Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into History

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  If Prince Charles doesn’t change his name he will be King Charles III.

  WRONG AGAIN

  In 1862, three hundred years after the book burning, an Abbé in Madrid came across a manuscript by Diego de Landa. The manuscript revealed that even though Landa had trashed Mayan books, he had tried to learn the Mayan writing system. Thinking that the glyphs were an alphabet, the missionary pronounced a Spanish letter, then asked an Indian helper to point out the matching glyph. Landa wrote the Spanish letter and sketched the matching glyph above it. Could people now read what the Mayans had written? Well, no. Landa’s chart didn’t make sense. (Couldn’t this guy do anything right?)

  FINALLY!

  During World War II, books were burning again. A young Russian named Yuri Knorosov was in Berlin with the Red Army when he saw the German National Library on fire. It’s believed Knorosov snatched only one book from the flames. That book was a reproduction of three Mayan codices. After the war, Knorosov took the book home. At Moscow University, Knorosov studied ancient languages and tried to crack the Mayan code.

  Knorosov tried to imagine what might have gone on between Landa and his Mayan aide. Knorosov hypothesized that the Mayans didn’t have an alphabet and wouldn’t know what a letter was. Maybe, when Landa spoke the name of a Spanish letter and asked his Indian helper for the Mayan equivalent, his helper pointed to a glyph that contained (perhaps, among other sounds) the sound that he heard when Landa spoke the name of the letter. This would explain why Landa came up with four different glyphs for the letter “A,” two for the letter “B,” and why his notes weren’t much help in reading Mayan.

  NO MORE HELP! PLEASE!

  In 1952 Knorosov published his ideas, and four hundred years after the books were burned, scholars could finally unravel the Mayan texts. As other linguists worked on the puzzle, it became clear that Knorosov was right. The glyphs stood for syllables, words, and numbers, not letters of the alphabet. Interpretation of the glyphs is still in process, but at least it won’t take another 400 years—unless we get help from Landa’s ghost.

  The Great Pyramid of Giza is found today in a suburb of Cairo.

  WHEREWORDS: A QUIZ (Her Closet)

  * * *

  Come on in. We’re in milady’s boudoir and we’re mentioning unmentionables. . .. Where did all this girlie stuff come from?

  Choose the explanation you like best, then check it with the correct answer on the next page.

  1. HOSIERY

  a. Named for its hoselike shape.

  b. From the Latin “hosa,” an under-the-toga “leg covering.”

  c. First sold exclusively in Paris by silk merchant Pierre Hosier.

  2. LEOTARD

  a. From Latin “leo” for “lion” and “tardus” for “skin.”

  b. Named for French aerialist, Jules Leotard, who designed it.

  c. From a misspelling on an 1877 playbill for the ballet “Leopard Dance.”

  3. BIKINI

  a. The Latin “bi” for “two,” and “Kini” after Kini Porter, the first model to wear one.

  b. Maori word for “swimsuit.”

  c. The Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

  4. PURSE

  a. The Celtic word “parse” meaning “to count,” referring to the coins it carried.

  b. From the word “purchase.”

  c. Greek “byrsa,” the leather used to make the first purse.

  5. DENIM

  a. The shade of blue used to dye the fabric.

  b. Meaning “from Nimes” (de in French), the French city where it was first made.

  c. For Levi Strauss’s daughters Dora, Eve, Nancy, Irene, Mary.

  6. NEGLIGÉE

  a. From Lady Negley, a close “friend” of King Henry VII.

  b. The Egyptian word “negli,” a kind of silk gauze.

  c. From Latin “neglegere,” meaning “to neglect” (referring to housework).

  7. PUMPS

  a. From the sound they make.

  b. From their shape—resembling a medieval water pump.

  c. They were glued together by pumping machinery.

  8. PANTS

  a. Meant for women, designed to make men “pant.”

  b. After Saint Pantaleone, a character in a play.

  c. From German “panz,” which referred to children’s trousers.

  It’s not true that Napoleon knocked off the Sphinx’s nose because he was too African.

  1-b. The word “hosiery” or “hose” refers more to women’s stockings now, but originally “hosa” were cloth or leather leg warmers worn by Caesar’s Roman legions.

  2-b. Jules Leotard packed the audiences in. The ladies were as thrilled with his aerial act as they were with his skintight costume. Eventually it was adopted by dancers and aerobics fans everywhere.

  3-c. On July 1, 1946, on the Bikini atoll in the Marshall Islands, the first atomic bomb test took place. At the same time, French designer Louis Reard was putting the finishing touches on his sure-to-be-scandalous two-piece swimsuit. He was looking for a name that would make headlines, and found one in the newspaper. Four days later, his top model walked down the runway and gave new meaning to the word “bikini.”

  4-c. The first purses were simple drawstring bags made of a leather the Greeks called “byrsa.” The Romans called it a “bursa,” the French a “bourse.” In fact, the stock exchange in Paris is called the Bourse.

  5-b. Although no one seems to know for sure, it’s commonly believed that denim is short for “serge de Nimes,” a twill fabric that dates back to some time before the 17th century.

  6-c. Women of certain classes could always sit back and take it easy, but in the 18th century, as women’s and men’s nightwear started to diverge, a feminine, sometimes lacey, nightie became popular among women (although men liked it, too). It was just as good for relaxing at home as for sleeping, so it came to be named after what a woman did while wearing it—neglecting housework.

  7-a. The pump was a German creation that was popular throughout Europe in the mid-1500s. It was a loose slipper with a low heel that made a “pump, pump” sound as the wearer walked across a wooden floor.

  8-b. Saint Pantaleone was a fourth century martyr who inexplicably became a clownlike character in Italian folklore. He always appeared in extra-large trousers that came to be named for him (the English called him and his trousers “Pantaloon”). When the character “emigrated” to America in the 18th century, the name was shortened to “pants.” And if you’re wondering how we came across a pair of pants in a woman’s closet, in the U.S., women wear pants, men wear trousers.

  “I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared that the sense of being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity which religion is powerless to bestow.”

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mahatma Gandhi used to sleep with naked young women as a way of testing his celibacy.

  WHICH WAY DID THEY GO?

  * * *

  We got to wondering what happened to the famous explorers who braved the waters beyond medieval mapmakers’ “end of the world.” Did they go down with their ships? The answer is bizarre.

  HERNANDO DE SOTO

  De Soto and crew had been exploring on either side of the Mississippi River, in an area that is now Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana, when he was stricken with a fever and died. The local Indians lived in mud houses, so there was a large hole—the source of the mud—just outside their village. De Soto’s men buried his body there, but afterward remembered that their captain had told the Indians that Christians were immortal.

  What if the Indians discovered the body? They hadn’t been all that friendly to begin with. If they found de Soto’s body, they might decide they’d been lied to and do something nasty. The sailors dug up the body, put it in a hollowed-out tree trunk, and sank it in the Mississippi River. So the famous de Soto got a well-deserved burial at sea, but in a decidedly roundabout way.

  JAMES
COOK

  If it’s possible to die by coincidence, that’s what happened to Captain Cook. He’d been working his way along the Pacific coast of North America looking for a northwest passage to the Atlantic, but as he neared the Arctic Ocean, his way was blocked by ice. So his ships turned south, and he and his crew kept busy through the winter by sailing around Hawaii, charting the islands as they went.

  At the same time, the Hawaiians were in the middle of celebrating an annual festival honoring Lono, the god in charge of winter rains, fertility, and the New Year. When our fearless captain came ashore, the Hawaiians welcomed him with great ceremony, thinking he was Lono—or at least his representative. Month after month, the islanders showered him with gifts and anointed him with coconut oil. When Lono’s season was over in February, it was time for Cook to tackle the Arctic Ocean again. He and his men sailed away.

  David Ben-Gurion, who led Israel through two wars, was actually born in Poland.

  A week later, they ran into a storm that damaged one of the ships. They returned to Hawaii for repairs, but this time the Hawaiians saw Cook’s presence as sinister. Some suspicious islanders stole one of the ship’s longboats and, in an effort to get it back, the sailors tried to take the king hostage. At this point some two or three thousand people got very angry and killed Captain Cook. His crew went on without him, but they never found that elusive northwest passage.

  CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

  After his 1492 voyage, Columbus returned to Spain a celebrity. But by the time he’d completed his fourth voyage, he’d been forgotten. In 1502, he spent the year seeking the Isthmus of Panama; Columbus thought it might prove to be a way to the Pacific (smart boy!). By the end of that year, his four ships were so badly damaged that he was forced to run them aground before they sank. It took him another year to get a ship that would take him home to Spain.

  He returned to Spain sick and penniless. Back in 1492, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand had promised that Columbus would share in the riches he found in the New World. He headed for the Spanish court in Toledo, but only got as far as Seville. He was too ill to go on. Soon after that, Queen Isabella died. Columbus wrote to Ferdinand, but the king didn’t reply. So the great explorer struggled out of his sickbed and went to Toledo for some “face time” with the king. Ferdinand refused to deliver on his promises. Columbus died at home in bed in 1506.

  Afternote: Columbus’ oldest son, Diego, succeeded where his father hadn’t. He was eventually appointed Viceroy of the Indies, married one of Ferdinand’s nieces, and, from all accounts, lived happily—and financially comfortably—ever after.

  FERDINAND MAGELLAN

  Although he’s known as the first European to circumnavigate the globe, Magellan never intended to go around the world and, in fact, died halfway through the voyage. What killed him? His own fanaticism and a bunch of angry natives. Think fiery televangelist with delusions of grandeur and you’ve got Magellan. He reached the Philippines in 1521 and started converting the locals to Catholicism. He also told the local chieftain that he would conquer an enemy who lived on a nearby island, a chief named Lapu Lapu. Believing his cause was divinely inspired, Magellan didn’t bother with a battle plan. The great captain and his men waded ashore, wringing wet and heavy with armor. When they were far enough inland, the natives surrounded them and cut them to ribbons. Shreds, really, so that even when Lapu Lapu was offered a reward for returning Magellan’s body, there was nothing left of el Capitán to be found.

  Rolihlahla Mandela’s schoolteacher renamed him Nelson for Horatio Nelson.

  Magellan’s crew, under new captain Juan Sebastián del Cano, returned to Spain via the Indian Ocean and around the Cape of Good Hope, thereby completing the first voyage around the world. Del Cano deserves the credit for proving the Earth was round, but Magellan’s is the name we remember.

  HENRY HUDSON

  Hudson sailed closer to the North Pole than any other explorer. That, and his pigheaded determination to find a northwest passage to the Orient, is what really killed him.

  Like Columbus, Henry Hudson made a fourth voyage to the New World. But he never came back. On his third voyage, he and his crew navigated what was later to be called the Hudson River. That was when he claimed the Hudson River Valley for Holland. On his next and last voyage, he found the strait (also later named for him) that led to the huge inland sea that is now known as—you guessed it—Hudson Bay. That’s where, in November 1610, he found himself stuck in the ice with a near mutiny on his hands.

  Their food supply was dwindling, and man, it was cold. But with no place to go, the crew settled in and the expedition made it through the winter. When the ice melted in the spring, most of the crew wanted out. But Hudson, who thought he was in the Pacific Ocean, insisted on sailing westward to the Orient. By June, the crew had had enough. They forced Hudson, his son, and the sailors who were sick and/or loyal into a small boat. The handful of mutineers who made it back home were never punished for the mutiny. And Hudson and the others were never heard from again.

  Ayatollah Khomeini’s real name was Ruhollah Moussavi.

  ABE LINCOLN, HARBINGER OF FASHION?

  * * *

  Lincoln gets some campaign advice from an 11-year-old girl and pulls off the Presidency by a whisker.

  Abraham Lincoln is remembered as a man ahead of his time. And rightly so. Of the 43 men who’ve held the office of president of the U.S., he towers above all comers. His intellect, humor, and compassion are legendary. But as a fashion leader? Far from it.

  ABE’S LITTLE PEN PAL

  When Abe was still a presidential hopeful, he opened his mail one day—October 18, 1860, to be exact—and must have chuckled to himself at the piece of advice being offered by 11-year-old Grace Bedell of Westfield, New York. Give up shaving, she told him, and you’ve got it in the bag. Wrote Grace:

  You would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. . . All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and you would be President.

  Abe dashed off this reply:

  As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I were to begin now?

  GROWING, GROWING, GROWN

  Despite his answer to Grace, the little girl’s suggestion must have played on the great one’s mind. Lincoln loved to have his picture taken and—fortunately for history—this penchant has left us with an unmistakable chronicle of the rise of the beard:

  • November 26, 1860—a thin scraggly line of whiskers appears

  • January 26, 1861—more growth, but still straggly

  • February 9, 1861—a mature, full growth of facial hair adorns the face of . . . ta-da! . . . President Abraham Lincoln.

  Until World War II, Winston Churchill was known mostly for disastrous political failures.

  SAY HELLO, GRACIE

  But before he was inaugurated—and, in fact, on his way from Illinois to Washington to accept the office of president, Lincoln found himself at a whistle stop in Westfield, New York. Remembering the little girl with the uncanny advice, he stopped midway through his prepared speech:

  During my campaign I had a little correspondent from your town. She kindly admonished me to let my whiskers grow, and, since I’ve taken her advice, I would like to see her. Is she here? Is Grace Bedell here?

  A small figure was bustled through the crowd and soon Lincoln was face to face with Grace. As her president bent down to kiss her, the prickly stubble digging into her cheek may well have made Grace wish she’d never suggested the idea in the first place!

  THE HEIGHT OF FASHION

  Thanks to Grace Bedell, Abraham Lincoln became the first U.S. president to sport facial hair of any kind. He must have started a trend: ten of the next 11 presidents wore beards or sidewhiskers, with or without mustaches.

  LINCOLNIANA

  • Besides being the first president to sport a beard, Lincoln was also the tallest U.S. president at 6 feet 4 inches.

/>   • Lincoln was the first president to pass an income tax—it was three percent on incomes over $600).

  • Lincoln once paid $2,600 for a string of pearls and matching earrins at Tiffany’s for his beloved wife, Mary.

  • Lincoln regarded patent laws as one of the three most important developments in history, right next to the discovery of America and the perfecting of the printing press.

  Despite a reputation for vigor, Teddy Roosevelt needed nitroglycerin pills for his heart.

  LADIES FIRST

  * * *

  The first woman to sit in the British House of Commons was intelligent, down-to-earth—and an American.