by Cracked. com
THE TRUTH: Ostriches can run sixty miles per hour, bend their knees backward, and disembowel you with two thousand pounds of force.
Instead of telling us that the ostrich is a giant mentally challenged chicken that doesn’t understand how sight works, why didn’t they tell us that the ostrich is a three-hundred-pound murder-bird that can run sixty miles per hour for a half hour straight? Why didn’t they tell us about its horrifying four-inch-long talons? Or that its knees bend backward, turning them into jackhammers capable of killing a freaking lion with a single kick?
Your average ostrich has the ability to kick directly forward with a force of two thousand pounds per square inch. To put that into context, a professional heavyweight boxer can hit with about eight hundred pounds per square inch. So an ostrich’s kick is the equivalent of roughly two and a half Mike Tysons delivering their best knockout punch, in the same spot, at the exact same time, with four-inch-long combat knives taped to the ends of their gloves.
FIGURE 2.15 “I’ll be bawk”: A terminator ostrich, politely pretending ostriches “bawk” for the sake of this joke.
THE MYTH: Saint Bernards carry brandy around their necks.
If you’re not familiar with this one, it means you haven’t watched enough old Bugs Bunny cartoons. Saint Bernards do not actually carry a secret stash of emergency booze, because that would be a very bad idea: Burdening a rescue animal with a heavy keg would slow it down; brandy is only 36 to 60 percent alcohol and therefore could freeze solid; and, most important, alcohol actually causes you to lose heat faster, which means giving brandy to a freezing guy just makes for a comically drunken corpsicle. We think of Saint Bernards carrying hilariously tiny liquor casks around their necks because of Sir Edwin Henry Landseer’s painting Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveler. (Edwin wasn’t one of those abstract, hard-to-get artists.)
Then Looney Tunes picked up on the trope and the myth was cemented in pop culture history. It has no basis in reality: Landseer never knew a Saint Bernard that carried brandy. There was no reason for Landseer to depict the dogs as mobile liquor cabinets at the time; he just thought dogs would be cooler if they were also bars (he was right, goddamn it).
THE TRUTH: Dog soldiers are straight-edge and hard-core.
So history made up a story about dogs half-assing their way up snowy hillsides with liquor collars, while real dogs have been sniffing ass and taking names on the battlefield pretty much since the inception of warfare.
Dogs have done everything from finding water for a dying platoon to pulling shipwrecked sailors ashore to attacking abusive captors to fighting tigers and alligators just to kill time. And that was all one English pointer named Judy. We’re not joking—she served in the Royal Navy during World War II.
Meanwhile, a terrier named Rags delivered messages across enemy lines and used his superior hearing to warn his fellow soldiers of impending mortar strikes. Smoky the Yorkshire ran communications cable dozens of yards through rubble under heavy fire, then went on national television and performed forty-two different tricks in a row. True story.
And then there’s Gander, a Newfoundland that fought for the Canadians against the Japanese in World War II. He repelled an attempted Japanese ambush by taking two units out with his massive jaws and trademark Canadian courtesy, then actually picking up a live grenade and running it over to the enemy to explode in a furry ball of glory and probably just the worst smell ever. Although his mouth was full, some on the scene reported Gander muttering, “Fetch this, assholes.”
THE MYTH: Cutting one earthworm in half yields two!
It’s so incredibly easy to debunk this myth that it’s a wonder so many people still believe it. To test the theory, children would cut an earthworm in half, watch the two halves wriggle around in a wormlike fashion for a little bit, and then lose interest and just assume that both of the baby worms went on to lead happy, fulfilling lives. But if you were patient enough to stick around, you would see that, pretty soon, both halves stopped wriggling, and you would be introduced to the concept of death.
Despite its appearance of being “all tail,” a worm is more like a dog in sleeve form: It’s got a stomach and circulatory system and everything (see Figure 2.16). Sure, its two halves wriggle around after being separated from each other. Your dog would do the same thing if you cut it in half. Go ahead, try it. We’ll wait in silent horror.
That wriggling you just noticed in between our hysterical sobs doesn’t prove that you’re about to have two puppies on your hands. It proves that human beings, even as small children, are willing to believe just about any lie if it lets them cut something in half.
FIGURE 2.16 As children, most people are monsters.
THE TRUTH: Amazing animal tricks that don’t involve cutting them in half!
God created some animals with built-in cheat codes that you can use to trick them into doing stuff that will amaze your friends. For instance, if you want to hypnotize a chicken, all you have to do is gain access to a chicken—we can’t help you with that part—and gently hold its head on the ground with one hand. With your other, draw a straight line in the dirt about two feet away from its beak. The chicken’s heart rate and breathing will slow, and then that’s it: hypnotized chicken. It will stay that way for up to a half hour.
Or maybe your friends would be impressed by your ability to wade into a stream and pull out fish with your bare goddamn hands like some sort of man/polar bear superbeast. All you need to know is how to tickle a trout into submission. It’s basically just a matter of easing close to the trout while it rests under a rock in the shallows. Then you brush your fingers along its tail, slowly moving up the body with a delicate touch, as you would on a woman . . . with a tail. Belly tickling incapacitates the trout, and you will have a few seconds in which you can grab it.
If you know what to do, you can make a lobster stay (by making it do a headstand), put a lizard to sleep in your hands (more belly tickling), hypnotize a shark (by holding its nose; we don’t recommend it), and essentially turn off an alligator (flip it onto its back).
THE MYTH: Animals are simple, easygoing creatures.
There are only a handful of animals we’re willing to credit with true intelligence. Outside of the species in the Gifted and Talented Program (apes, octopuses, and dolphins), we tend to assume that animal behavior is just a jumble of instinct and reaction. This is exactly what the crows want you to believe.
THE TRUTH: Animals hold grudges for life and carry out blood oaths.
Even if you haven’t been keeping your eye on crows, you should know that they’ve been keeping an eye on you, and they have already memorized your face. Crows have the ability to distinguish between people, knowing which ones are benign and which ones deserve to be dive-bombed or crop-dusted with excrement. John M. Marzluff, a wildlife biologist at the University of Washington, conducted a test in which he captured and tagged seven crows, all while wearing a rubber mask, to see how good the birds were at facial recognition. After he released all seven, the crows maintained a healthy grudge against the face that had captured them . . . for more than two years. When other people would wear the same mask, the crows would dive-bomb them. It wasn’t as simple as “Fuck up the guy in the mask,” either; when the researchers wore slightly different masks, the birds left them alone. There was only one face or mask that would send them into a murderous rage, and, even more bizarre, that information was passed through generations of crows. Over the two-year vendetta, crows that weren’t even present (or alive yet) for the original capture started attacking the mask wearer as well. That means the crows could communicate with one another about who exactly deserved to be punished.
It’s not just vengeance that crows choose to pass on to their young; they’re just as good at memorizing and teaching each other how to exploit human behavior as well. Even if you don’t know the exact day your garbage man comes to collect your trash, you can be sure that the crows in your neighborhood do. They can memorize the trash sche
dule for entire city blocks down to the hour, because there’s a good chance that not all that trash will make it into the truck, and the drippings of a week-old garbage bag on the street is like truffle oil to crows.
They’ve also memorized our driving schedules. Crows will drop nuts onto busy streets, essentially using cars as tools to crack them open. If that doesn’t sound impressive, they’ve also memorized the pattern of traffic lights so they can drop the nuts at opportune moments, and they won’t go into the street to retrieve the nuts until after the light has turned red. That means crows are better at traffic safety than squirrels, dogs, and you after too many shots.
And if you’re not too worried about crow vengeance because, when it comes down to it, you could probably take a crow in a fistfight, then let’s discuss the prospect of a tiger going Liam Neeson on your ass. A Russian poacher named Vladimir Markov shot and wounded a tiger but wasn’t able to track it down. Deciding that he didn’t want to walk away from the hunt empty-handed, the poacher stole part of the animal the tiger had killed and was in the process of eating when it ran away.
This is where you’d expect the tiger to come bounding back into the clearing and kill the poacher. But this tiger’s brain was built more like that of Jason Voorhees. According to NPR, “The injured tiger hunted Markov down in a way that appears to be chillingly premeditated. The tiger staked out Markov’s cabin, systematically destroyed anything that had Markov’s scent on it, and then waited by the front door for Markov to come home.” Between twelve and forty-eight hours after he wounded the tiger, Markov returned home and was devoured by it, presumably while he tried scaring it off by banging pots together and making loud noises.
FIGURE 3.1 (L-R) How you picture ancient Greece, and the colorblind landscape of tacky art it actually looked like. Having forgotten the fluorescent color palette of history, humanity was doomed to repeat it during the early ’90s.
3.A
The Greatest Story Ever Withheld
Boring Lies About Ancient Civilizations They Taught You, and the Incredible Truth They Kept Secret
Ancient Civilizations: Way Cooler-Looking Than You Think
Have you ever wondered why history books start off by teaching you about things that happened thousands of years ago? Are we obsessed with chronology, demanding that our facts be given to us in the strictest of order? Of course not. History books start with tales of things that happened thousands of years ago because nobody from back then is still around today to point out that the people writing these books are clearly just making up things as they go along.
Ancient Greece Was Not Entirely White and Khaki
THE MYTH: Greece was white togas and marble statues without pupils as far as the eye could see.
All of Western civilization owes a debt of gratitude to ancient Greece. Centuries later, we still rely on their philosophies, their mathematic formulas, their toga parties. The enduring power of their influence is perfectly exemplified by the marble statues they carved of the immortal gods, still standing today and perfectly preserved.
THE TRUTH: Ancient Greece looked more like someone crashed their LGBT pride parade into a Mardi Gras festival.
Imagine for a moment that a race of aliens stumbles upon a mall years in the future, long after humans have been wiped out. Because of either looting or differing rates of decomposition, the only things left are metal racks and naked store mannequins. If this race of aliens was quick to jump to conclusions and easily misled, they might assume that America was full of terrible museums where people gawked at nearly identical flesh-tone sculptures. Those aliens would have to be pretty stupid, right?
Well, here’s the thing: Ancient Greeks would view those pure-white sculptures that have since become synonymous with their culture a lot like we view naked store mannequins. Turns out they look like that only because of time and weathering. When they were on display in Greece, most of those statues were painted in hot pinks, yellows, bright reds, and nearly every other color they had access to. All exposed skin was painstakingly colored to exactly match flesh tones, and, judging by the ubiquity of genitals among those statues, you can imagine that at least a few guys would lie about their jobs when trying to pick up women at bars, because “I make sure the balls on statues are ball colored” isn’t high on the list of brag-worthy careers. Worst of all, they colored in the pupils in the faces of each statue. That means each god and hero had the dead stare of a sex doll. So the next time you want to imagine the Venus de Milo as she originally appeared, arms and all, you’ll probably want to go ahead and picture her with a nice tan and a pair of googly eyes as well. You know, for historical accuracy.
Ancient Egypt Didn’t Look Like That
THE MYTH: We tend to picture the Egyptian pyramids as massive, meticulously layered, sandy, golden bricks.
THE TRUTH: This is like assuming that giant dinosaur skeletons roamed Earth during the Jurassic period. When you look at the Pyramids today, you’re seeing the exposed layers of their structural base, revealed by centuries of sandstorms and tourists taking home chunks as souvenirs.
When they were new, the Pyramids were gleaming white. Egyptians were all about having the maximum amount of glittery goodness, especially when it came to death. Since the Pyramids were the tombs of the pharaohs, they made sure they were the biggest, most sparkly things of all. The original Pyramids lit up like the Times Square of ancient Egypt.
FIGURE 3.2 Egyptians were very concerned with making sure astronauts, aliens, gods, and anyone else looking down on them knew exactly how fly they were (super).
The original outside consisted of smooth white limestone that hid the layers of brick, giving the effect that a pyramid was one giant, solid piece. That outer crunchy candy shell was then polished until it was on the verge of blinding from all the light it would reflect from the sun or moon. They could be seen from miles away, even during the night. Had the technology existed, we’re pretty sure the pharaohs would have stuck spinning twenty-four-inch chrome rims on them, too.
FIGURE 3.3 “Can’t Tut This.” We haven’t listened to rap music in a very long time.
Ancient Egyptians Also Didn’t Act Like That
THE MYTH: The Egyptians worshipped pharaohs as gods.
THE TRUTH: This misconception comes to you courtesy of the driving force behind most of history: wacky misunderstandings.
In ancient Egyptian and Persian cultures, it was proper to prostrate oneself before those of higher social rank. Essentially, they bowed before their king. No big deal. In Greek religion, however, it was a terrible act of blasphemy to bow to anyone other than a god. So when Greeks went east and saw people bowing to the pharaoh, they thought the pharaoh was being worshipped as a god.
Pharaoh Khufu—the guy responsible for the Great Pyramid of Giza—built his monument specifically to make up for the fact that he really wasn’t all that powerful. According to historian Joyce Marcus, “The Great Pyramid is a bluff,” a massive expenditure designed to obscure the fact that Pharaoh Khufu “couldn’t dominate Egypt’s neighbors.” So exactly like Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation.
The “Dark” Ages Was a Time of Scholarship, Discovery, and Innovation . . . in the Middle East
THE MYTH: The Dark Ages (fifth to tenth centuries) were rock-bottom for humanity.
You can tell when a movie you’re watching is set in the Dark Ages because the people who aren’t committing murder while dressed in metal armor look like they just bathed in mud. For this chunk of human history, a great darkness hung over the globe. Mankind decided to give up on art, science, and all non-torture-related enterprises. The great insights of the Greek and Roman empires were abandoned in favor of theories about how to tell if a woman was a witch and how best to burn women who might be witches. Thank goodness the Italians eventually started the Renaissance and saved us from our own filthy ignorance.
THE TRUTH: If you weren’t a white guy from Western Europe, the Dark Ages weren’t dark.
Long before the Italian Renaissan
ce, the Islamic caliphs realized that the Greeks and Romans had been onto something with that book-learning stuff, and they used this realization to revolutionize astronomy, literature, physics, philosophy, and architecture. Still bored, they went ahead and invented algebra and modern medicine as well. While Europe busily avoided baths, and the evil spirits they let in, the Middle East enjoyed a mathematical and scientific golden age that outshone the Italian one in many ways.
Islamic caliphs blanketed every land they conquered with schools, libraries, public works, and the most comprehensive system of social welfare on the planet. If they’d succeeded in conquering all of Europe, an Italian Renaissance would have been unnecessary. Plus, while Christian crusaders were beheading their enemies and tossing their heads like oversize Hacky Sacks, their Muslim counterparts had a whole honor code that led them to feed the armies of their defeated enemies.
Referring to this period in history as the Dark Ages is like referring to 1996—the year Michael Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to a record-setting seventy-two wins and the NBA championship—as the Year the Bulls Had Journeyman Center Bill Wennington.
FIGURE 3.4 A great darkness descended over (approximately 5 percent of) the land.
Biblical Times Didn’t Look Like That
THE MYTH: The faces that go with the names in the Bible looked like this . . .
FIGURE 3.5 Jesus rolls his eyes, probably tired of everyone asking him for the beauty secret behind his flawless porcelain complexion.