be her fool, but also had to pretend to be a chicken—all the time. But that wasn’t enough. She ordered an ice palace built for a marriage that she arranged (she liked arranging and throwing lavish weddings) between this “fool” and one of her elderly maids. Anna wasn’t done yet! The bride and groom had to dress as clowns, and then they and the wedding party had to sleep naked in the ice palace during a typically freezing-cold Russian night.
Executive Obsessions
NOSOCOMEPHOBIA: Richard Nixon was deathly afraid of hospitals. In 1974, he initially refused to go to a hospital to get treatment for a blood clot. He said at the time, “If I go into the hospital, I’ll never come out alive.” (Wonder what the word for “fear of Richard Nixon” is.)
TAPHEPHOBIA: George Washington had no problem risking his life for American independence from Britain, but he was terrified by the prospect of being buried alive. Upon his deathbed in 1799, he made one of his attendants promise that his body would be left alone for two days after expiring, just in case. (But then again, due to the primitive nature of medical care at the time, it did happen every once in a while and wasn’t such a bizarre thing to be scared of.)
AEROPHOBIA: Kim Jong Il won’t fly anywhere due to his fear of flying. He travels mostly on his personal rail car. He has traveled as far as Moscow this way. Kim “got” his fear honestly: He was in a helicopter crash in 1976 in which he was seriously injured. Ronald Reagan and Joseph Stalin were also afraid of flying.
CLAUSTROPHOBIA: Muammar al-Qaddafi supposedly freaks out in confined spaces and is much more comfortable remaining outdoors in a tent than checked into a hotel. While attending a United Nations General Assembly meeting in 2009, Qaddafi tried to set up his tent in New York City in several different locations (Donald Trump even offered him some land to use).
AILUROPHOBIA: Afraid of cats? Then you’re an ailurophobe … just like Napoleon Bonaparte. Other famous ailurophobes included Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, Julius Caesar, and Benito Mussolini.
CYNOPHOBIA: Chancellor Merkel of Germany was bitten by a dog as a child, and has been deeply afraid of dogs since. Former Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, with this information in hand, once offered a dog as a gift to the chancellor. He would also let his black Lab sit in on their meetings.
TRISKAIDEKAPHOBIA: He may have said, “The only thing you have to fear is fear itself,” but Franklin Delano Roosevelt was afraid of something else: the number thirteen. He avoided hosting dinner parties with thirteen people, and he refused to travel on the thirteenth.
The Glass King
Charles VI was crowned King of France in 1380 at just eleven years old. At first, he was called Charles the Beloved, but by the end of his life, he was Charles the Mad. Most likely he suffered from schizophrenia, especially since his psychotic episodes began in young adulthood and included paranoid delusions.
His first known episode happened in 1392 while on a personal mission to avenge the attempted murder of one of his advisors. As he and his escort traveled through a forest, a page dropped the king’s lance, which made a loud noise. Charles drew his sword and yelled, “Forward against the traitors! They wish to deliver me to the enemy!” He then began hacking away at his small army, killing at least one knight and, most likely, several more. When finally wrestled to the ground, he quickly went into a coma.
Charles recovered, but his bouts continued. Other episodes included forgetting that he was king, not remembering his wife, claiming his name was George, running through the corridors of his palace (to the point where the entrances were barricaded), refusing to bathe or change his clothes for five months, thinking he was made of glass, and more. Charles died in 1422, and he most likely passed his illness to his grandson, Henry VI of England.
SIDE NOTE: Henry VI, King of England and disputed King of France, at one point became completely unaware of anything that was going on around him. This lasted for more than a year.
Take Me to Your Leader
Not one but two future presidents of the United States had close encounters with unidentified flying objects. We’ll begin with Jimmy Carter’s sighting. In 1969, while governor of Georgia, Carter claims that he and several other men were standing outside the Lion’s Club in Leary, Georgia, when they saw a strange red and green orb in the sky. I’ll let Jimmy tell you the rest.
“I don’t laugh at people anymore when
they say they’ve seen UFOs. It was the darndest thing I’ve ever seen. It was big, it was very bright, it changed colors, and it was about the size of the moon. We watched it for ten minutes, but none of us could figure out what it was. One thing’s for sure: I’ll never make fun of people who say they’ve seen unidentified objects in the sky. If I become president, I’ll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and the scientists.”
This was part of his speech at the 1976 Southern Governors Conference while campaigning for president.
Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan was the first US president to talk about the world uniting against a threat from “a power from outer space.” Some may have thought he was just losing his marbles, but he was speaking from personal experience. His first encounter happened before he was governor of California. He was on his way to a party at actor William Holden’s home in Hollywood when he and his wife, Nancy, pulled over to watch a strange light in the sky. They arrived at the party and told everyone of their UFO sighting. Reagan’s second sighting was in 1974 while aboard the governor’s private plane. They were heading toward Bakersfield, California, when one of his aides noticed a bright white light near the plane. Everyone aboard, including the pilot, watched in amazement as whatever it was then shot upward very quickly. Reagan actually told the story to the Washington Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal, Norman C. Miller. “It was a bright white light. We followed it to Bakersfield, and all of a sudden, to our utter amazement, it went straight up into the heavens.” Miller verified the amazing claim with the pilot, who corroborated it.