SLEAZY POLITICS
Then as now you couldn’t keep politics out of the games. Politicians gave speeches between the races (but it’s not known if people hung around to listen). Campaigning politicians sponsored chariots to gain popularity with the crowds. There were even violent political disputes over which city should control the Sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia where the games were staged.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE
Despite all its problems, the Olympics did promote cherished ideals of peaceful competition and individual achievement. In A.D. 395, Emperor Theodosius I banned them during a purge of pagan festivals. But he couldn’t kill the spirit of the Olympics and, in 1896 in Athens, the modern Olympics began. This time everyone wore clothes, but they still have problems that are an awful lot like the ones the ancient athletes used to face.
TELL THEM TO COME BACK LATER
The ancient Greeks gave the Olympics top priority. Even when the Persians were invading in 480 BC and the survival of the Greek city-states was endangered, thousands of spectators watched the finals of boxing bouts at the Olympian stadium.
The future Pope John XXIII was an Italian sergeant during World War I.
HEY, WHAT ABOUT THOSE FREEMASONS?
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Ah, yes, the Freemasons, that mysterious secret society that does whatever it does when those Masons go inside those temples of theirs. Probably nothing good, involving scary initiation rites and sacrifices to pagan gods and strip poker and such.
Who are these guys, and what are they doing in there? And are they really running the world? Well, they might be. Or—and this is a wacky, zany theory here, but just go with it for a second—they could be what they claim to be, which is an innocuous fraternal and social organization that currently has millions of members all around the world. Let’s take a look and see which is more likely.
LAND OF THE FREEMASONS
The most probable origin of the Freemasons has the organization incorporating in 1475 in Edinburgh and consisting of masons (stone workers) and wrights (woodworkers). Members from other crafts were allowed to join, starting with coopers (barrel makers) in 1489. “Modern” Freemasonry is generally agreed to have begun with the creation of the Great Lodge of London in 1717. Over the centuries the organization drifted away from its original trade association and became more of a club for men of various professions and callings, although the Freemasons’ symbols and official gear (including a stonemason’s apron) recall the early days.
THE MEMBERSHIP LIST
The question regarding Freemasons in history is not who has been one but who has not. Freemasons in American history range from Benjamin Franklin and George Washington to Colonel Harland Sanders (yes, the chicken guy) and Michael Richards, a.k.a. “Kramer” from Seinfeld. Several United States presidents were Freemasons, the most recent being Gerald Ford, as have been numerous senators (including Strom Thurmond), representatives (including Davy Crockett), and Supreme Court justices (including William Howard Taft, who was also a president). So while Freemasons as a group may or may not rule the world, there’s little doubt that individual Freemasons have had their hand at the wheel quite a bit.
John Quincy Adams had a pet alligator.
However, the thing that makes people suspicious about Freemasons is not membership rolls, but the rituals that have sprung up within the group over the years, the “initiation rites” and ceremonies and various “levels” that Masons can achieve by going through them. These rites are supposedly secret and paganistic, with one of the big sticking points being the Mason’s conception of a “Great Architect of the Universe” (“God” to most of us). Freemason detractors suggest that this “Great Architect” is not a generalized representation of a higher being, as the Freemasons claim, but a manifestation of Baal, god of the Canaanites, i.e., not the same God that gets play on Sundays. Freemasons, it should be noted, roll their eyes at this allegation.
Be that as it may, the Freemasons have fueled a great deal of resentment over the years, and at one point even spawned a political party, named, appropriately enough, the Anti-Masonic Party. It was formed after the mysterious disappearance of bricklayer William Morgan in 1826, who was allegedly preparing a tell-all book about the Freemasons’ secrets and rituals. He was never found, and the rumor was the Freemasons did him in.
A FREEMASON UNDER EVERY BED
The Anti-Masonic party had some success on the state and local level, and even managed to help former United States President John Quincy Adams get elected to the House of Representatives in 1830. However, as a national political party, it was something of a bust. Its 1832 presidential candidate, William Wirt, carried only Vermont and was fourth in a field of four candidates. (The winner, Andrew Jackson, was a two-term Grand Master of Masons for Tennessee; his primary opponent, Henry Clay, was a Grand Master of Kentucky.) Ironically, it turns out that Wirt, the standard bearer for the Anti-Masonic party, had been a Mason himself! Man, those guys were everywhere.
MASONS VS. KNIGHTS
Even today, Freemasonry arouses the suspicions of many branches of Christianity, most notably the Roman Catholic Church, which until very recently would excommunicate members who joined Masonic clubs. It’s no longer an automatic out, although membership in the Freemasons and the Roman Catholic Church is seen as mutually incompatible. (Catholics with a burning desire to join a social fraternity have the Knights of Columbus, which is an association explicitly connected to the church.) Freemasons, of course, strenuously object to the idea that their group is a paganistic cabal dedicated to taking over the world, but isn’t that exactly what a paganistic cabal dedicated to taking over the world would say?
Only two people actually signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4.
Who wants to get in the middle of a fight between a paganistic cabal dedicated to taking over the world and the One True Church? You’d get squashed like a tick. Rather than choosing sides on this matter, we’ll just give you a couple of Web links and let you figure this one out on your own.
Here’s the entry on “Freemasonry” from the Catholic Encyclopedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09771a.htm.
And the Freemason point of view, from Mason Edward L. King’s informational site: http://www.masonicinfo.com/.
THE HERETIC QUOTA
The Inquisition began in the 12th century, a time when the pious worried that some non-Christian religious sect might spread across Europe. Pious nobles in France, England, and Italy set about rooting out potential dangers to the true Church, kicking convicted heretics out of office, turning them out of their homes and businesses—and oh yeah, burning them alive. The Inquisitors and their methods varied through four centuries, but one thing never changed: convicted heretics had their property confiscated.
Capital punishment wasn’t the norm until the 13th century. Maybe that was when the Church realized that a business could be made out of punishing heretics. Suddenly the death rate increased enormously, and so did the profits on the Vatican balance sheet. Catholic Popes, beginning with Lucius III in 1184, handed out local Inquisition rights in European provinces like so many fast-food franchises. The Vatican handed down quotas for local Inquisitions insisting that they burn a certain number of heretics and seize a given dollar amount of property each season.
U.K. Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home played world-class cricket.
MATA HARI, THE SPY WHO WASN’T
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Mata Hari went down in history as the exotic dancer who loosened many a lip in the service of the Germans during WWI. Far from it—the social climber never passed a single French secret to the Germans, though she was shot by a firing squad in 1917 for her supposed crimes.
Mata Hari’s name has passed into the language along with famous femme fatales like Jezebel and Delilah—women who used their beauty to enslave and betray powerful men. But the story of the real Mata Hari played out differently than what’s remembered about her.
A LITTLE DUTCH GIRL
Mata Hari was born
Margaretha Geertruida Zelle in Leeuwarden, Holland, in 1876, and it sounds like she was a wild one from the beginning. She met husband-to-be Rudolph MacLeod through a personals ad in the newspaper and soon after joined him at his post in faraway Java. A couple of years of his company proved to be enough. She fled to Paris to begin her exotic dancing career.
LIFE UPON THE WICKED STAGE
She was an immediate success. Parisian audiences flocked to her naughty, titillating performances to glimpse the exotic “Oriental” dancer who shed her veils in a naughty titillating way. Mata was intent on bigger things and tried to launch a serious professional dancing-acting career. She was even booked into a few Italian opera houses, but people just wanted to see her unveil herself. She was the “entertainment” at several notorious private parties, too.
39 AND HOLDING
By 1915 Hari’s career was fading fast (like the rest of her). She was doing less and less dancing on the stage and more and more of the horizontal boogie with a steady stream of men who passed through her bedroom. Recently unearthed French files give away the names of dozens of Mata Hari’s lovers while she hovered at 40, including composer Giacomo Puccini, Baron Henri de Rothschild, French Minister of War Adolphe-Pierre Messimy, affluent German landowner Alfred Kiepert, and last but not least, German military attaché Major Arnold Kalle.
Two British prime ministers are named in the Beatles’ song “Taxman.”
TARTS CAN’T WIN
That last affair is probably the one that killed her. In 1917, Mata Hari was arrested by the French and accused of spying for the Germans. They produced decoded messages outlining a German plan to hire Mata Hari as a spy. But not only were the French unable to produce any evidence of secrets she’d handed over, several high-ranking French officers testified that Mata Hari had tried several times to give information on German activities to French counter-intelligence agents.
AN ERROR IN ACCOUNTING
Mata Hari claimed that the German messages were an attempt by the aforementioned Major Kalle to pay her on the military’s tab—the guy was padding his expense account! No matter. She was convicted of spying for the Germans and executed by firing squad in 1917. Rumor has it that she threw open her blouse to distract the squad from firing. In truth she went bravely, still a slut, but with her blouse buttoned up.
POSTMORTEM
Prosecutor Andre Mornet admitted 40 years later “There wasn’t enough [evidence] to whip a cat.” (Those French say the darndest things, don’t they?) Mata Hari was forbidden to call any civilian witnesses during her trial, and the evidence she was convicted on was spotty and contradictory at best. Historians pin the blame on anti-German hysteria (of which there was lots at the time) and also the vindictiveness of Mata Hari’s prosecutors, who were probably punishing her for doing it with Germans. The French have some funny ideas about sex (and everything else).
TOUGH COOKIE
Nancy Hart was a spy for the Confederate army. At 20 years old, she was captured and imprisoned by the Yankees. She stayed on her best behavior till one of the guards came to trust her, relaxing his vigilance around her. She stole his gun, shot him and escaped.
All three of Christopher Columbus’s ships were originally named for Barcelona prostitutes.
THE POPE WAS A LADY
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The ninth century Pope John VIII was brilliant, kind, musically talented. . . and female. At least that’s what some historians say. Others dismiss the tale as pure myth.
Although the story of the female pope has several versions, here’s how it usually goes. An English woman named Joan (or Jeanne) resented the fact that she wasn’t allowed to get an education. At the time, book-learning was thought to be unnecessary and even harmful for a woman. So Joan disguised herself as a man, probably as a monk, and called herself John English (in other stories, John of Mainz).
A VERY SPECIAL LITTLE LADY
She went to Athens to study, where she impressed everyone with her scholarship. Then she moved on to Rome, where she taught science, became a secretary in the Curia (the central administration arm of the Roman Catholic Church), and eventually was made a cardinal. As before, her abilities attracted the attention of scholars. Her conduct was also considered flawless.
Joan—still in disguise, of course—was elected pope. Over the next two years, five months, and four days, she handled that position very well. But one day she gave herself away. During a solemn procession through the streets of Rome, the pope got down from her horse and—to the horror of onlookers—gave birth to a child, then and there.
Here’s where the story diverges: some versions say she died in childbirth or soon afterward. Others say a furious mob tied her to the tail of a horse, dragged her through the city, and finally stoned her to death. Yet another version has her immediately deposed as pope, but living out a long life—and doing penance, lots of penance. That particular story ends with a touch of irony: her son grew up to be a bishop.
The throne of Ethiopia’s Menelik II was actually an electric chair imported from the U.S.
SEZ WHO?
A female pope was first mentioned during the ninth century by a historian called Anastasius the Librarian. And in fact, Joan’s name turns up in some early lists of the popes. To further back up the story, several versions were written down by Dominican record keepers during the 13th century. One of them was a report written by Martin of Troppau, a Dominican friar from Poland in 1265. In it, Martin named names, gave details, and placed Joan’s papacy in the 9th century. Since he’d served in the Curia as chaplain to a pope, his story was widely believed. Dominican friars like Martin were prominent in European universities, and Dominican nuns were the scholarly type as well, so maybe the idea of a studious woman wasn’t as foreign to the Dominicans as it was to most everyone else of that time. But time passed, and by the 17th century, Catholic historians were repudiating the story and questioning Joan’s existence. (But those darn Protestant historians went on telling the tale.)
Those who stand by the story of Pope Joan offer details as bizarre as this one. Supposedly, right after Joan’s reign, a new inspection was made mandatory for papal candidates. A prospective pope had to sit on a chair shaped much like a toilet, where his sex could be checked from below, either manually or visually. Another story says that since the day Pope Joan gave birth, papal processions have avoided using the street she was on at the time. The Catholic Encyclopedia explains that the street is just too narrow for a procession of papal proportions.
STAR OF STAGE, SCREEN, AND FICTION?
Real or imagined, our controversial heroine was played by Liv Ullmann in the 1972 film Pope Joan. She (Joan, not Liv) has also turned up on tarot decks and in playing cards. In fact, a card game called Pope Joan was popular in Scotland during Victorian times.
It’s said that the story was originally a Catholic morality tale that was used to justify keeping women out of the priesthood—and out of the papacy—especially if they were going to have babies in the street like that. It was only later that anti-Catholics turned the tables and started to use the story as propaganda.
According to Vatican records—and there’s lots of them—all the popes are accounted for and there’s no Joan among them. The John VIII they list has a very complete biography: he was born in Rome, served as pope from 872 to 882, involved himself heavily in politics, bribed the Saracens to keep them from invading Rome, and was assassinated by his own relatives. As juicy a pope story as they come. . .except for Joan’s.
The Korean War was the first in which one jet plane shot down another.
PARDON ME, FRITZ, IS THAT MY LEG DOING THE POLKA?
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One day in the year 1278, you’re a normal German peasant, getting your typical day’s worth of abuse from landowners, clerics, wealthy merchants, crazed neighbors, the wife, and kiddies. The next thing you know—Pow!—you’re easin’ on down the road, just a-twitchin’ and a-dancin’ like an extra in some 13th century road company of The Wiz. Bad booze? Or somet
hing more sinister?
The day started out quietly enough. You woke up at five, milked the cows, rethatched the roof with another coat of dung, then got chased a mile by that crazy Müeller kid with the mismatched eyes.
EASE ON DOWN THE ROAD
Now it was time to shop and maybe relax for a few hours in town. You pulled the goose quills out of your neck (courtesy of young Müeller, a superb marksman despite his insanity), brushed yourself off, and headed into town for a quick brewski with the boys and to pick up victuals for the evening meal.
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into History Page 25