History is . . .
(a) more or less bunk.
(b) a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken.
(c) as thoroughly infected with lies as a street whore with
syphilis.
Match your answers:
(1) Stephen Daedalus of James Joyce's Ulysses
(2) Henry Ford
(3) Arthur Schopenhauer
It turns out that answer need not be bunk, nightmarish, or
diseased. In the hands of mental_floss, history's most
interesting bits have been handpicked and roasted to perfection.
Packed with little-known stories and outrageous—but
accurate—facts, you'll laugh yourself smarter on this joyride
through 60,000 years of human civilization. Remember: just
because it's true, doesn't mean it's boring!
Exclusive: Amazonian Tips for Amazon.com
When you think of the word “Amazon,” we’re sure the first thing
that comes to mind is the fantastic website where you can buy our
book (buy our book!) or half-naked warrior women. But here are
three tantalizing tidbits you might not know--and why you need to
act now.
1. Find Gold
There’s something about long, tropical rivers that seems to
drive people batty. But the Basque conquistador Lope de Aguirre
was by all accounts a murderous sociopath long before he got to
the Amazon. Take, for instance, the time a judge sentenced
Aguirre to be flogged. The brutish Basque hunted the terrified
magistrate across 4,000 miles of rough South American terrain,
barefoot, to kill him! So, in 1560, it probably wasn’t the best
idea to invite Aguirre along on the quest to find El Dorado, the
legendary city of gold. After 900 miles of unbroken rain forest,
Aguirre was fed up. He led a mutiny that killed more than half of
his fellow conquistadors. Then, he declared himself prince of
Peru, Tierra Firma, and Chile. Eventually he and his tiny army
attacked Panama…where he was killed and dismembered so his body
parts could be paraded around the colony.
The bright side: El Dorado is still out there, waiting for you
to discover it! Just don’t bring a friend like Lope.
2. Invest a Dollar
When it’s not making people crazy, the Amazon seems to inspire
bizarre, larger-than-life schemes. In 1967, American shipping
magnate and billionaire Daniel Ludwig bought a
larger-than-Connecticut sized chunk of the Amazon to create a
gigantic industrial and agricultural complex called the Jari
Project. It didn’t work out. All the construction led to massive
soil erosion, screwing up the “agricultural” part of his plan.
After sinking $1 billion into the project (back when $1 billion
really meant something) Ludwig called it quits in 1982. It was
eventually put up for sale for $1--a great deal, if you’re
willing to assume $354 million in debt.
The bright side: For anyone with a dollar and a dream, it’s your
lucky day: the Jari Project is still for sale!
3. Make New Friends
The pictures of spear-wielding tribesmen produced in May 2008
may have been a hoax, but it’s true that there are literally
dozens of so-called “uncontacted” native tribes in the Amazon
basin--Stone Age peoples who have never had any contact with the
outside world! While this seems preous, it makes sense when
you consider the Basin’s size, over 2.7 million square miles in
area, half of which is covered by dense rain forest and divided
by 15,000 rivers and tributaries. Altogether, there are believed
to be about three dozen uncontacted tribes in Brazil and 15 in
Peru.
The bright side: If you’re up for the adventure, you have more
than 50 chances to cl fame and fortune. Just make sure you
don’t accidentally give everyone smallpox.
… And so much more!
What you’ve just read isn’t available in our book, but don’t
worry--roughly 82% of the rest of history is. Our twelve
essential chapters tackle everything from civilization’s baby
steps in the Fertile Crescent to the Pope’s first text message,
the 6,000-pound super-wombats of early Australia to the Goose
Crusade of 1096, the golden hemorrhoids of the Philistines to the
most important assassinations of the 20th century, and everything
else that’s wacky, entertaining, and completely, unbelievably
true.