Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into History

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Before starting his journey with Anubis, Tut’s body underwent the ritual removal of lungs, stomach, liver, and intestines to their own canopic jars, and his body was treated for weeks with a bath of natron, then stuffed with bituminous substances, rubbed with aromatic spices. . . all in addition to the oils slathered on with each layer of wrappings. The job was so good that an abrasion still showed on the skin of his cheek, and X-rays revealed bone fragments underneath, dispelling the theories of death by tuberculosis and substituting good old murder.

  By the time Egyptians discontinued the practice around A.D. 700, it’s estimated that over 70 million mummies had been stashed around the deserts and pyramids.

  BONE DRY

  Desiccation seems to have been the best preserver of all in the East, and a prime example of it are the mystery mummies of the Takla Makan desert in China. In the 1970s and 80s, mummies were found buried throughout the desert. Many of these freeze-dried remains were Caucasian and dated as far back as 4,000 years. But with nothing to say how they got there.

  FREEZE-DRIED

  The Incas could really chill out. In 1999, Dr. Johan Reinhard found three young sacrificial victims, folded calmly into sitting positions, frozen since their deaths some 500 years before. At 22,000 feet on top of Argentina’s Mount Llullaillaco, it was the world’s highest archaeological site. Nature did the embalming.

  BLUE TATTOOS

  Nature also preserved for modern study the Siberian Ice Maiden, discovered in what’s called the “Pastures of Heaven” on the High Steppes. Covered in vivid blue tattoos and frozen by extraordinary climatic conditions, the Maiden, six decorated horses, and a last ceremonial meal seem to indicate that women not only got a dinner, but respect, in nomadic societies of 2400 years ago.

  In A.D. 700, the largest city in America was Teotihuacan, home to 100,000 people.

  LOST AND FOUND

  The lost Franklin Expedition of 1852 turned up in the form of sailor-sicles during a 1984 search of the Arctic. John Torrington, dead and decently coffined for 130 years, would yield up pathological evidence of lead poisoning, likely a result of the 8,000 tins of poorly soldered provisions on the ships.

  THE ICEMAN SHOWETH UP

  Perhaps the most famous iced-over individual is the anonymous “Iceman,” discovered along the Austro-Italian border. Middle-aged and dressed spiffily in a cape, fur shoes, and hat, he had dined on grains and bread shortly before laying down for his eternal rest. “Otzi,” as he was named, was still making news in 2001. An arrow hole in his chest showed why he hadn’t taken a left at the Alps and kept on going.

  BOGGED DOWN

  Many people get bogged down on their way to glory, but none so neatly as Tollund Man. Fished out of a quagmire in Denmark, his 1950 discovery set the scientific world on their mummified ears. Tollund Man’s features are composed and serene, despite his death by hanging (the rope was still around his neck!). Whether they tripped in—or were tipped in—the bog mummies of Northern Europe, were perfectly pickled in the oxygenless peat.

  TRADITION!

  Modern humans had to invent their own techniques, mostly out of the need to deliver the departed in a decorous state; this would include the fine art of embalming.

  Today, in the U.S. at least, traditional embalming and burial is still the favorite (ahem) way to go.

  POTTER WHO?

  Potter’s field is the name given to burial grounds for the poor and unknown. The name comes from the New Testament in which Judas returns the 30 pieces of silver to the priests. They take the coins, “And bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in” (Matthew 27:7). Whether rich or poor, foreigners were not wanted in Jewish graveyards. The potter's field, being excavated for clay, would be of little value, and would sell cheap.

  In ancient Rome it was considered a sin to eat the flesh of a woodpecker.

  THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR

  * * *

  Ten years before he met his Waterloo, Napoleon suffered a crushing—and possibly prophetic?—naval defeat at the hands of the Royal Navy led by Admiral Horatio Nelson.

  BAIT FOR A BIG FISH

  In 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte was master of most of Europe. Only England stood in the way of his complete domination. He had no respect for the British army, but the navy—especially the fleet commanded by Vice-Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson—kept him from crossing the channel. If that darn fleet could be temporarily removed, Napoleon thought, conquest would be a snap.

  SNEAKY, SNEAKY

  Hoping to lure Nelson from his post, Napoleon sent a fleet commanded by Vice-Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve to the Caribbean. The British thought this was an attack on one of their colonies and sailed off in pursuit. But Villeneuve started back for Europe, leaving Nelson hunting for him. By the time the British realized he was gone, Villeneuve had a long head start. Nelson and crew scurried off to try to cut the lead to a couple of days.

  THE PLOT FOILED

  Still ahead of Nelson, Villeneuve reached the coast of Europe. There, his 20 ships met a British force of 15. In the fight that ensued the French lost two ships to the enemy; the rest fled to Cadiz to get Spanish reinforcements.

  By the time Nelson caught up with his quarry, they were bottled up in Cadiz—no longer an invasion threat, but not likely to come out and be beaten up either. So, leaving a squadron behind to keep the enemy on their best behavior, Nelson sailed back to England for a few weeks’ rest and relaxation.

  AN ALMOST NEW STRATEGY

  Nelson returned to his fleet and described his battle plan to his officers. Instead of attacking with each ship following her leader in line, he would attack head on in two columns and break the French-Spanish line. He claimed that this was a new idea and that the enemy would be confused by it. But in fact the British had used a similar tactic in an earlier battle, and Villeneuve was expecting to see something like it. (Which didn’t really matter because he had no idea of how to defend against it.)

  Winston Churchill won a Nobel Prize, not for peace, but for literature.

  MEANWHILE, BACK AT HEADQUARTERS

  Napoleon gave up on invading England—but he still had a use in mind for his fleet: the conquest of Naples. He ordered Villeneuve to put to sea at the soonest opportunity. That came in mid-October when several of the British ships departed for England, leaving Nelson with only 27 ships to face a combined French and Spanish fleet of 33. Villeneuve liked the odds and set sail. Late one night, he sighted the British off Cape Trafalgar. He ordered his ships into a line and spent all night preparing for battle.

  THE VIEW FROM THE OTHER SIDE

  Nelson raced to close the distance between himself and the enemy. At daybreak he divided his force into two columns, and with the wind at his back, bore down upon the French-Spanish fleet. But the winds were light, so the attack was too slow to suit the British admiral.

  WHAT ENGLAND EXPECTS

  While the distance slowly closed, Nelson fretted: he vacillated between predicting the destruction of the enemy and melodramatically foretelling his own death (this is something he did before almost every battle). To pass the time, he decided to send a signal to the fleet. At first he wanted to say, “Nelson confides that every man will do his duty,” but his signals officer suggested that “England expects that every man will do his duty,” would be easier to make using the cumbersome signal code of the time.

  THE BATTLE

  At noon, the British fleet broke through the French-Spanish line in two places, and soon the battle became a series of separate actions in which the English held the advantage. Nelson’s flagship, the Victory, was one of the first to pierce the enemy line. She pulled alongside the Redoutable, commanded by one of the best captains in the French navy, who had stationed sharpshooters in his rigging. The two ships fought so fiercely that the Redoutable sank a day later. But she had her revenge. One of the sharpshooters took aim at Nelson—who was easily identified by his glittering medals—and put a musket ball into his spine.

  Of the last 3,500 years,
only 230 years saw no major wars.

  A HERO’S DEATH

  Nelson was hustled below to the ship’s doctor, but nothing could be done. While the battle raged on, he lingered between life and death, alternately demanding to know how the British were doing and fretting over who would care for his mistress. He stayed alive long enough to learn that the enemy had been crushed. More than half the French-Spanish fleet had been captured; the rest had fled. Gratified by this news, Nelson sighed, “Thank God, I have done my duty,” and died.

  PICKLED IN RUM

  While he was dying, he’d feared that his body would be pitched over the side, but he didn’t need to have worried. He was popped into a cask of “spirits” to preserve him for the journey home. To this day, “Nelson’s Blood” is a nickname for rum in the Royal Navy. He was given a splendid funeral and laid to rest in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

  NO-TELL HOTEL

  Villeneuve didn’t survive his opponent by much. He was captured by the British at Trafalgar and freed early in 1806. Within two months of returning to France, he was found dead in a hotel room. Although his death was said to have been a suicide, many believe that Napoleon had him assassinated for his ineptitude.

  A RUMMY TALE

  “There’s nought no doubt so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.” Lord Byron

  Long before sailors took to “Nelson’s Blood,” rum had a long history with the British navy. The Royal Navy issued rum rations as far back as 1655 as a shipboard substitute for water and beer, which went bad within weeks. By 1731, the standard ration was a daily half-pint (8 ounces!), but as a consequence they had problems with men falling out of the rigging while under the influence. The rum was subsequently mixed with an equal amount of water to lessen the effect. Rum rations remained standard until 1969.

  Cree Indians used smoking pipes as currency.

  FROM ITALY TO LITTLE ITALY, THE MAFIA COMES TO AMERICA

  * * *

  Give me your tired, your poor. . . your gangsters? Among the millions of immigrants coming to America were some notorious “made” men.

  A WORD TO REMEMBER

  The term Mafia muscled its way into dictionaries in the late 1860s. But long before, in Sicily, everybody knew the word. It originated in the tough streets and slums of Palermo. A man who was a Mafioso—he was a “man of respect,” prepared to take the law into his own hands.

  Americans learned the word Mafia when it traveled to America along with the flood of immigrants from Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mafia meant organized crime.

  QUESTION AUTHORITY

  Located at the crossroads of major Mediterranean trade routes, Sicily had been occupied by a long list of conquerors: the Phoenicians, Arabs, Greeks, Spanish, French, and more. Long oppressed, the Sicilians became wary of outsiders and resentful of legal authorities who’d never done them much good.

  Rural bandit chieftains (who secretly pleased peasant neighbors by rustling cattle belonging to nobles of foreign extraction) could be accorded much respect, and some bandit leaders resolved disputes and kept local order. But bandits were feared, too; they could be violent and they charged their countrymen for protection. Eventually Sicily saw secret criminal societies formed, with chieftains, lieutenants, and their followers.

  DON’ ARGUE WITH A DON

  By 1860, as the liberator Giuseppe Garibaldi landed in Sicily to drive out the Spanish and create a united Italy, the Mafia was alive and well. Its chiefs or “dons” were powerful and respected. Don Vito Cascio Ferro (regarded by many as Sicily’s first real godfather) brought two big changes to the ways of the Mafia in Sicily. First, he convinced his fellow chieftains that it wasn’t good business to bleed their victims dry; it was better to charge moderately for protection so that the business could stay alive and keep generating income for the mob. Legend says he explained it this way: “You have to skim the cream off the milk without breaking the bottle.” Don Vito was also the first Sicilian Mafioso to establish ties with leaders in that new land of opportunity for the Mafia, America.

  It took 13 years for Alexander the Great to conquer his empire.

  THE NEW AMERICANS

  Italy provided the U.S. with some 4.7 million immigrants between 1820 and 1930. By the late 19th century the main source of Italian newcomers to America were the Mezzogiorno, from the southern part of the country, including Sicily.

  New York and New Orleans saw Sicilian “Little Italys” spring up, and plenty of the new immigrants brought along their distrust of officials. Crimes like extortion—mostly perpetrated by Italians against Italians—followed the pattern of the Old Country. The Mafia had arrived in the New World.

  Italians didn’t have a monopoly on organized crime—vicious Irish and Jewish gangs controlled crime territories in New York. But Italian “stand up guys” (often fugitives from Italian justice) had become a force by 1880. By 1890 they shocked the nation.

  DEATH IN THE BIG EASY. . . AND PALERMO

  In New Orleans in 1890, the police chief, David Hemmings, who’d been investigating the mob, was fatally gunned down near his home. The crime was bad enough but the trial drove the Big Easy to hysteria. Nineteen Mafia leaders and henchmen were charged with conspiracy to murder the police chief, but all were either acquitted or granted a mistrial. Rumors swirled that the jury had been bought off. Vigilantes stormed the parish jail and 16 (very possibly innocent) Sicilians were lynched.

  In 1899, New York City detective Joseph Petrosino, investigating Italy’s connection to the mob, was gunned down in an open plaza in Palermo. The hit was said to have been ordered by Don Vito Cascio Ferro himself. But the police responded to Petrosino’s murder with a crackdown on the Mafia in New York.

  The U.S. first issued paper money in 1862.

  THE MOB GOES MOD

  Government retaliation to the New Orleans and Palermo killings demonstrated to the up-and-coming “capos” (mob chiefs) that the Mafia had to make changes in order to thrive in the U.S. What the Mafia needed was a charismatic, Americanized don. And they got Charlie “Lucky” Luciano.

  As a teenager Salvatore Lucania organized street gangs that terrorized the Lower East Side. He soon took up with some pals or “goombahs.” They were Frank Costello, and Jewish tough guys Meyer Lansky and Benny or “Bugsy” Siegel. As these teens grew more sophisticated at crime, a legendary borgata (criminal organization) was born.

  THE MOB GETS “LUCKY”

  Lucania’s gang ran bookmaking joints, and put some of their profits into “gifts” for cops and public officials. Lucky wasn’t old-school Sicilian, but he was a helluva big earner. When prohibition came, he made millions. Lucania and his multicultural wiseguys became the biggest bootlegging outfit in New York.

  Lucania, handsome and charming, became Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, a New York celebrity. Before Lucky went to jail in 1936, he engineered the commission, a confederation of Mafia gangs. Lucky wanted to end internal mob wars that brought unwanted attention from law enforcement and disrupted profit-taking.

  CRIMINALS WHO AREN’T POLITICIANS

  The Mafia expanded. Bugsy Siegel built the Flamingo Hotel, and began the Las Vegas gambling empire before he was murdered in Beverly Hills in 1947.

  Americans got a good look at organized crime when a U.S. Senate investigation of the Mafia led by Tennessee’s Estes Kefauver, was televised in 1951. TV viewers watched Frank Costello testify (he wasn’t exactly cooperative) for three days. Frank got a five-year sentence for tax evasion, and Americans got an education about the reality of the Mafia in American life.

  In the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy had ties to Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana (including a shared mistress), but Kennedy’s brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, aggressively went after indictments against mobsters. He also championed new laws to prosecute racketeering.

  The first English Parliament was called into session on January 20, 1265.

  GETTING GOTTI

  By the 1980s, prosecutors like U.S. Attor
ney for New York Rudy Guliani had declared all-out legal war on organized crime. Soon the last big-time Mafia chieftain was on the ropes: John Gotti, the “Teflon Don,” the head of the powerful Gambino crime family. Much like Lucky Luciano during the Prohibition days, Gotti was a tabloid celebrity who had friends among “respectable” people. He held court at a social club on Mulberry Street in Manhattan and each year staged a fireworks show for neighborhood residents.

  THE POWER OF BULL

  In 1992, testimony from turncoat informant Sammy “The Bull” Gravano put his boss John Gotti in prison for life. Law enforcement authorities hoped it would be a fatal blow to traditional organized crime. Gravano had broken the famous Mafia code of silence—a refusal by members to “rat” on each other regardless of pressures or threats.