Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into History

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  TIMES CHANGE, WINNIE

  The usually unflappable Winston Churchill could handle anything; he endured the chaos and terror of World War II without losing his cool. But at least one event in his life had a humbling effect: the day that Lady Nancy Astor became the first woman to sit in the British House of Commons. Here’s what Churchill told her ladyship years later:

  “When you took your seat, I felt as if a woman had come into my bathroom and I had only the sponge to defend myself.”

  THE LADY

  Nancy Witcher was born in Danville, Virginia, in 1879. She married in her late teens and divorced in her mid-twenties. Three years later, she married Waldorf Astor, whose father and uncle had built the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. That made young Waldorf a direct descendant of American tycoon John Jacob Astor—and a very nice match for our Nancy.

  THE ASTORS

  Waldorf’s father, William, had moved to England in 1890. After contributing lots of money to the British effort during World War I, William was first made a baron, then a viscount. Waldorf got a seat in the British House of Commons. When Dad died, Waldorf stepped down from the House of Commons to take over the viscountcy. Nancy was elected—by a wide margin—to take her husband’s seat while it was still warm. This was in 1919, the same year that American women won the right to vote. Lady Astor was so popular with her constituents that she was reelected by a substantial margin in every election until she stood down in 1945. During her political career she was a staunch supporter of women’s rights, temperance, and education.

  Charmingly self-effacing, the lady had strong opinions on every subject and, with typical American candor, didn’t mind sharing them.

  Nobody knows who it was that stood in front of the tanks going to Tiananman Square.

  ON HERSELF:

  “I refuse to admit that I am more than 52, even if that makes my children illegitimate.”

  “My vigor, vitality, and cheek repel me. I am the kind of woman I would run from.”

  ON OTHER PEOPLE:

  “The only thing I like about rich people is their money.”

  “The penalty of success is to be bored by the people who used to snub you.”

  ON TEMPERANCE:

  “One reason I don’t drink is because I wish to know when I’m having a good time.”

  ON MEN & WOMEN:

  “We are not asking for superiority for we have always had that; all we ask is equality.”

  “In passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance, he laid the blame on a woman.”

  “I married beneath me. All women do.”

  WINSTON HAS THE LAST WORD. . .

  But in the end, Lady Astor might be most famous for this dinner party conversation with Churchill:

  Lady Astor: “Winston, if I were your wife I’d put poison in your coffee.”

  Winston: “Nancy, if I were your husband I’d drink it.”

  The exchange took place during one of those country weekends the upper-class British are so famous for. On this particular weekend, Astor and Churchill were staying with Churchill’s cousin, the Duke of Marlborough, at Blenheim Palace. By all reports, Nancy and Churchill argued ferociously throughout the weekend.

  It must have been fun.

  The airfield from which Charles Lindbergh began his famous trip is now a shopping center.

  POP WAS A POPE AND I’M A POISONER: WHO AM I?

  * * *

  Lucrezia Borgia lived at the height of the Italian Renaissance. She was beautiful, smart, and thirsty for power. She and her family poisoned or otherwise destroyed their rivals during a reign of terror that lasted nearly 50 years.

  During the halcyon days of the Italian high Renaissance (roughly 1450–1550), men were at the centers of art, commerce, and world exploration. Women were expected to keep house, bear children, and remain subservient to men. Even a bright and ambitious woman like Lucrezia Borgia was a victim of Renaissance sexism. But she wasn’t about to sit back and be a ‘50s housewife of any century.

  MY PAPA, IL PAPA

  In the Middle Ages in Italy, the Catholic Church was a choice career path for the male offspring of wealthy landowners and merchants. Conventional “networking” channels such as the Church or craft guilds were open only to men. Fortunately for Lucrezia, she had a unique inside track on the Church: her father happened to be the reigning pope.

  THE REIGN IN SPAIN

  The wealthy Borgia family had its roots in Spain. But the family’s reputation is based largely on the doings of three members of the family after they enlarged their sphere of influence to Renaissance Italy: Don Rodrigo (soon to be Pope Alexander VI), his son Cesare (whose nickname today would have been “Mad Dog” for the number of people he killed during temper tantrums), and the infamous Lucrezia.

  Although Charles Lindbergh opposed the U.S.’s entry into World War II, he flew 50 missions.

  HOW MUCH FOR THAT VATICAN?

  Rodrigo became a cardinal through pay-offs and purchased the papacy in basically the same way. As pope, he moved his mistresses into apartments near the Vatican, where he could visit them unobserved. It’s said that, at one point, Rodrigo and his son Cesare shared the same mistress. (Ewwwww!) Dad plotted with his children to insinuate the family name into the blueblood lineages of Italy. Their success depended on the ruthlessness of Cesare (the hit man of the Borgia mob), and the cunning of his sister Lucrezia.

  LUCREZIA MacEVIL

  Lucrezia was a practical girl: she placed the creation of political power alliances for herself and her family above personal happiness. With a couple of ex-husbands and numerous broken engagements—in several cases caused by the mysterious death of the intended groom—Lucrezia may have been the original “Black Widow.” It’s likely that Cesare did his bit, too, taking a hand in the murder of at least a few of his sister’s fiancés and husbands.

  THIS ONE’S A KEEPER

  Her last husband was Alfonso d’Este, the powerful Duke of Ferrara. Their son, Ercole, succeeded his father as duke, and another, Ippolito, became a cardinal (as did his Uncle Cesare in 1493). The d’Este kids were known for their love of luxury, and, as such, carried on the Borgia tradition. (Ippolito carried on to such excess that he was already a degenerate when the family bought him his cardinal’s post—at 15 years old!)

  PRETTY POISON

  Lucrezia’s favorite—and famous—weapon was a specially designed ring loaded with arsenic. She’d brush it against her intended quarry, make a quick puncture with the sharpened ring and, before they knew it, her victims were singing with the angels.

  THE BAD DIE YOUNG

  It’s a safe bet that Lucrezia went to join a different choir when she died on June 24, 1519 of complications giving birth to her fifth child. She was relatively young—not quite 39 years old. But her reputation as a murderous, power-hungry sociopath has survived more than 500 years.

  “We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat.”

  —Queen Victoria

  The Liberty Bell was nearly sold for scrap metal in 1828.

  LISTEN, MY CHILDREN. . .

  * * *

  . . . and you shall hear what really happened on that midnight ride of Paul Revere. . .

  The story of Paul Revere’s ride is part of American folklore: the signal lamps in Boston’s Old North Church (“One if by land, and two if by sea,”) and then Revere’s riding like a madman, shouting, “The British are coming!” Is that how it really happened? Well, it’s close. Paul Revere was certainly a hero and a patriot, but the honor of warning the countryside needs to be shared with a few other riders. Here’s what really happened.

  A REBEL AND A SPY

  In 1775, Paul Revere was a respectable silversmith (by day), and he was also part of a rebel group that gathered intelligence on British troop movements (whenever he could). Boston was crawling with British soldiers, but that wasn’t too unusual—after all, the colonies were considered part of England at the time. But a revolution was brewing, and te
nsion between the British soldiers and the Americans was high.

  Two days before the fateful ride, Revere and his friends designed a warning system using lantern signals so they could communicate in case the British blocked the roads between towns. They’d need the warning signal sooner than they knew: the British found out that the rebels had a store of munitions near Concord and intended to march on the town, and do exactly what the Americans were afraid of—set up patrols along the roads to keep messengers from spreading the news.

  GET READY TO RIDE

  On April 18, 1775, Revere and a compatriot, Dr. Joseph Warren, heard about the British plan. Dr. Warren called on a secret informant (rumor has it that the informant was actually the American wife of British General Gage) and verified that the British intended to burn up the munitions at Concord and arrest some of the leaders of the budding revolution. Warren asked Revere to ride to Lexington to warn the leaders, John Hancock and Samuel Adams, of the danger.

  Knowing that the soldiers might stop Revere, Dr. Warren also sent William Dawes and an unknown man with the same message, by different routes. Revere stopped by the Old North Church on the way, to tell the men there to hang two lanterns in the steeple as a signal: the British were taking the shortcut across Boston Harbor to Cambridge, the quickest way to get to Concord.

  Charles Dickens’s son Francis was a Mountie.

  Revere crossed the Charles River in a small boat, mounted a speedy horse, and raced off. He was chased by redcoats, but outran them. He arrived at Lexington around midnight and delivered his message to Adams and Hancock; not “The British are coming!” but “The Regulars [i.e., British troops] are coming out!”

  THE RIPPLE EFFECT

  All along the way from Boston to Lexington, Revere sent other messengers wherever he could find them. They spread the word in every direction, and by early morning, church bells, drums, and guns were sounding the alarm throughout the colony.

  But in Lexington the midnight before, right after he’d delivered his message, Revere had no way of knowing how far the word might spread, so he rode on, now aiming straight for Concord—and the British army. He was joined by Dawes and a third man: a young doctor named Prescott who’d been a-courting that night. The three visited every house along the way, knocking on doors, asking the men inside to send riders down other roads to spread the news. And all the time shouting the news to everyone they could reach: the British soldiers were on their way.

  SHOT HEARD ‘ROUND THE WORLD

  Halfway to Concord, some “Regulars” stopped them. The doctor vanished into the night, but Dawes was thrown by his horse and Revere was captured. Revere was something of a patriot celeb, and his captors recognized him. They questioned him—at gunpoint—and he told them the truth, about the British secret mission and the American militia response. The British soldiers rode Revere back to Lexington. As they neared the town, they heard gunfire and realized they’d better warn their commanders about the militia, so they released the prisoners and took off.

  Later, Paul Revere was crossing Lexington Common just as the local militia was forming up to meet the British troops. So he was there that day to hear for himself “the shot heard ‘round the world”—the first shot of the Revolutionary War.

  In 1943, Fred Rose became the only Communist ever elected to the Canadian parliament.

  HEAVY METTLE

  How a little old rabbi—in his coffin yet!—overcame the mighty legions of Rome.

  GETTING THE ROYAL TREATMENT

  It had never been easy for Jews living under Roman rule, but in A.D. 65 things had gone from bad to intolerable. To the Jews, Jerusalem was the sacred site of the fabulous temple of Solomon, the heart of the Jewish faith. But the tax-happy Romans were milking the city dry. A group of Jewish dissidents, the zealots, decided to fight back.

  WAIT A MINUTE!

  A wise old rabbi named Yochanan ben Zakkai counseled the zealots to have patience, but the zealots wanted war, and they truly believed that God would send the Jews a miracle to defeat the Romans. And you know what? By some miracle, the badly outnumbered rebels drove the Roman legions out of Palestine. The zealots were sure that God had performed a miracle for them, but Rabbi ben Zakkai wasn’t convinced that the battle was over. He was proven right when, a year or so later, fresh Roman legions battled their way through Palestine and eventually surrounded Jerusalem. Now the Jews needed another miracle.

  TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER

  Ben Zakkai knew the zealots couldn’t win this time, and he was afraid that Rome would wipe out his people as a lesson to the rest of its empire. So the rabbi decided to match wits with Vespasian, Rome’s greatest general. To do that, he had to get to the Roman camp, but the zealots were guarding the city gates, determined that every last Jew in Jerusalem would stand and fight. So the rabbi’s followers built a coffin and sealed the rabbi inside. Tearing their clothes in the custom of grief, and wailing in despair, they took the coffin to the city gates, and told the guards that their rabbi had died of a contagious disease. He had to be buried outside.

  RAISING THE DEAD

  They went straight to Vespasian and laid the coffin before him. When the coffin was opened, out stepped the rabbi. He told Vespasian that he could see into the future, and that the general would soon be the emperor of all Rome. And because the rabbi was bringing the general good news, he would like a small favor when the prophecy came to pass. Would the general allow the rabbi to set up an academy for Jewish learning in Yavneh city?

  Soviet spy Igor Gouzenko had to defect twice in Ottawa before anyone believed him.

  Vespasian was caught by surprise. Was this some kind of trick? Why hadn’t the rabbi—who had risked his life—asked for power or wealth? Intrigued, the mighty general studied the rabbi. He agreed to grant ben Zakkai’s request if the prophecy came true.

  AND IT CAME TO PASS. . .

  Some people believe that ben Zakkai really foretold the future. Others think that a shrewd man made a calculated guess. Emperor Nero had recently committed suicide. In the chaos that followed, there had been three emperors of Rome in one year alone, and now there was a new vacancy. Like other successful generals before him, Vespasian had an excellent chance of filling the power vacuum. At any rate, the rabbi had established a “relationship,” and that might have been his only goal.

  It took the Roman legions four years to recapture Jerusalem. In A.D. 70, they leveled the city, carried captives off as slaves, and stayed on to guard the ruins of the temple to make sure no troublemaking Jews came back. For many Jews it seemed like the end. Without the temple, a man couldn’t make sacrifices to atone for his sins. The holy city was dead. How could Judaism survive?

  THE MIRACLE

  Vespasian became emperor. And Rabbi ben Zakkai, at his school in Yavneh, taught that sins could be atoned for with deeds of loving kindness. If the people didn’t have the priests of the temple anymore, they still had Jewish scripture to study and the ability to pray. As the Yavneh academy gained influence, Jews took up a religion of prayer, study, and good deeds—a faith that could be practiced anywhere in the world.

  WHAT MATTERS IN THE END

  Today, ancient Rome is in ruins, and Roman gods are gone, but the Jews and their faith survive. No legend could be as amazing as the historical truth. Yochanan ben Zakkai’s humble request led to a miracle. His academy forged a culture that kept the homeless Jews united until—2,000 years later—they returned to Jerusalem.

  Romans flavored food with garum, made by leaving fish to rot for several weeks.

  THE CRUSADE THAT WASN’T

  * * *

  In 1201, the political and religious leaders of Western Europe were ready to take another shot at saving the Holy Land and Jerusalem from those darn infidels. But what started out as a Holy Crusade ended up more like one of history’s greatest muggings.

  According to Innocent III—the most powerful of the medieval popes—it was time once again for all good Christians to come to the aid of their brothers in the Hol
y Land. But this pope was not so innocent that he trusted the leaders of the new Crusade to behave themselves like Christians. So he threatened to excommunicate any crusader who took up arms against a fellow Christian while on a Crusade. As events would later prove, most of the crusaders decided to ignore him.

  LET’S MAKE A DEAL

  Two men served as the true leaders of the Fourth Crusade. Officially, the supreme commander was Boniface, the Marquis of Montferrat. The other leaders of the Crusade were planning to attack either Cairo or Alexandria, but Boniface had other targets in mind—any target that would stuff his pockets with as much cash as possible.

  The arrangement suited the other boss of the Crusade, a man named Enrico Dandolo, known to history as the Doge (chief magistrate) of Venice. The crusaders needed ships to transport them to the East, as well as supplies and additional troops for the campaign. And the Doge was just the man to supply them—for a very steep price. (He charged the crusaders 85,000 marks—not a small sum in those days, even for wealthy nobles and princes.) The Venetians also demanded an equal share in whatever territory or treasure the crusaders succeeded in capturing.