Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into History

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  John Jacob Astor: 1912

  The multimillionaire had the misfortune to book passage on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Chivalrous to the end, Astor gave up his place next to his wife in one of the few lifeboats and said, “Goodbye dearie, I’ll see you later.”

  Harry Houdini: 1926

  The legendary escape artist was known for his ability to take a strong punch to the stomach, but Houdini was surprised by a blow from a student who had come to see one of his lectures. His died of a burst appendix.

  Isadora Duncan: 1927

  Always the flamboyant dresser, the early practitioner of modern dance broke her neck when she went for a ride in a sports car and her long scarf got caught in one of the rear wheels.

  Elvis Presley: 1977

  The King of Rock and Roll was found dead by his girlfriend in a fetal position on the floor of his bathroom. His extensive drug use had caused a heart attack that struck while he was sitting on the toilet.

  Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant served on the same side of one war. . . the Mexican War.

  MONUMENTAL WASTE OF EFFORT: THE MAGINOT LINE

  * * *

  The best offense is a good defense, but a bad defense is just offensive.

  To fully understand the Maginot line and its complete and utter uselessness, we need to step into the Way Back Machine and set the dial for February 21, 1916. On that day, German forces began their attack on Verdun, France along the Meuse River; the rationale for doing it (other than the general fact there was a war going on, and they had to attack something) came from German General Erich von Falkenhayn, who believed that the Verdun attack would force France to exhaust their resources defending their position. Soon they would be out of brie, and Paris would fall!

  THE MONUMENTAL RUNNER-UP

  This would be a correct assessment, as far as it went. Unfortunately the Germans did not consider the possibility that they might also hemorrhage men and supplies, which they did, in vast amounts. All told, about 800,000 men lost their lives in Verdun, in more or less equal measure on both sides, and at the end of it, Verdun was back in French hands. So I suppose you could call it a draw. But isn’t that just like World War I: Lots of people getting killed, but a lot of nothing actually getting done.

  WHAT AN I-MAGINOT-ION!

  Be that as it may, that battle and others like it scarred the French psyche after World War I. Perhaps ascertaining, and correctly, that the Treaty of Versailles was going to go the way of Marie Antoinette’s head, and that the Germans would once again come calling, the French tried to figure out the best way to avoid that scenario. The answer came from André Maginot, minister of war in the late 1920s and early 1930s: Let’s build a wall, and keep those nasty Germans out!

  In the War of 1812, the U.S. burned down Toronto and the British burned down Washington.

  IT’S INVISIBLE

  Well, not exactly a wall, but a line—the Maginot line, a series of interconnected fortifications that spanned the entire French border with Germany, from Sedan to Wissembourg: about 150 miles. There were 50 discrete forts on the line, all within cannon shot of each other, with blockhouses interspersed between them. Each of these forts was a marvel of defensive design, with the thickest concrete and best defensive weapons the world had to offer.

  TAKE THE TOUR

  Each fort held up to 1,000 personnel, and thanks to an immense labyrinth of connecting underground tunnels, men and supplies could be shuttled back and forth without exposing them to enemy fire or prying eyes.

  Within the underground spaces were barracks, storehouses, and recreation areas; it was even air-conditioned. It was said that the Maginot line was more comfortable to live in than any French city you could name. At the very least, no one was peeing up against a wall when they couldn’t find a bathroom.

  BETTER THAN EURODISNEY?

  By any critical standard, military or architectural, the Maginot line was a wonder. It was, in fact, the largest single construction event in European history. Think of it as the French version of the Panama Canal (especially since the real French version of the Panama Canal, attempted in the 1880s but laid low by poor financing and malaria, was such a bust).

  CHUCK ADDS HIS TWO FRANCS

  As far as anyone could see, there were two itsy-bitsy minor problems with the Maginot line. The first was purely philosophical: By committing so many men and resources to the defensive nature of the line, the French ran the risk of being lulled into a false (and smug) sense of security. They should also be preparing offensively as well. Charles de Gaulle suggested to his superiors that France should have an army that was both mechanized and mobile instead of sitting in a bunker waiting for the enemy to tromp into its sights. He was suggesting this course of action through the very beginning of 1940; he was not very popular for doing it.

  Pineapple baron Sanford Dole was the first and only president of the Republic of Hawaii.

  THE ENDS OF THE LINE

  The second itsy-bity little problem was that the Maginot line only covered the border of Germany; it stopped in the east at Switzerland and in the west at Belgium. No one would be especially worried about something happening at the Swiss end: Switzerland was and is famously neutral (its motto: “We’ll take money from anyone.”) and in any event, it’s not real easy schlepping tanks over the Alps.

  WHAT! MOI, WORRY?

  But what about Belgium? Well, you see, the French had thought about that whole Belgium thing, but they weren’t worried. They had already talked to the British, and everyone agreed that if the Germans, for some nutty reason, just happened to come through Belgium, the Allies would mount a ground offensive and everything would take place there (it had worked so well in World War I, after all!). And anyway, getting into France through Belgium meant going through the hilly forests of Ardennes, which were thought to be impassable for tanks and heavy weaponry and equipment. So there you have it. Nothing to worry about.

  WHAT’S “SLAM DUNK” IN GERMAN?

  The French were so fixated on the superiority of the Maginot line that it was literally impossible to consider that it could be defeated, and the Germans (who may have been genocidal curs, but were not stupid) used this to their advantage in May of 1940. First, the Germans kept their Army Group C facing the Maginot line as a diversion, to keep the line’s 41 divisions of French troops where they were. Then the Germans launched their blitzkrieg into the Low Countries on May 10, wiping out any resistance, Allied or otherwise, in the space of days, and giving the Germans the corridor they needed to swing around the Maginot line and enter France through Ardennes. What about the impassable forests? Not so impassable after all; the tanks and heavy artillery took to the roads while the German troops trekked through the trees. Over the river and through the woods, past Maginot’s line we go.

  ALL OVER THE MAP

  The Germans made it to French soil on May 12 and encountered little resistance; the Franco-Belgian border was the least defended frontier the French had, and what troops were there had little in the way of artillery defenses or antiaircraft guns. By the 13th, German troops were across the Meuse; a few days later they were swarming all through France. The French finally pulled some troops out of the Maginot line, but it was too little, too late. By the time of the German offensive at Somme on June 5, the 49 French divisions that weren’t walled in on the line faced 130 German infantry divisions as well as ten divisions of tanks.

  An American, William Walker, became president of Nicaragua in 1856.

  THE FRENCH: TOAST

  On June 9, the Germans began driving towards the Swiss frontier, utterly isolating what troops remained on the Maginot line. And the troops in the line couldn’t do anything to stop it. Inasmuch as the French considered the Maginot line impregnable, all the big guns faced towards Germany. They couldn’t be turned around. The Germans entered Paris on June 14, and after that, it’s all just Nazi collaborators, Vichy France, and Charles De Gaulle going, “I told you so.”

  SURRENDER? NEVER!

  T
he few Maginot line apologists (and there are some) note that the Maginot line worked as advertised—indeed, it worked so well that the Germans had to find another way into France! However, one must consider that the point of the Maginot line was not to keep the Germans merely from attacking through their mutual border with France, it was to keep them out, period. On this ultimate and ultimately solely relevant criterion, the Maginot line is an immense and colossal failure, a testament to what happens when you combine a lack of imagination with a complacent worldview. The Maginot line is, in fact, hubris defined, poured into concrete, and set in the ground.

  THE PROMISE FULFILLED

  The Maginot line is still there (it’s hard to dispose of 150 miles of concrete fortresses). The blockhouses and fortresses are now used for varying purposes, from homes to wine cellars to discos. One imagines that André Maginot might find it a bit humiliating to see a portion of his grand idea serving as an all-night warehouse for young, beer-swilling Euro-trash, but then, if you can’t beat ‘em. . .

  Panama declared independence from Colombia so that the U.S. could build the Panama Canal.

  PROVEN WRONG BY HISTORY: PART II

  * * *

  More ill-conceived comments by the supposed intelligentsia.

  THE TELEPHONE

  “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”

  —Western Union internal memo, 1876

  THE AIRPLANE

  “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”

  —Physicist Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895

  “Aeroplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.”

  —Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, École Superieure de Guerre

  “Man won’t fly for a thousand years.”

  —Wilbur Wright, to his brother Orville after a disappointing flying experiment, 1901

  ROCKETRY

  “Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.”

  —1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard’s revolutionary rocket work

  THE RADIO

  “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?”

  —David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s

  THE BOMB

  “The bomb will never explode. I am saying this as an expert on the subject.”

  —Admiral Daniel Leathy advising President Harry Truman during the American atom bomb project, 1945

  During the War of 1812, the British took Detroit without firing a shot.

  HOW MOSQUITOES CHANGED HISTORY

  * * *

  They may be small, but they’re powerful. Mosquitoes have been manipulating the course of human history since its very beginnings.

  1,600,000 B.C. Africa—Our ancestors take their first upright steps. Thanks to mosquitoes, they are already infected with malaria.

  500 B.C. India—Brahmin priest Susruta deduces that mosquitoes are responsible for the spread of malaria. No one pays any attention for the next 2,400 years.

  323 B.C. Babylon—Alexander the Great is felled by a mosquito, dying from malaria at the age of 33. His dream of a united Greek empire collapses within a few years, and widespread malarial infection contributes to the decline of Greek civilization.

  A.D. 410 Rome—Marauding Visigoths finish off the Roman Empire, already undermined by a fifth column of malaria-spreading mosquitoes in the low-lying areas surrounding the capital. Shortly afterward, Alaric, leader of the vanquishers, is vanquished in his turn by a treacherous mosquito.

  1593 Africa—Mosquitoes send yellow fever and malaria to their relatives in the New World via the slave trade, setting the stage for epidemics that would decimate both colonial and aboriginal populations.

  1658 England—Bitten by a Royalist mosquito, Oliver Cromwell dies of malaria, paving the way for the return of the British monarchy.

  1690 Barbados—Mosquitoes spread yellow fever to halt a British expedition en route to attack the French in Canada.

  1802 New Orleans—Napoleon sends troops to reinforce France’s claim to Louisiana and put down a slave rebellion in Haiti. Of the 33,000 soldiers, 29,000 are killed by mosquito-borne yellow fever. Louisiana becomes part of the U.S.; Haiti becomes independent.

  In the 1620s, the Dutch had a colony on the lower tip of Manhattan.

  1902 Stockholm—British army surgeon Dr. Ronald Ross receives the Nobel Prize for establishing the link between mosquito bites and malaria.

  1905 Panama—Mosquitoes almost succeed in halting construction of the Panama Canal, as panicked workers flee a yellow fever epidemic.

  1939 Colorado—DDT is tested and found to control mosquitoes and other insects. Mosquitoes eventually develop resistance to the chemical; humans don’t.

  1942 Dutch East Indies—Japanese troops seize the islands that provide most of the world’s quinine, then the only reliable malaria therapy known, hoping mosquitoes will become their best allies in fending off Allied forces. Nearly half a million U.S. troops in the East are hospitalized with malaria between 1942 and 1945.

  1965–1975 Vietnam—Mosquitoes infect as many as 53 U.S. soldiers per thousand with malaria every day.

  1995 Geneva—The World Health Organization (WHO) declares mosquito-born dengue fever a “world epidemic,” while deaths from malaria rise to 2.5–3 million a year.

  Besides malaria and dengue and yellow fevers, mosquitoes have been in the news for a carrying a whole host of new and deadly blood-borne diseases.

  Until 1999, West Nile virus, originating from the Nile River valley, had not previously been documented in the Western Hemisphere. The virus causes encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, and can be transmitted by mosquitoes. West Nile was found in “overwintering” mosquitoes in the New York City area in early 2000, a sign that the virus is permanently established in the U.S. In the year 2000, 21 cases of the illness were reported, including two deaths in the New York City area.

  The world’s oldest parliament, Iceland’s Althing, was founded in A.D. 930 by Vikings.

  IT’S NOT EASY BEING MARCO POLO

  * * *

  We would never have heard of Marco Polo if it weren’t for the book he wrote about his adventures. It made him world-famous, but not in the way he’d hoped.

  THE ADVENTURE BEGINS

  Marco Polo was born around 1254 in Venice, Italy. He picked up the traveling bug from his father and uncle who had already explored Asia when Marco was just a bambino. That was where they met the great Kublai Khan, who was to figure so importantly in Marco’s life.

  Marco was about 17 when he and his father and uncle set off on their most famous expedition. They traveled first by ship, then overland through Armenia, Persia, Afghanistan, into China, and across the Gobi Desert. Four years after they’d begun, they reached Shang-tu, the summer residence of Kublai Khan, emperor of the Mongols and conqueror of all China.

  MR. POPULARITY

  The great and powerful Khan took an immediate shine to Marco. He liked him so much that he insisted that the entire family stay: he didn’t say for how long. It was an offer they couldn’t refuse, so the Polos stayed on, and from Marco’s account, didn’t seem to mind. They put their hopes of returning home on the back burner.

  The emperor set them up as major players in his court and made sure they had all the comforts of home. Marco’s father and uncle worked enthusiastically for Khan, probably as military advisers. Marco mastered three or four languages and was sent on fact-finding missions from one end of China to the other. Part of his job was to visit recently conquered regions and report back to Khan about them. But the Polos never let Khan forget that they didn’t want to stay forever.

 
HOME SWEET HOME

  It wasn’t until 17 years later that Kublai Khan consented to let them go home. On their way, they were to deliver a Mongol princess who was betrothed to a Persian prince. It took them so long to get to Persia—two whole years—that when they arrived, they were told that the groom was dead. But it turned out that his son was available, so the princess married him instead.

  The U.S. invaded Canada twice, once during the Revolution and once during the War of 1812.

  The Polos arrived in Venice in 1295, richer than they’d left, though they would have been fabulously wealthy if they hadn’t been robbed in Turkey on the way. They’d been gone for 24 years and had almost forgotten their native tongue. Which made it difficult to convince their relatives—who had long ago given them up for dead—of who they were.