Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into History

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Mitterand said Thatcher had “the eyes of Caligula and the lips of Marilyn Monroe.”

  THE MORAL OF THE STORY

  Clearly, this might never have happened had the Hapsburgs slipped in a commoner now and then, just to set a genetic Roto-Rooter to their chromosomes. Wouldn’t that have been an irony—a few more serfs in the gene pool, and there might still be a Holy Roman Emperor. The Hapsburgs probably wouldn’t think that was funny. But a sense of humor was probably not what they bred for, anyway.

  NOW THAT’S A MOTTO!

  The Hapsburgs may have had beans for brains when it came to breeding, but man, they knew a good will-to-power slogan when they saw one. Witness these gems of the Hapsburg “dynasty”:

  • Österreich Über Alles—literally means “Austria Over All” in German, the native language of the Austrian Hapsburgs. This credo has its origins from the Hapsburg Emperor Frederick III’s cryptic device of “A.E.I.O.U.” (see below).

  • A.E.I.O.U.— usually interpreted to stand for Austria Est Imperare Orbi Universo or Austria Erit In Orbe Ultima. Translated from Latin, the first phrase roughly means “Austria is destined to rule the world” and the latter “Austria will be in existence until the end of the world.”

  Fun with Latin. The cool thing is, what with that snappy highly declined grammar, Latin is sometimes open to more than one interpretation. Thus, some might say a more far-seeing reading was that of Frederick II of Prussia: Austria Erit In Orbe Ultima, “Austria will one day be lowest in the world.” Today, while certainly not the lowest in the world, Austria cannot be compared, either in physical size or political stature, to Austria under Hapsburg rule.

  Indira Gandhi wasn’t related to Mahatma Gandhi, but was the daughter of Nehru.

  ANNA & THE KING: FACT OR FICTION?

  * * *

  Hollywood has presented her as a romantic heroine. Was she really just a self-promoting prevaricator in a hoopskirt?

  We didn’t want to believe it at first. Was Anna Leonowens—the heroine of The King and I, the head-strong governess portrayed by the adorable Deborah Kerr and the feisty Jodie Foster, the Anna who tamed the king of Siam—a low-down dirty liar? The facts and fabrications follow.

  Fabrication No. 1: Anna’s autobiography says she was born Anna Crawford in 1834 in Wales.

  The Truth: Her maiden name was Anna Edwards and she was born in India in 1831.

  Fabrication No. 2: Her father was an army captain who died during a Sikh uprising in India when she was six years old.

  The Truth: Her father was a cabinetmaker who died three months before she was born.

  Fabrication No. 3: She married Major Thomas Leonowens when she was 17. He died of sunstroke during a tiger hunt in Singapore.

  The Truth: She did, in fact, marry young—at age 18. Her husband’s name was Thomas Leon Owens. Thomas had difficulty keeping a job and the couple moved around a lot. He died of apoplexy in Penang, Malaya in 1859.

  Fabrication No. 4: She was a highly respected British governess.

  The Truth: She was not a governess—a position with a broad range of duties in the royal household of Siam—but simply a teacher of English. It was in this capacity that King Mongkut employed her.

  Fabrication No. 5: In her book The Romance of the Harem, she claimed that King Mongkut was a despot and threw his wives into underground dungeons if they failed to please him.

  The Truth: There were no underground dungeons in Siam.

  Spencer Perceval is the only British prime minister to have been assassinated.

  Fabrication No. 6: As famously depicted in Anna’s story, King Mongkut ordered the public torture and beheading of one of his concubines who had fallen in love with a monk.

  The Truth: This whole episode appears to be nothing more than an invention. There were many foreign correspondents in Siam at the time and none of them mention such an incident.

  Fabrication No. 7: Anna became very close to the king (the movie even hints at a romance).

  The Truth: King Mongkut hardly knew Anna Leonowens. The king kept detailed diaries and, in the five years that she worked in the royal court, he mentions her only once and, then, only briefly.

  Fabrication No. 8: Anna came to respect King Mongkut and praised him for his visionary outlook.

  The Truth: In her writings Anna presented the king as a conservative, intolerant, reactionary bigot who was stuck in a time warp. She did not give him any credit for his modern policies and his embracing of Western knowledge.

  Fabrication No. 9: Anna was opposed to the British imperialist attitude toward Siam and courageously stood up to the British hierarchy on behalf of her adopted people.

  The Truth: Anna was, in fact, an imperialist apologist and a great supporter of the British colonial ventures in the Far East. She purposefully portrayed the people of Siam as childlike and backward to bolster public support for British intervention and “enlightenment.”

  Fabrication No. 10: Anna became known as an authority on all things Siamese and lived her later years in respected retirement.

  The Truth: As soon as her first book was published, Anna was sued for plagiarism and the dissemination of false information. As her books kept coming, so did the court cases. The academic world refused to acknowledge her writings, and she was roundly condemned as a sensationalist writer of fiction.

  THE FACT IS. . .

  About the only part of the Anna legend that holds up is that she did serve for five years in the royal court of Siam. And the rest, as we at Uncle John’s Hysterical Society say, is history.

  The Thousand Year Reich lasted a mere 147 months.

  I AIN’T GIVING BACK THAT MEDAL!

  * * *

  The story of Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman who has ever won the Medal of Honor, and the guys who wanted to take it away from her.

  THAT’S DOCTOR WALKER TO YOU, BUDDY!

  Mary Edwards Walker grew up in rural New York and graduated from Syracuse Medical College in 1855. Her father was one of those free-thinkers who was active in the reform movements that thrived in upstate New York in the mid-1800s. So no wonder his daughter became an early supporter of women’s rights.

  Mary was particularly drawn to the issue of dress reform. She declared, “Corsets are coffins.” Instead of wearing the restrictive women’s clothing of the day, she went around in “bloomers,” the then-scandalous, completely nonrevealing, skirt-and-pants outfit designed by and named for feminist Amelia Bloomer. Later in life, Mary would lecture on women’s rights wearing full men’s evening dress, including top hat. She prided herself on the number of times she’d been arrested for wearing men’s clothing.

  DR. WALKER IN LOVE AND WAR

  After med school, she married fellow medical student Albert Miller, but kept her own name (naturally). Mary and Albert set up a medical practice in Rome, New York, but the natives weren’t ready to accept a woman physician, and their practice didn’t do very well. The couple divorced 13 years later.

  During the Civil War, Walker enlisted in the Union Army but was refused a commission as an army surgeon. So she bit the bullet, served as a nurse, and finally got promoted to field surgeon, a job she worked at for almost two years near the Union front lines. Finally, she was appointed assistant surgeon of the 52nd Ohio Infantry. It’s during this assignment that she most likely also served as a spy. (But it’s all very hush-hush and nobody wants to talk about it.)

  Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt vanished while swimming at Cheviot Beach.

  DR. MARY “SPUNKY” WALKER

  She crossed Confederate lines to treat civilians (or spy on the other side) as casually as we cross the street. That is, until a day in 1864, dressed in a slightly modified officer’s uniform of her own design, she accidentally bumped into a group of rebel soldiers just south of the Georgia-Tennessee border. Their commanding officer sent the good doctor to a jail in Richmond, Virginia. Four months later, she was released during a prisoner exchange, and was greatly pleased that she’d been traded “man
for man” for a Confederate officer. After her release, she served out the rest of the war practicing medicine at a women’s prison in Kentucky and an orphan asylum in Tennessee.

  GIVE ‘EM HELL, DR. WALKER!

  For her service during the Civil War, President Andrew Johnson awarded Mary Walker the Congressional Medal of Honor. But during what’s known as “The Purge of 1917,” the federal government acted on a congressional law revising the Medal of Honor standards to include only “actual combat with an enemy.” Mary Walker’s medal was revoked. Like heck, said the 85-year-old Mary. She refused to turn the medal back to the Army and according to her friends, she wore it proudly every day until her death two years later. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter reinstated the award, and Mary Edwards Walker remains the only woman to be so honored.

  MORE HONORS FOR DR. WALKER

  A 20¢ stamp honoring Mary Walker was issued in 1982. The stamp commemorates her as the first woman to have been awarded the CMH and the second woman to graduate from a U.S. medical school. She died just before the 19th amendment gave women the right to vote.

  FAMOUS FEMALE MEDICAL FIRSTS

  Elizabeth Blackwell—1849, 1st U.S. medical degree

  Gerty Radnitz Cory—1947, Nobel Prize for Medicine

  Louise Brown—Test tube baby

  Elizabeth Oliver—Broadcast her child’s birth on Internet

  Mary Lund—1st female artificial heart recipient

  In 1867, Canada’s federal politicians earned six dollars a day.

  THE CRUSADE TO END ALL CRUSADES

  * * *

  The People’s Crusade of 1096 had been a well-meaning bust, so it was time for the real army to swing into action. And even though it was really the “second” crusade, it’s called the “first.”

  Knights and princes—experienced, battle-hardened warriors—led a series of campaigns against the infidel Turks to conquer the Holy Land for the Christian cause. The first of these official campaigns was named, not surprisingly, the First Crusade (1096–1099).

  THE BAD BOYS

  Frenchmen and Normans made up the bulk of the Christian forces, which numbered between 25,000 and 30,000 (a relatively modest figure by modern standards but an immense number back then). The Normans were the bad boys of Europe in the 11th century, a daring, adventurous bunch that had conquered England in 1066 and taken most of southern Italy from the Byzantine Empire. They made their way slowly across Europe and into the Balkans, finally assembling at Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) in May of 1097.

  THE BYZANTINES

  Constantinople was a city of great wealth and culture. It was also the staging ground for the crusaders’ attack on the Holy Land. But from the beginning there was friction between the crusaders and their allies, the Byzantines, who were Greek Orthodox Christians.

  All the Byzantines wanted was to recapture the provinces in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey) that they’d lost to the infidels. The crusaders wanted nothing less than to conquer the Holy Land itself (a region that included Palestine and Syria), including Jerusalem, the most sacred city in all of Christendom.

  LIKE OIL AND WATER

  The friction between the Byzantines and the crusaders wasn’t bad enough: there was almost constant tension and bickering between the leaders. Bohemond, a Norman and one of the greatest adventurers of the day, was a 40-year-old veteran warrior with a well-deserved reputation for being fearless, imaginative—and ruthless. He was in almost constant disagreement with another of the Crusade’s great leaders, the Count of Toulouse. In stark contrast to Bohemond, the Count had a reputation for being courteous, honest, and deeply religious: he believed strongly in visions and miracles.

  John Adams made it a crime to publish anything scandalous about the U.S. government.

  ASSIGNMENT: ANTIOCH

  The crusaders moved southeastward from Constantinople toward Syria and the ancient city of Antioch. In the time of the Crusades it was the richest and most powerful city on the Palestinian coast. Four hundred towers had been built into the formidable walls, which snaked for miles around the perimeter. Given the sheer strength of the city’s defenses, it was highly likely that Antioch could only be conquered by treachery from within. (Antioch was still a predominantly Christian city with a large population of Greeks and Armenians who were likely to go over to the enemy at the first opportunity.)

  ROAST TURKEY

  The crusaders spent months there, while their supplies steadily dwindled. After a cold, rainy winter, new supplies arrived and morale improved. Bohemond felt a lot better, too. He decided that too many Turkish spies were coming out of Antioch. He had the spies he’d captured killed, then ordered his cooks to roast them on a spit. That night, all the spies who hadn’t been captured sneaked back into Antioch.

  FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

  Bohemond had some spies of his own. When he found out that a large Turkish relief column was making its way to Antioch, he knew it was time to act. He sent his spies into the city, where they devised a plan with an Armenian captain named Firouz who was secretly loyal to the Christian cause. Bohemond’s men would climb up a leather ladder slung from one of the three towers controlled by Firouz.

  OVER THE TOP, BOYS!

  Sixty men climbed up the ladder, captured the three towers, and opened the first gate. Soon other gates were opened, and the rest of the crusaders streamed in and overwhelmed the defenders. Because the Turkish relief army was fast approaching, the crusaders had to act quickly. And they did: by the end of the day there was scarcely a single Turk left alive in Antioch.

  Benjamin Disraeli was the only British prime minister of Jewish ancestry.

  FRIENDS IN EVEN HIGHER PLACES

  Next day, the Turkish relief force arrived at Antioch and quickly encircled it. The besiegers were now the besieged. Panic started spreading among the knights and foot soldiers, many of whom began to desert. But the crusaders were men of faith who believed that miracles were real, that God spoke in signs and through visions. So right on cue, a miracle was conveniently produced in the form of the Holy Lance—the very same weapon that had pierced the side of the Savior during the Crucifixion. A poor French peasant named Peter Bartholemew, who claimed that he had seen many visions of Christ, found the Lance buried in the floor of Antioch’s cathedral.

  CHECKMATE

  Inspired by this miraculous discovery, the crusaders marched out through the gates of Antioch early on the morning of June 28, 1098, to confront the Turks in battle. The Turkish commander, who was playing chess at the time, was so sure he could defeat the Christian forces that he let them to come out unchallenged. His lieutenants advised him to attack at once. Instead he continued his game of chess and waited.

  As the crusaders continued their steady advance, a contingent crept around to the rear of the Turkish defenses and charged. The Turkish commander suddenly lost his nerve, and his army fled in disarray. Antioch was now securely in Christian hands.

  THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM

  It was six months before the crusaders marched on Jerusalem. By early summer they’d arrived at the gates of the city. The besieging force—diminished by battle casualties at Antioch, exhaustion, starvation, and disease—consisted of 1,200 knights and 12,000 foot soldiers, perhaps half the strength of the original army.

  THEY THOUGHT OF EVERYTHING

  The Muslim commander of Jerusalem was more than ready for the crusaders. He had ample supplies of food and water for a long siege and a sizeable garrison of loyal soldiers. He’d made sure that all the wells around the city had been poisoned, and the sheep and goats on the neighboring hills were rounded up and brought into the city. The commander ordered that the towers along the city walls be filled with bales of cotton and hay to strengthen them against bombardment from the crusaders’ catapults (used for hurling large rocks into and over the walls). As a final touch, the city’s defenders chopped down all the trees around Jerusalem, depriving the crusaders of any shade from the blazing sun.

  Nobody knows exactly where Columb
us was when he “discovered” America.

  OR SO THEY THOUGHT

  On the night of July 13, 1099, the crusaders launched their assault. Under cover of darkness, the siege engines—huge towers on wheels with covered bridges from which men could cross over to the tops of the walls—were moved ever closer to the city.

  FULL FRONTAL ASSAULT

  After a few days of vicious fighting, the crusaders managed to maneuver one of their siege engines into position. At first, only a few men succeeded in crossing over the tower’s bridge and climbing to the top of the nearest wall. But soon the number increased from ones and twos to dozens. More ladders were placed against the walls, and large numbers of crusaders climbed up and steadily drove the defenders back. The attack was a complete success; Jerusalem was now in Christian hands.