SOME OF OUR BEST MINDS
Not everyone who dabbled in alchemy was an out-and-out fraud: English philosopher Roger Bacon, Dutch astronomer Tycho Brahe, and Isaac Newton are examples of real scientists who tried their hand at alchemy. Whatever their other accomplishments, however, as alchemists, these guys were flops just like the rest of them.
SOLID GOLD FEVER
Using alchemy to create gold was a Western obsession. It started with the Greeks, continued with the Arabs and Muslims (who, as with so many other subjects, preserved and generously added to previously existing Greek and European alchemic knowledge, while Europe festered in what some people call the Dark Ages), and re-emerged in Europe in the 12th century. Over in China, which had developed its own alchemic tradition, the emphasis was far less on transmuting gold than it was on finding an Elixir of Life, which would grant immortality.
IT’S NOW OR NEVER
Why? One suggestion is that pre-Buddhist Chinese theological thinking left open a lot of questions about immortality after death, unlike Western religions, which describe the afterlife in exhaustive and sometimes sadistic detail. The Chinese were hedging their bets by trying to stay alive in this world. It could be that the Europeans weren’t as interested in the immortality angle because medieval Europe was largely an unlivable cesspool. So why would anybody want to prolong living in it?
NOBODY LIVES FOREVER
Whatever the reason for the emphasis on immortality, Chinese alchemists had as little luck in developing an Elixir of Life as European alchemists had in making gold. In fact, there’s a great deal of evidence that suggests Chinese alchemists killed off a number of China’s principal citizens with their dodgy “elixirs”—so much evidence that British historian Joseph Needham once compiled a list of Chinese emperors who were likely poisoned to death by their alchemists. Oops. The Chinese emperors eventually wised up and Chinese alchemy died out.
Peter the Great died after rescuing people from a foundering ship.
BETTER LIVING THROUGH CHEMISTRY
Western alchemy also petered out by the 18th century. The growing science of chemistry took some of the practical aspects of alchemic thought, discarded the obsession with gold and the mystical aspects, and used them to begin uncovering the true chemical nature of the world. What was left over for alchemy was distilled into a quasi-religious discipline known as Hermetism (named for Hermes Trismegistus, the Greek god associated with chemical knowledge).
THINKING JUNG
The last gasp of alchemy was heard in the 1920s from none other than Carl Jung, who declared that alchemical literature, particularly this mystical stuff, was a manifestation of the “collective unconsciousness.” Whatever you say, Carl.
DUMB AND DUMBER
To this date, there is still no practical way either to create gold or to live forever. You have to figure this is a small, bitter comfort for the alchemists. Yes, they were barking up the wrong tree, monumental failures for all time. But we, for all our knowledge of how the universe really works, have yet to do any better.
NERO FIDDLES AS ROME BURNS, RIGHT? WRONG.
Legend has it that it was the power-crazed Emperor himself who put Rome to the torch in A.D. 64—and then stood atop a tower in the middle of the city and blissfully plucked away at his fiddle as the city went up in flames. History, however, tells quite a different story. According to 1st century historian Tacitus, Nero was 50 miles away at his villa in Antium when the fire started. And when he got the news, rather than reaching for his fiddle, he rushed back to Rome and desperately tried to contain the blaze. His anger over the fire, in fact, brought a massive wave of persecution upon an easy scapegoat—the Christians.
France’s Bourbons captured the Spanish throne. It’s now the only Bourbon monarchy left.
SHOOT ON A SHINGLE
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American G.I.’s had to do something to make their chow palatable. Can you match the various food and drink items (1-14) with the slang terms (a-n) that World War II soldiers invented for them? The answers follow.
1. Beans
a. Ammunition
2. Bread
b. Armored cow
3. Canned milk
c. Chalk
4. Coffee
d. Dog biscuits
5. Crackers
e. Gun wadding
6. Grape Nuts
f. Hot water
7. Hash
g. Machine oil
8. Ketchup
h. Mystery plate
9. Maple syrup
i. Battery acid
10. Meatloaf
j. Ptomaine steak
11. Pancakes
k. Rubber Patches
12. Powdered milk
l. Sand and dirt
13. Salt and pepper
m. Shrapnel
14. Soup
n. Transfusion
Answers:
1-a; 2-e; 3-b; 4-i; 5-d; 6-m; 7-h;
8-n; 9-g; 10-j; 11-k; 12-c; 13-l; 14-f.
THE TITANIC WAS ADVERTISED AS UNSINKABLE?
The story of the ship that was billed as unsinkable going down on her maiden voyage is not quite accurate. The White Star Line never advertised the fact that Titanic or her sister ship Olympic were unsinkable. Instead, their promotion focused on the claim that the two ships were the “largest and finest steamers in the world.” The supposed advertising of the ship as unsinkable was the invention of a reporter after the Titanic sank. The irony of it made for copy.
From 1912 to 1944, Denmark’s Christian X was also king of Iceland.
WORLD’S GREATEST HOAXES, PLUS ONE
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Uncle John loves hoaxes so much that he’s decided to put one over on you.
Four of the following are real hoaxes, that is, they really happened. One didn’t. The challenge is to figure out which one is a hoax that Uncle John’s playing on you. Look for the answer at the end. No peeking.
THE COTTINGLEY FAIRIES
The Set-Up: In 1917, two young girls, Elsie Wright and her cousin Frances Griffiths, claimed that they’d played with fairies in the garden of their home in Cottingley, England. They even produced photographs of the fairies to prove it.
The Impact: The pictures made headlines around the world and the story was believed by many, including Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who became an ardent supporter of the girls’ story.
It Was All a Hoax: But 55 years later the girls, now old women, admitted that it had all been a hoax and that they had cut pictures of fairies out of a book and attached them with paper clips to branches and shrubs before taking the photographs. Frances Griffiths expressed her amazement that anyone believed the story, saying, “How on earth anyone could be so gullible as to believe that they were real has always been a mystery to me.”
THE CARDIFF GIANT
The Set-Up: In 1869, at an upstate New York farm just outside the town of Cardiff, well diggers found what seemed to be the petrified body of a man, but more than a man, a 10-foot-tall giant. The diggers had been hired by New York cigar maker George Hull, a relative of the farm’s owner.
The Impact: News of the amazing discovery spread quickly around the world. Hull charged people 50 cents to take a peek at the giant. Experts cried fraud, but the fundamentalists ate it up. So did the civic boosters in whatever town it was exhibited in. The sign that accompanied the giant claimed that P. T. Barnum had offered $50,000 to buy it. The figure may have been lower, but an offer was made. Hull refused to sell, so Barnum made his own replica of the giant and sued Hull, declaring the original to be a fake.
It Was All a Hoax: Under cross-examination during the ensuing trial, Hull admitted that the giant was nothing more than an elaborate hoax, carved from gypsum and washed with sulfuric acid to make it look old. He had thought up the idea after an argument with a fundamentalist preacher. He wondered if he could convince the preacher that the “giants in the earth” mentioned in the Bible were real. Of course, there was the money-making angle, too. Hull cam
e out of the deal some $30,000 ahead.
The famous lover Giovanni Casanova ended his life working as a librarian.
P.T. BARNUM’S “FEEJEE” MERMAID
The Set-Up: In August 1842, an Englishman named Dr. J. Griffin arrived in New York bearing a most unusual artifact—what he said was a real mermaid. Or at least the remains of one. Griffin claimed that the mermaid (not a beautiful blonde like in Splash, but an ugly creature with the withered body of a monkey and the dried tail of a fish) had been caught in the Fiji Islands.
The Impact: Griffin exhibited the mermaid for one week before taking it to London. The exhibit was a sensation; the story was picked up by newspapers around the world. The mermaid was exhibited for one more month before it was taken on a nationwide tour. The little creature was a tremendous boost in establishing Barnum’s reputation as the master purveyor of freak shows.
It Was All a Hoax: The public soon realized that the mermaid was, in fact, the brainchild of promoter extraordinaire P. T. Barnum, and that Dr. Griffin was actually one of Barnum’s employees. Griffin’s Feejee mermaid was nothing more than a handicraft made by Southeast Asian fishermen who mass-produced the items and sold them as “mermaids.” Although the original Feejee mermaid was probably lost when Barnum’s exhibition hall burned down in the 1860s, similar specimens show that it was probably made of papier-mâché molded to represent the creature’s limbs and combined with the jaw, teeth, spine, and fins of a carp.
Part of Ottawa was declared Dutch territory when a princess was born there during WW II.
WILLARD, THE “TALKING” DONKEY
The Set-Up: An ad in the Cleveland Plain Dealer invited the curious to a local auditorium on September 15th, 1873, where they could see what Ohio farmer George Hampton called “an ass that had the uncanny ability to communicate with human beings.” Farmer Hampton billed the animal as “proof positive that we came from the lower orders.”
The Impact: On the date in question, a crowd of 2,000 people—at 50 cents per head—packed into a Cleveland auditorium. Of course, Willard didn’t actually speak. Instead, he tapped his front right hoof on the floor in response to questions. In addition to simple math problems, Willard could answer yes-or-no questions and get them right every time. Willard’s fame and Hampton’s bank account ballooned. Months later, as Willard was leaving to perform in London for England’s Queen Victoria at the Palladium, Willard collapsed of a massive heart attack. He was dead.
It Was All a Hoax: The ensuing autopsy revealed that Willard’s heart attack was caused by continual exposure to electric shock treatment. Hampton’s assistant, an off-stage operator, triggered the wire to give the donkey a jolt each time he was required to pound his hoof. This continued shock treatment eventually proved too much for the “talking donkey,” but not before the world had, once again, been taken for a ride.
THE GIRL WHO BORE RABBITS
The Set-Up: In 1726, an English maid, Mary Toft, claimed to have been assaulted by an exceptionally amorous (and very tall) six-foot rabbit. People actually believed her and the local towns-people went to great lengths to keep their wives and daughters from suffering likewise. Five months later Mary collapsed in a field. A local doctor declared that Mary was pregnant. Four weeks later she gave birth to a dead rabbit, then another. Over the next few days, Howard helped Mary deliver seven more dead rabbits.
The Impact: The news spread quickly. King George I sent two of England’s finest physicians to investigate. Mary was still producing rabbits—all dead. The doctors performed tests on the animals. In one, a portion of the lung of one of the rabbits was placed in water. The fact that it floated should have told the doctors that the rabbit had breathed before its “birth.” They found digested food in the rabbits’ intestines as well as dung in their rectums. They pronounced the births genuine.
Thomas Jefferson & John Adams died on the Declaration of Independence’s 50th anniversary.
It Was All a Hoax: Another third expert arranged for Mary to be moved to a London hospital where she was put under constant surveillance. The rabbits stopped coming. Then a gardener stepped forward, claiming that he’d been supplying Mary with baby rabbits. Mary broke down and confessed. She’d made the whole thing up, inserting the dead rabbits in her womb, then pretending to give birth to them. The motive? Her husband had lost his job and they thought that the publicity might get them a pension from the king. All that Mary got out of it, however, was a prison sentence for fraud.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH LAYS DOWN HIS COAT—NOT!
Queen Elizabeth I is leading a procession through the streets of London. She stops in front of a puddle of mud and looks expectantly at her entourage. Suddenly a gallant seaman emerges from the crowd, whips off his cloak and, with a flourish, lays it on top of the offending puddle. The day is saved and two of the great figures of 16th century history come face to face. It’s a cute story but it never happened. This tale is the invention of 17th century historian named Thomas Fuller, who’s histories are filled with such anecdotal flavorings to enliven otherwise boring stories. Sir Walter Scott picked up on the story in his 1821 novel Kenilworth, adding a short exchange between the two famous figures. Raleigh beams that he will never clean the coat, whereupon the Queen instructs him to her wardrobe keeper with orders for a new suit. It’s a cute story, but it never happened.
Which is our hoax?
Willard the Talking Donkey was our hoax. All the others are real. By the way, the word “hoax” is a shortening of “hocus-pocus,” a synonym for trickery that in turn comes from the Latin “hoc corpus est”—“This is my body”—the phrase spoken during the mass when Catholics believe that the bread is transformed into the body of Christ.
Canada’s 1880 Indian Act defined “person” as “an individual other than an Indian.”
POPE-POURRI
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Some lesser known tales about some more than human popes.
AND THEN THERE WERE THREE
Traditionally the center of papal life was situated in Rome, but in 1309, Pope Clement V moved the papacy to the French city of Avignon, where it remained until 1377, when Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome. France wasn’t pleased by this shift of papal power, so in turn, they elected their own pope. This started what is known as the Great Schism.
Now there were two recognized popes with countries scrambling to align with one or the other. The situation climaxed in 1409, when the Council of Pisa was called to fix the problem. The council simply elected a whole new Pope, Alexander V, and tried to dissolve the papacies of the current Italian Pope, Gregory XII, and the Avignon Pope, Benedict XIII. Of course, neither pope wanted to surrender his seat of wealth and power, thus making a grand total of three popes.
Eventually, the Italian pope resigned and the Avignon pope was deposed (rumor has it, he was defenestrated—literally “thrown out the window” of the palace), finally ending the Great Schism in 1417 after 39 years of papal confusion.
DAMNED IF YOU DO
Pope Gregory IX was hell-bent on purging heretics from the church so he established the Inquisition in 1232. The most popular choice of heretic removal was burning at the stake. After Gregory’s death in 1241, the use of torture was employed by Pope Innocent IV, but not without guidelines.
According to the Book of the Dead (a guideline for inquisitors), heretics were found guilty if they confessed, had a witness confess against them, or denied their guilt (because anyone who denied their guilt was surely a servant of the devil).
WELCOME TO MY CAVE
It’s not easy to decide on a pope. After the death of Pope Nicholas IV in 1292, the two leading families of Rome (the Orsinis and the Colonnas) lobbied hard to have their man elected. Neither family could arrive at a satisfactory nomination until one cardinal, as a joke, suggested they elect Peter of Morone, an illiterate peasant farmer who lived as a hermit in a mountain cave. The idea caught on. The cardinals arrived at Peter’s cave and told the overwhelmed hermit that he had been elected in his absence. He took the name
of Celestine V, and the public took him to their hearts. Clearly out of his political element from the start, he resigned after five months. He was later imprisoned by the new elected Pope Boniface VIII (one of the least favorite popes in history), who feared the public’s loyalty to Peter. The saintly hermit died months later in a filthy prison cell amid rumors that he’d been starved to death.
Frankenstein author Mary Shelley was the daughter of feminist author Mary Wollstonecraft.
NOTABLE PAPAL DEATHS
• Saint Peter, the first pope, was crucified upside-down by the Emperor Nero in A.D. 67.
• John VIII, after surviving a poisoning attempt, was beaten to death with a hammer in 882.
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into History Page 6