Before 1950, Americans bathed about once a week. Now it’s almost once a day.
•300 The weakening Roman Empire is divided into two halves, eastern and western, with two emperors. The Hohokam people found “Snaketown” on the Gila River in Arizona, employing organized labor to build an elaborate irrigation network. New technology: stirrups are invented in China; warriors can now use swords and spears more effectively on horseback.
•312 Constantine, emperor of the western half of the Roman Empire, converts to Christianity. This is known as the beginning of the Roman Catholic Church and is the impetus for the Christian domination of the Western world. The first church is built on the site of what will become the center of the Catholic Church—the Vatican. Within 20 years, Constantine will conquer the east and become emperor of a reunited empire. He moves the capital from Rome to Byzantium and changes the name to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul in Turkey).
•330 Buddhism continues its spread through Asia and is now practiced in China and Mongolia.
•410 Teotihuacán (in central Mexico) is a highly developed city—and the largest in the world, with a population of about 200,000. The Visigoths, a Germanic tribe, attack and plunder Rome. New technology: Greeks invent the catapult, the first artillery weapon.
•450 Under the leadership of Attila, the Huns, a nomadic equestrian tribe from central Asia, invade northern Europe and the eastern Roman Empire. Attila’s palace is built in Hungary.
•476 Rome falls, marking the end of the western Roman Empire and the start of the European Dark Ages. The eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire will last another 1,000 years.
•486 Although he is little more than a tribal chieftain, Clovis expels Roman rulers from Gaul and becomes the first king of France.
•541 The Justinian Plague, named after the Byzantine emperor, affects the Mediterranean region. By 544 it will kill 25% to 50% of the population. Buddhism reaches Japan.
•570 Mohammed is born in Mecca.
Ancient Egyptians kept cheetahs as pets.
•600 Beginning of extensive slave trade from sub-Saharan Africa to the Mediterranean. New technology: Yokes and collars that allow animals to pull heavier plows, and new methods of crop rotation increase production and population. Mayans make paper from bark.
•610 According to Islamic belief, Mohammed is visited by the angel Gabriel near Mecca and given the word of God, written as the Koran. Mohammed’s flight from Mecca in 622 marks the start of the Islamic calendar and the beginning of the Islamic Era. In 630 his army takes Mecca, and by the time of his death in 632, he will have converted most of the Arabian Peninsula to Islam.
•640 Caliph Omar conquers Egypt (caliph was the title for the religious and political successor to Mohammed). Islam begins to spread through North Africa.
•656 Ali, son-in-law of Mohammed, becomes caliph. Bloody civil wars lead to a major split of Islam: the majority Sunnis, who will take control, and the Shiites, who followed Ali. The split endures today.
•670 Only decades from its inception, the Islamic Empire now extends from India through the Middle East and North Africa, soon to expand to Spain and southern Europe. This includes Jerusalem, a holy city to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, who will build the Dome of the Rock mosque on the Temple Mount in 692.
•756 Pépin III of France defends Rome against invaders. Pope Stephen II crowns him king of France; Pépin gives territories to the pope. This establishes a papal state, sets a precedent for Church-appointed rulers in Europe, and gives the Roman Church actual political power.
•800 French king Charlemagne (Charles the Great) conquers almost all of Europe. He is crowned emperor by Pope Leo III, marking the start of the Holy Roman Empire in Europe. The first castles are built in western Europe.
And then what happened? Turn to page 472.
Living up to the name: Buffalo Bill Cody killed 4,280 buffalo in one year alone.
THE FOUR DRAGONS
In China, dragons are revered as wise friends, not reviled as enemies. More serpentine than Western dinosaur-like dragons, they have been at the center of Chinese culture for thousands of years, and still are (just visit any Chinese restaurant and count the dragons). Here’s an old myth about four dragons who would rather help the people than listen to the gods—for which they paid the ultimate price.
DRAGON PLAY
Once upon a time, there were no rivers or lakes on Earth. The people had to rely on rain to bring water to their crops. The only water on the Earth was far off in the Eastern Sea. Four giant dragons lived there: the Long Dragon, who was the leader, the Yellow Dragon, the Black Dragon, and the Pearl Dragon.
One day the Four Dragons decided to leave the sea for a little while to play in the sky. They soared and dove, playing hide-and-seek in the clouds. They played for so long that they ventured far from the sea. And it was then that the Pearl Dragon saw something that upset him. “Come here quickly!” he said.
“What is it?” asked the other three. The Pearl Dragon pointed down to the earth. There they saw thousands of people in great torment. Their crops were withering, the grass was yellow, and the fields cracked under the scorching sun. But even though the people were starving, some were laying out offerings of fruits and cakes. Others were praying. An old white-haired woman kneeled to the ground with a thin boy on her back and looked to the sky. “Please send rain quickly, God of Heaven, to give our children some rice to eat. Our food is nearly gone, yet we leave you these gifts so you might find it in your kind heart to bring life to our dying villages.”
A CALL TO ARMS
The old woman’s prayers went unanswered, for the Jade Emperor, whose job it was to oversee all of the happenings on the earth and in the sea, didn’t bother to listen to the lowly people. But the four dragons heard the prayers, and they could not ignore them. “How poor those people are!” said the Yellow Dragon. “They will all die if it doesn’t rain soon.”
Seventy percent of Americans have brown hair.
“You are right,” said the Long Dragon. “Let us go ourselves and beg the Jade Emperor for rain. Perhaps he will listen to us.” So saying, he leaped higher into the sky. The others followed closely and flew up to the Heavenly Palace.
EMPTY PROMISES
The Jade Emperor was displeased to see the dragons enter his great hall. “Why do you come here to bother me? Your job is to stay in the sea, not to meddle in the affairs of the gods.”
The Long Dragon came forward and said, “Please forgive us, Your Majesty. We were merely playing in the sky when we noticed the plight of the starving humans. Their crops are withering and dying. We humbly beg you to send rain down quickly.”
The four dragons bowed and awaited an answer. Finally, the Jade Emperor told them to go back to the sea. “I will send some rain down tomorrow, but you must promise from now on not to bother with humans or annoy the gods. You are dragons of the sea and there you must stay.”
“We will. Oh thank you, Your Majesty.” The four dragons bowed and returned to the sea. But still they looked to the sky and to the land far off where all of the farmlands lay dry. And no rain came the next day. Nor the day after that or the day after that. The people were starving, forced into eating tree bark and dried grass roots. When they ran out of those, they ate white clay. Now ten days had passed since the Jade Emperor’s promise, and still no rain came. The four dragons could see that the Jade Emperor cared only about his own pleasure; yes—it would have to be up them to relieve the miseries of the people. But how?
THE DRAGON BRIGADE
The Long Dragon had an idea. “Look,” he told the others. “Is there not plenty of water here in the sea where we live? More than we or the fish will ever need. We could scoop it up and spray it toward the sky. The water will then fall like raindrops and save the people and their crops.”
The others agreed, but then the Long Dragon realized the flaw in the plan. “If we do this and the Jade Emperor learns of what we have done,” he said, “we may be blamed—and pe
rhaps punished.”
Earliest documented Loch Ness monster sighting: 565 A.D.
The Yellow Dragon replied, “Speaking for myself, I will do anything in my power to save these starving people.” The Black Dragon and Pearl Dragon nodded their heads in agreement.
“So be it,” said the Long Dragon. “We shall save the people and hope we do not come to regret it.”
The four dragons then filled their giant mouths and flew into the sky, releasing the water down to the scorched lands below. They flew back and forth, back and forth, making the sky dark all over the countryside as the water formed rain clouds. The people cried and leaped with joy. “It’s raining! It’s raining! Our crops will be saved!” The wheat stalks raised their heads and the sorghum stalks straightened up. The old woman gave the starving boy a life-giving cup of water.
EMPEROR’S WRATH
While the four dragons were bringing water to the people, the god of the sea was watching them. He promptly went to the Jade Emperor and reported what was happening. The Jade Emperor became very angry. “How dare the four dragons bring rain to those undeserving creatures without my permission!” He called for his generals to gather their armies and prepare to attack. The four dragons’ celebration ended abruptly when they saw thousands of soldiers from the heavens flying toward them. Being far outnumbered, they surrendered peacefully and were taken to the heavenly palace.
The Jade Emperor scolded them: “I told you to return to the sea, but you disobeyed me. Now you shall be banished from both the sea and the sky forever! You are very large and powerful dragons, so your cages must be much larger and even more powerful. Therefore I have commanded the Mountain God to get four mountains so that I might lay one upon each of you—mountains so massive that you will never be able to escape!” The Mountain God used his power to make four mountains fly there, whistling in the wind from afar, and the Jade Emperor pressed the mountains down upon the prisoners.
THE FOUR RIVERS
The four dragons did not even struggle to escape—the mountains were too big. Nor did they ever come to regret defying the Jade Emperor’s orders. Instead, the four dragons vowed to do whatever good they could for the helpless people. And they needed to do something fast, for the rain had already stopped and soon the crops would start to wither again.
In French folklore, dreaming about poop is an omen that good fortune is on the way.
So the four dragons mustered up what little power they had left and turned their scaly backs into riverbeds that wrapped around the mountains. Their insides became water, which flowed down these riverbeds, meandering through the valleys and flowing all the way to the sea. And that is how the four dragons became China’s four great rivers—the Heilongjiang (Black Dragon River) in the far north, the Huang (Yellow River) in central China, the Chang (Yangtze, or Long River) farther south, and the Zhu (Pearl River) in the very far south.
And as long as the kind spirits of the four dragons remain under the mountains, the water will flow forever.
A pair of nylons is made from a single filament four miles long, knitted into 3 million loops.
UNCLE JOHN’S STALL OF FAME
Here’s another in-stall-ment of a Bathroom Reader favorite.
Honoree: Leila LeTourneau, a nurse in Longview, Texas
Notable Achievement: Striking oil...in the water closet
True Story: When LeTourneau left her house for work one Monday in February 2004, everything seemed normal...but when she returned home at the end of her shift, “there was this black ooze coming out from my house,” she told the Longview News-Journal.
The black ooze turned out to be crude oil bubbling up through her toilet, her bathtub, her shower, even her kitchen sink. By the time she got home her entire house was inundated with the stuff. So is she rich now? No—just a victim of bad plumbing. It turns out that instead of being connected to a sewer line, LeTourneau’s house was accidentally hooked up to the drainpipe of a nearby oil field. When that pipe backed up, oil flooded her house. At last report she was living in a rental home, waiting for the mess to be cleaned up. “I was always proud to have an oil derrick in my backyard,” she says. “Now, I don’t know.”
Honoree: Dilubhai Rajput, a diamond merchant in Gujarat, India
Notable Achievement: Creating the world’s most valuable cow manure
True Story: Gujarat state is known for its diamond cutting and dairy industries. Rajput worked in both, and that’s what got him into trouble. In January 2004, he hid a bag of 1,722 small diamonds (estimated value: $900) in a haystack outside of his house. A hungry cow came along...and Rajput spent the next three days following the cow around until it “gave” the diamonds back. He got only 300 at first, but at last report was still confident the others were on the way. “I am sure within a week I will retrieve the rest,” he told the Economic Times.
Honoree: An unnamed man in Jinjiang, China (Xinhua, China’s government-run news agency, did not release his name)
When choosing bathroom reading, women prefer magazines. Men favor newspapers.
Notable Achievement: Going above and beyond the call of duty to serve the bathroom needs of his community
True Story: Apparently, there is a restroom shortage in Jinjiang. In March 2004, an unnamed man offered to convert his own ground-floor apartment into a public bathroom. “There are not enough public toilets in this area, and I often see people relieve themselves stealthily in the far corners of the community,” the man told Xinhua. (At last report his neighbors—worried about the stink—were fighting his plan.)
Honoree: Paul Stafford, director of Foundation Studies in Art and Design at Kingston University in southwestern London
Notable Achievement: Teaching an old restroom new tricks
True Story: In early 2003, Stafford asked the local Kingston upon Thames council to let him convert an abandoned 1950s-era ladies’ room into an art gallery. With their approval, he and a group of volunteers cleaned and painted the restroom. But rather than rip out all of the fixtures, Stafford integrated as many as he could into the gallery’s design: all of the toilet stalls were retained, and the sinks were mounted on the ceiling and converted into light fixtures.
Ironic note: The only toilet they kept, they turned into a decorative fountain. So when the (toilet paper) ribbon was cut and the Toilet Gallery opened to the public in October 2003, any of the 80 people attending had to go down the street to Starbucks if they needed to use the bathroom.
DO EARS OF CORN LISTEN?
In 1960 botanist George Smith planted two sets of corn seeds in flats in his greenhouses. Both sets were treated identically, with the exception that one set “listened” to George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” 24 hours a day. Result: The Gershwin plants sprouted earlier and were healthier. The next year, Smith continuously broadcast music to a small plot of corn. The plot yielded 137 bushels an acre, versus 117 for an identical plot kept in silence.
The term “B.O.” was first used in 1919 deodorant ads.
WHEN CELEBRITIES ATTACK
Famous people are just like everyone else—they act erratically, they make fools of themselves in public, they even start fights. The main difference: there’s always a reporter around to record their actions.
CELEBRITY: Richard Simmons
INCIDENT: In March 2004, Simmons, the famous fitness guru, was waiting in Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport for a flight to Los Angeles when another waiting passenger recognized him. Christopher Farney, a 6'2", 250-pound ultimate cage fighter and martial arts expert, pointed out Simmons to the rest of the passengers and yelled, “Hey everybody, it’s Richard Simmons. Let’s drop our bags and rock to the ’50s.” In response, the 55-year-old fitness pro approached Farney and said, “It’s not nice to make fun of people with issues,” and then smacked him across the face. Although unharmed, Farney called the cops. The charges were later dropped, but Simmons insisted that Farney deserved the slap.
CELEBRITY: Courtney Love
INCIDENT: Aft
er giving an unannounced performance at a Manhattan nightclub, Love was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment. In the early hours of Thursday morning on March 18, 2004, she was performing in front of about 400 people when she decided to toss a microphone stand into the audience. Despite the fact that it struck a 24-year-old man in the head and he had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance, Love did a few more songs and finished her set before being placed under arrest. A spokesperson later explained, “She didn’t know she hurt someone, and felt terrible about it, but she didn’t feel she was guilty of a crime, either.”
CELEBRITY: Naomi Campbell
INCIDENT: On her way to the Toronto movie set of Prisoner of Love in 1998, the supermodel was delayed by Canadian customs officials. Finally arriving at her hotel, the diva blamed her assistant Georgina Galanis for the wait, grabbed her by the throat, and slammed her against a wall. Still furious, Campbell reached for a telephone and hit Galanis twice in the head with the handset, then threatened to throw her from a moving car on a busy highway. A Toronto criminal court ordered Campbell to take anger-management classes. Did she learn anything in class? Apparently not—according to news reports, the supermodel attacked another assistant in 2001.
Pigs have 5,500 taste buds. Cows have 35,000. Antelope have 55,000.
CELEBRITY: Marilyn Manson
INCIDENT: The gender-bending rock star made headlines in September 2003 when a Minnesota jury found him not guilty of battery or any of the other charges against him (causing emotional distress, mental anguish, and humiliation). The charges were the result of a stunt during a 2000 concert. Security guard David Diaz was working the front of the stage when Manson suddenly grabbed him and began rubbing his pelvis against Diaz’s head. In July 2001, while performing in Michigan, Manson pulled the same stunt on security guard Joshua Keasler. That time he had to pay a $4,000 fine.
Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader Page 39