Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into History

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  First, two barbarians sang rousing songs they’d written about Attila and his amazing exploits, which moved some of the older warriors to tears. I felt a little stirred myself. Then a man who seemed to be deranged took the stage. He spoke gibberish—that was the extent of his talent. At first I didn’t get it. But when the barbarians started whooping with laughter, I had to join them. Honestly, I laughed till my sides hurt. The next act was a Moorish dwarf (yes, that’s right), whose talent was mixing up the languages of the Italians with those of the Huns and the Goths. The audience thought this act was even funnier than the last one.

  A CHINK IN THE ARMOR

  All the while, Attila never cracked a smile. That is, until his youngest son came in. He pinched the little guy’s cheek and even dropped the fierce-warrior scowl for a second.

  George W. Bush is the great-great-great-great nephew of 14th president Franklin Pierce.

  I was discussing this unusual turn of events with some of my cohorts, when one of the barbarians came over and warned us to zip our lips. He gave us the poop. Some prophets had warned Attila that his race would fall and that this boy would restore it. Which of course made the youngster a teensy bit important to his old man.

  SHOW ME THE WAY TO GO HOME

  I left in the wee small hours of the morning because I could not possibly swallow another sip of wine. Not so the barbarians. The party was still in full swing. And loud! Not that the neighbors would complain, of course.

  HARES IN HISTORY

  On June 4, 1951, the underdog home team, the Cleveland Indians, faced the favored New York Yankees. The Indians’ prospects were so dismal that a local newspaper distributed lucky rabbits’ feet to the Indian fans. The Indians won 8-2! What is it with those rabbit’s feet, and why are they lucky?

  Rabbits and their wild cousin, the hare, have been associated since pagan times with the fortunate aspects of spring, renewal, and fertility. In the Middle Ages, hares were associated with magical witches who were said to be able to change themselves into rabbits. Despite elements of witchery, the hare was still considered a lucky animal because of its many offspring and its burrowing habits. Fearing what lay buried under the earth, people admired the rabbit’s ability to live underground and still survive.

  Eventually the legends surrounding hares and rabbits, legends of fertility, the ability to survive evil, and magical powers, became associated with the “luck” in the left hind foot of a rabbit. Though not for the rabbit of course.

  Pope Leo X had a pet elephant.

  YE OLDE CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

  * * *

  From “No Parking” zones to “No Smoking” areas to the amount of water used in that porcelain receptacle you’re sitting on, it sometimes seems as if our society operates under too many rules and regulations. Life didn’t used to be like that, did it?

  Come with us to Anytown, Germany, in the Middle Ages, where virtually everything was regulated, and where the regulations often varied according to social class. Take weddings, for instance, where the nobility could invite 48 people to their weddings, but servants or day laborers were only allowed 32 guests. And the wedding banquet, by law, had to start promptly at noon in summer or at 11 a.m. in winter.

  THERE’S NOTHING FOR DESSERT!

  Only two meals per day were allowed. The upper classes were permitted eight courses at each meal. The lower classes were restricted to five and were not allowed to serve a “confectionery,” that is, something sweet, at the second meal of the day. The first meal could last no longer than three hours, which sounds like plenty of time for a meal, except that when the time limit was reached, everyone had to leave his seat immediately or be subject to a fine.

  CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS

  Consider these “crimes” and the creative punishments imposed:

  • Men or women who wore overly luxurious or elaborate clothing could have the forbidden garment stripped off them on the street.

  • If a husband allowed his wife to rule the home or hit him, his fellow villagers would come to his house and remove its roof.

  • The punishment for cursing, swearing, or blaspheming ran the gamut. In some places, the offender would have to run around the church’s baptismal font holding a candle. For severe offenders, his tongue could be cut out.

  • The poor soul who fell asleep in church was forced to wear a heavy wooden rosary and stand by the church door before the service for several of the following Sundays.

  Italy’s notorious Medici family had a dollhouse inhabited by dwarves.

  A fine was imposed for:

  • Going to a fortune-teller

  • Wearing a dress of more than two colors

  • Wearing or making a dress with a neckline cut deeper than “the breadth of a finger below the little bone of the neck at the front of the collar”

  • Arriving late for a wedding

  • Serving wine or meals to guests after a baptism

  • Being on the street at night without a lighted lantern

  MAKING THE PUNISHMENT FIT THE CRIME

  Public humiliation was a favorite way of teaching those darn miscreants a lesson. You may have heard about the practice of putting people in stocks or in the pillory in the town square for their offenses, but have you heard of these variations?

  The Baker’s Cage

  Bakers who sold loaves of bread that were too light for the advertised size were placed in something called a “baker’s cage” or “baker’s chair,” a seesaw device that dunked the baker in a pond. The number of dunkings was determined by the difference between the wrong weight and the right weight.

  The Ass of Shame

  Women who beat their husbands had to ride an ass through town facing backward. If the husband hadn’t tried to defend himself, he had to lead the ass.

  The Wheelbarrow

  Lovers whose lascivious conduct had gone too far for the town authorities were sentenced in this way: the seducer had to push the object of his lust through the streets in a wheelbarrow while onlookers were encouraged to throw garbage at them.

  The Barrel

  Men who spent too much time and money on drink were paraded through town wearing a barrel painted with humiliating pictures.

  The Neck Violin

  A double iron collar, it was fastened around the necks of quarreling women who then had to stand locked together in the public square until they agreed to stop bickering and keep the peace.

  In 1794, Congress rejected a petition to make the U.S. bilingual—English and German.

  The Shame Flute

  Pity the bungling musician who committed the terrible crime of playing music badly. He was tied to the pillory in the town square with his neck encased in the shame flute, an iron neck restraint with an instrument attached.

  The Masks of Shame

  These iron masks came in a variety of shapes, each designed to portray the person’s offense. A gossip wore an iron mask with a long tongue. A person who stuck his nose into his neighbors’ business wore a mask with a huge nose. If one behaved like a pig, he wore the pig’s mask in public. The masks hid the wearer’s face but in the small towns of the Middle Ages, where everyone knew everyone else, they did not provide anonymity. And to make sure that the townspeople came out for the public humiliation, the masks were fitted with large bells on top to announce the presence of a new victim.

  AW, QUIT YER BELLY-ACHIN’

  So the next time you have dessert at lunch, or arrive late for a wedding, or let your wife beat you up, just be happy you live in the 21st century, the century of “It’s my own darn business.”

  “What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.”

  Nietzsche

  Genghis Khan demanded 1,000 virgins a year as tribute from conquered territories.

  THEY CALLED HER “LADY LINDY”

  * * *

  The first woman to make a name for herself in the air wasn’t an “air hostess,” which is what they called “stewardesses” before they called them “flight at
tendants.” No, our girl was a pilot—and from all reports a darn. . . well. . . kind of average one.

  In truth, Amelia Earhart was not considered a top-notch flyer. But she flew and she was famous, that’s what’s important. Especially since her first front-page exploit took place just 10 years after women had gained the right to vote. She became an inspiration to women everywhere. So what if she wasn’t the best pilot on earth? She wanted something more than the traditional home and hearth, and she got it.

  I’M AMELIA, FLY ME

  Earhart was 31 when a friend of the powerful New York publisher George Palmer Putnam approached her with an idea. Putnam wanted to finance a flight that would make Earhart the first woman to cross the Atlantic in a plane. After which she’d write a book about it, and he’d publish it. That was the good news.

  The bad news was that she’d only be a passenger. Putnam thought that, seeing as how it was only 1928, even that would be newsworthy. Earhart already had some experience as a pilot, but not enough. So the job of flying the plane, a trimotor Fokker called “Friendship,” fell to Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon. Amelia was given the title “commander,” but commander of pretty much nothing.

  FIRST FLIGHT

  On June 18, the Friendship took off from Nova Scotia, heading for Ireland. On the other side of the ocean, bad weather forced them to set down in South Wales. The fog had got the best of them, and there wasn’t much fuel left, but, hey, they’d landed safely in Europe. And Amelia had made a name for herself.

  LOVE AT FIRST FLIGHT

  She had also made a friend in Putnam. More than a friend, really. And since Putnam was married, tongues started wagging. In 1929, Putnam’s wife went to Reno to get a divorce. Putnam and Earhart were married in 1931, and her book, 20 Hours, 40 Minutes, was published soon after. Amelia’s hubby worked hard to keep her name in front of the public, but she did most of the leg work. At his urging, she flew solo from the East to the West coast in 1928, where she attended the National Air Races in California, then returned to do a lecture tour to promote her book.

  Ivan the Terrible blinded Russia’s best architect so he couldn’t build nicer buildings for others.

  JUST US GIRLS

  The next year, Amelia organized the first air race for women pilots, which the papers dubbed a “powder puff derby.” That same year, Earhart and 98 other women pilots founded “the Ninety-Nines,” an organization of women pilots.

  LOOKIN’ GOOD, AMELIA

  Five years to the day after Lindbergh’s flight, on May 20, 1932, Earhart flew solo across the Atlantic. When she landed in Londonderry in Northern Ireland she’d broken two records: not only was she the first woman to fly the Atlantic solo, she also was the only person to have crossed the Atlantic by plane twice. The 15-hour flight broke the previous record for speed that had been set by two British flyers 13 years earlier.

  THERE’S NO STOPPING HER NOW

  With the Atlantic under her belt, she turned her sights to the west. On her next solo flight, she crossed the Pacific, flying from Hawaii to California. After that, there was only one more record left for her to conquer. She wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world.

  IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED. . .

  On her first attempt in 1937, as she and her navigator, Frederick Noonan, were taking off, Amelia erred in judgment, and overcompensated for a dipping wing. The plane crashed, but Earhart and Noonan survived.

  Undaunted, they tried again two months later. After 22,000 miles—with a mere 7,000 miles to go—they landed at Lae, New Guinea. When they took off again, it was the last time anyone ever saw them.

  Nineteen hours and 30 minutes after leaving Lae, broadcasting on a strong signal, Amelia radioed, “We must be on you but cannot see you. . . gas is running low.” One final voice transmission followed, one last position report. Then nothing.

  The Sumerians invented cuneiform writing in 3500 B.C.

  YOU’RE INVITED TO A SEARCH PARTY

  The Coast Guard began the search. President Franklin Roosevelt ordered nine Navy ships and 66 aircraft to join the effort, but no trace of the flyers or their plane was found. After the official hunt was called off, George Palmer Putnam instigated a further search, but to no avail.

  YEAH, RIGHT

  There are lots of theories—most of them wacky—about Earhart’s ultimate fate. The most reasonable—but unlikely—is that she was on a spy mission for the U.S. Another just as unlikely scenario is that she purposely committed suicide. One popular rumor even claimed that Earhart was the voice of the infamous “Tokyo Rose,” who broadcasted World War II propaganda exhorting American GIs to surrender.

  Some physical evidence recovered on an uninhabited Pacific atoll points to a possible landing there, but even if true, it doesn’t account for the remains of the pilot and her navigator.

  AMELIA EARHART ABDUCTED BY ALIENS

  The tabloids still periodically trumpet the uncovered “truth” of Earhart’s fate. Until the real truth is comes to light, they’ll go on claiming that she was on a secret mission or is still alive on a remote Pacific Island. And probably living with Elvis!

  “Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace with yourself.”

  Amelia Earhart

  The United States Civil War created almost a half million morphine addicts.

  WHEREWORDS: A QUIZ (Cities of the World)

  * * *

  We’ll tell you where they are, you tell us where the names came from. Then check your answer on the next page.

  1. PARIS: The capital of and largest city in France.

  a. The Trojan prince who abducted Helen of Troy.

  b. It was the first “parish” in France.

  c. The Parisii, the tribe of Celtic peoples, its first inhabitants.

  2. TOKYO: The largest urban area and capital of Japan.

  a. An anagram of the city it supplanted as capital: Kyoto.

  b. Japanese for “eastern capital,” which it has been since 1868.

  c. After shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, who captured it in 1601.

  3. RIO DE JANEIRO: The former capital of Brazil.

  a. For French explorer Admiral Jacques Janier.

  b. From the Spanish word for “junior,” or “little river.”

  c. It was named by Portuguese pioneers who landed there in “January” 1503.

  4. ROME (in Italian, “Roma”): Italy’s largest city and capital.

  a. Julius Caesar named it for his first (and favorite) wife, Roma.

  b. Named after Romulus, Rome’s legendary founder and first king.

  c. Latin word for “greatness.”

  5. CAIRO: The largest city in Africa and the capital of Egypt.

  a. The Arabic word “al-qahira,” which means “the victorious.”

  b. The Cairo root, staple of the north African diet.

  c. A mythical oasis in The Arabian Nights.

  6. CHICAGO: The third largest city in America.

  a. Samuel Champlain named for his birthplace, Chicageau.

  b. Lithuanian fur trapper Vlad Shkago, founded it in 1673.

  c. Native American “checagou,” refers to the smell of onions.

  7. BOMBAY: The capital city of Maharashtra State in India.

  a. WWI aircraft crew discovered it through the “bomb bay” doors.

  b. Portuguese “Bom Bahia,” for “beautiful bay.”

  c. The Latin word “bombyx,” the raw silk the city is famous for.

  8. SHANGHAI: The largest city in China.

  a. Ancient Chinese characters that translate to “on the sea.”

  b. Admiral Chi’ang Kai, a hero in the war against Japan.

  c. A centuries-old blessing and salutation, meaning “good luck.”

  A socialist wrote the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance.

  1-c. Close to 10 million Parisians now populate the 41 square miles that have been variously controlled by the Germans, the British, Huns, and the Vikings. But they came after the original, indigenous clan, the Parisii.
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  2-b. Tokyo has been the capital of Japan since 1868, after the dynasty that ruled from the western city of Kyoto was overthrown. The emperor’s court was transferred to Edo and the name of the city was changed to Tokyo. (Give yourself partial credit if you answered “a,” even though it’s just a coincidence that the names of the two cities are anagrams.)

  3-c. In early 1503, gold-hungry Portuguese explorers sailed into Guanabara Bay to ring in the New Year and claim the area around the estuary for Portugal.

  4-b. In Roman myth, Romulus was the son of Mars, the god of war. He and his brother Remus were left as infants to die in the Tiber River. They were rescued and raised by wolves. When they grew up, they argued over which of two hills to build the city on. A fight to the death ensued, and Romulus won.

  5-a. When dissident Fatimid Muslims conquered Egypt in A.D. 696, they claimed the rich delta basin as their own and named it after their victory.