_01:: Oscar Wilde (18541900) "Cultivated leisure is the aim of man," Oscar Wilde once famously said, and he certainly lived his life by that dictum. Wilde was brilliant, winning a gold medal in Cla.s.sics at Trinity College in Dublin in 1874 before earning a scholarship to Oxford. When his father died, however, Wilde left the family"s finances to his older brother Henry, and worked only once in his life, a brief two-year stint as the editor of a women"s magazine called The Woman"s World, from 1887 to 1889. Wilde spent the rest of his time writing, giving lectures on aesthetics, coining pithy epigrams, and generally being a wit. Sadly, Wilde was forced to do hard labor near the end of his life after he was found guilty of immoral conduct for h.o.m.os.e.xual activities. A broken man, he died shortly thereafter, in 1900.
_02:: Socrates (468399 BCE) Aside from a possible brief stint as a sculptor, Socrates seems to have spent most of his hours ambling around the agorathe gymnasia where Athenians exercised, which was also Athens"s central public meeting place and marketplace. When he wasn"t milling about the town, the old philosopher could be spotted going to parties and loitering in taverns where citizens and foreign guests gathered. All this isn"t to say the poor guy enjoyed the lush life. Socrates lived and dressed simply, wore neither shoes nor shirt, and owned only one coat. He also ate poorly, lived hand to mouth, relied heavily on the charity of his friends, and refused gifts when they were offered. Like, for instance, the time his friend Charmides offered to give him slaves who could have made money to support him. He also refused to accept presents from powerful leaders of Greek cities, not wanting to ever compromise his integrity. When the great philosopher was put on trial for allegedly teaching sacrilege, Socrates tweaked the Athenian a.s.sembly by suggesting that far from being a criminal, he deserved free room and board at their expense. Unamused, they condemned him to death.
_03:: Buddha (ca. 563483 BCE) Buddha, like Socrates, was a full-time thinker whose schedule of meditation, contemplation, and conversation didn"t leave any time for work. Born around 563 BCE, Siddhartha, as he was called when young, was the son of a king who ruled a small kingdom in the northern floodplains of the Ganges River in India. The young prince led a life of leisure in his early years before growing disgusted with the materialism of the royal palace. Instead of sticking around, Siddhartha wandered off into nature at the age of 28, and after seven years of travel, meditation, and conversation with Hindu mystics, he attained enlightenment under a Bodhi tree. Receiving visitors and teaching students from under the tree, he spread the message of moderation and separation from material want that became Buddhismand never did get a job.
_04:: Osama bin Laden (1957) Before he started fighting for his own violent version of Islam, terrorist Osama bin Laden led the life of a playboy. Born around 1957 to a wealthy Yemeni father and Syrian mother, bin Laden was heir to part of the ma.s.sive fortune his billionaire father had acc.u.mulated in the Saudi construction business. As such, he squandered his days, acquiring a reputation for drinking too much and womanizing in his teens and early 20s in Beirut, which was then a cosmopolitan tourist hot spot. In fact, he didn"t become a firmly committed, full-time Islamic radical until he went to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. That"s where Osama began his improbable transformation from a rakish ladies" man to a ma.s.s-murdering zealot, never having worked a day before then.
Less-Than-Golden Slumbers:
5 Bad Nights of Sleep That Led to
Drastic Mistakes
"To sleep, perchance to screw up." OK, we"ll admit that"s not exactly what the good bard said, but it does fit these five slices of somnambulistic history.
_01:: A Christmas Wake-up Call Colonel Johann Rall was a proven fighter, having already led his Hessian, or German mercenary, troops in successful battle against the American rebels. But he was contemptuous of his foe, and boy did he like to drink. In the end, the happy juice proved to be his undoing. On December 25, 1776, Rall ignored warnings that rebels under General George Washington were on the march toward Trenton, New Jersey. Instead, he got drunk and went to sleep, as did many of his 1,400 soldiers. Washington, meanwhile, made a daring predawn crossing of the ice-choked Delaware River. At daylight on December 26, the rebels attacked and routed the Hessians. Rall, who was under the covers when the battle began, got dressed just in time to be killed...proving that some days it really doesn"t pay to get out of bed.
Touch of Evil Cyril Evans, the wireless operator aboard the Californian, forgot to set the automatic signal detector in his haste to catch some shut-eye. As a result, the ship didn"t receive any warnings from the nearby t.i.tanic, and (despite being the closest to the wreck) failed to lend a hand until far too late.
It"s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Author ONE WORD, TWO WORDS.
The charming children"s books (and wartime propaganda) of Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) have entertained young and old alike for generations. One commentator described his work, which included If I Ran the Zoo, Horton Hears a Who!, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and The Cat in the Hat, as wonderful stories of "ludicrous situations pursued with relentless logic." Starting in 1957, Seuss"s work becomes noticeably laconic: the number of different words drops considerably. With Green Eggs and Ham, Seuss won a bet with his editor, who wagered that he couldn"t write a book using fewer than 50 different words. Brilliance or laziness? You decide.
_02:: "Get the Phone, Eva, I"m Schnoozing"
The weather seemed too rough over the English Channel the evening of June 5, 1944, to launch the greatest military invasion in history. So Adolf Hitler figured, "What the h.e.l.l, I"m going to bed." Der Fuhrer took a sleeping pill and left orders not to be disturbed. Big mistake on old Adolf"s part: D-Day was several hours into effect before aides got the courage to wake Hitler up to get his permission to mobilize needed troops and equipment. Even then, the dictator dallied. He had tea, took a nap, and met with the premier of Hungary. Finally, about 5 p.m. on June 6, he issued orders, mostly bad ones that kept German generals from being able to move reinforcements to the invasion area. Good thing for the Allies that he woke up.
_03:: Asleep at the Switch?
During a clear, sunny morning, February 8, 1986, the 114-car Canadian National Railway freight train rolled west near the small town of Hinton in the province of Alberta. Rolling east was a pa.s.senger train. But because the freight train"s three-man crew missed a stop signal, the two trains were on the same track. The result was a horrific collision, killing 23 people, including the freight train"s engineer and brakeman. Just why the crew missed the signal has never been resolved. What was reported, however, was that the engineer had worked 26 of the 30 days before the wreck, and the crew had had little sleep. In the wake of the tragedy, the rail company introduced sweeping measures to combat crew fatigue.
_04:: Oil on the Waters The reef was well marked on the charts, the weather was OK, and the 984-foot-long Exxon Valdez had all the latest navigational equipment. But the oil-laden ship still went aground on Prince William Sound just after midnight on March 24, 1989. The resultonly the worst oil spill in American history, which led everyone to ask the same question: What happened? Despite the popular notion that it was caused by a drunken captain, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board attributed the spill to other causes. Among them was that the third mate, who was at the helm at the time of the accident, was "impaired by fatigue," as was the rest of the crew. Exxon, it turned out, had a policy of increasing crews" workload to save money. The spill cost the company $2.2 billion, which translated into a lot of overtime.
_05:: "I Object: My Attorney"s Asleep"
Calvin Burdine was scheduled to die on April 11, 1995, 12 years after being convicted of killing his boyfriend in Houston. But a federal judge stopped the execution a few hours before it was scheduled. What prompted the justice"s change of heart? Well, among other things, he was troubled that Burdine"s lawyer had slept through portions of the trial. Amazingly, a three-member federal appeals court panel overruled the judge, reasoning that a defendant had no const.i.tutional right to a conscious attorney. Fortunately for Burdine, a full appeals court ordered a new trial, and the U.S. Supreme Court concurred. As of 2004, Burdine was doing life in a Texas prison after a plea bargain. And lawyers all over the country were trying to stay awake.
What"s That You"re Flying?
4 Laziest Flag Designs
Flags are an important reminder of who we are and what we stand for, so it"s surprising how often a flag design is chosen in a seemingly careless manner, with little attempt at originality of appearance. What follows is a list of just four of the many, many lazily designed flags that have still waved proudly from masts across the globe.
_01:: Libya: It"s Ridiculously Easy Being Green In 1977, Libya left a federation of Arab states (the other members were Syria and Egypt) that had all used a pan-Arab banner with horizontal stripes of red over white over black. As part of an effort to forge a new, uniquely Libyan ident.i.ty, the ever-wacky Muammar al-Gadhafi unveiled a new flag design for the "Socialist People"s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya." The flag, representing Islam and fertility, was completely green.
Touch of Evil The flags of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden are all nearly identical in design; each depicts a cross with its intersection in the first third of the field.
_02:: Haiti: Get the White Out The modern Haitian flag features two horizontal stripes, blue over red. But the original version, adopted upon independence in 1804, featured two stripes arranged vertically like those on the French flag. The flag originated when Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a leader of the Haitian revolt against France, tore the white stripe out of a French flag and told his G.o.ddaughter to sew the two remaining stripes together. Ironically, while Dessalines meant this as a gesture of contempt for his country"s former white masters (many of whom were ma.s.sacred by their former slaves during the fight for Haitian independence), the color white in flags traditionally stands for peace, something Haiti unfortunately has known little of in its 200 years as an independent country.
_03:: Alaska: The Best Darn Artist in the Whole Eighth Grade Alaska had been a U.S. possession since 1867 and a territory since 1912, but apparently n.o.body ever bothered to make a flag for the place until 1927, when the territorial government of Alaska farmed out the responsibility of flag design to the Alaska Department of the American Legion. The Legion, in turn, decided flag design was too important to leave to anyone but teenage children, and so sponsored a contest. The winner, John Bell Benson, was a 13-year-old boy. He actually did a fair job, all things consideredthe flag is dark blue, with eight five-pointed gold stars in the shape of the Big Dipper and a larger gold star representing the North Star, Polaris. The lazy, lazy inhabitants of Alaska even let Benson pick the state flowerhe chose the forget-me-not.
_04:: China: Getting By with a Little Help from Communist Friends The Chinese Communists developed their own flag during the terrible decades-long civil war with the Nationalists and various warlords. The clever design featured a red background with a golden hammer and sickle. The only problem: This flag was identical to that of the Soviet Union, minus a star. Not to be outdone, the later Communist parties in Vietnam and Laos adopted their own flags. For some reason, however, these were simply copies of the Chinese version. This intrepid spirit of innovation would serve the Communists well in defeating Western democracy and capitalism in the cold war. Oh, wait...
The Sound of Sirens:
3 Warning Calls History Ignored
Tsk-tsk! If you hear the warning bells a-ringing (or see that a certain group has been looting and plundering your neighbors and is now making a beeline for your home), maybe it"s time to put down the remote and start planning your defense. Of course, if you"re too lazy to make a move you could always cross your fingers and take your chances. Unfortunately, that genius tactic didn"t work out so well for the following folks.
_01:: Beware Macedonians Bringing Gifts Demosthenes (384322 BCE) was a brilliant Athenian orator, though apparently he was pretty good as an oracle as well. Throughout the 340s BCE, he begged, harangued, and pleaded with the feuding Greek city-states to unite against what he saw as the growing threat of Macedon, under its brutal, one-eyed King Philip. But Philip wasn"t without his charms, either: the wily warlord threatened, flattered, and bribed the city-states until they were either too scared, too vain, or too rich to risk fighting the Macedonians. When they finally realized the danger, it was a little too late. With the evidence all pointing to Philip"s plot for total domination, Demosthenes did finally succeed in scrounging up a coalition against him, but they lacked the time and resources to prepare. At Chaeronea in 338 BCE, Philip and his son Alexander (a few years shy of being "the Great") destroyed the united Greek armies. Demosthenes lived on until 322, giving him plenty of time to tell his fellow h.e.l.lenes, "I told ye so."
Touch of Evil No one blinked when Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius predicted a global warming scenario that would cause problems around the world. Maybe it"s because his alert came about a hundred years too early, in 1896.
_02:: Norse by Norse-West: The Vikings Arrive on the Scene In 789, Viking marauders made their first appearance in the British Isles. Then, four years later, a major force of Nors.e.m.e.n sacked the famous monastery at Lindisfarne. Doing pretty darn well for themselves, the Vikings" raids became a regular part of life in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland over the next few decades. Across the Channel, the n.o.bles of what is now Germany and France heard of the attacks and tried to build up their defenses, but the Carolingian rulers opposed such efforts, fearing (not entirely without reason) that n.o.bles could use these bases to rebel. By the mid-800s, entire provinces were in the hands of Scandinavian marauders; and Carolingian monarchs, too, had to pay vast bribes to keep them happy. One group of these pirates was even granted land in northwestern France; the province of Normandy is named after these "Northmen."
_03:: Winnie Prophesies Doom Winston Churchill, dismayed by the rise of Hitler, was reported to have said that "the hottest part of h.e.l.l is reserved for those who, at a time of grave moral crisis, steadfastly maintain their neutrality." During the 1930s, Churchill did his best to alert his fellow Britons to the danger on the horizon, but no one was particularly interested, since everyone was focused on the Depression. When Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed a peace deal with Hitler, Churchill told the House of Commons, "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war." The irrepressible Churchill was right, of coursewithin months Germany had unleashed war, and Britain and France were caught with their proverbial pants down.
Lies Your Mother Told You THE "SURPRISE" PROTESTANT REFORMATION Teachers often describe the Protestant Reformation as if it came out of nowhere, but Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli were hardly the first to take stabs at reforming the increasingly corrupt Catholic Church. From about 1300 until the rise of the Protestant movement, would-be reformers popped up everywhereJohn Wyclif in England, the fire-and-brimstone Savanarola in Florence, and Jan Huss in Bohemia. Though they tried to effect change from within the Church, most of these folks ended up burning at the stake or meeting some other sticky end. Simony (buying a position in the Church), nepotism (riding on your relatives" coattails), and indulgences (buying forgiveness for your sins) all continued unabated, eventually sparking the Reformation and the splintering of Western Christianity.
Resting on Someone Else"s Laurels:
4 Figures Who Claimed Someone Else"s Fame
When " "Tis a far, far better thing he does than you"ll ever be able to do" happens to be the case, maybe you should take a page out of these guys" playbook. After all, it"s a great thing to be able to produce something that will be remembered for all time. It"s even better to let some other chump do the work while you just steal the credit.
_01:: Darius "I"m the Greatest" the Great In 522 BCE, the Persian king Cambyses died while at war, and the relatively young Persian Empire erupted into rebellion. The Persian prince Darius became the new king after leading six other conspirators to kill off the most prominent challenger. And while Darius did succeed in arranging the end of the various rebellions (largely through the efforts of said six coconspirators), the age of Persian expansion was largely over. Sure, old Darius defended the empire well, but his best-known foreign campaign, the invasion of Greece in 490 BCE, ended in defeat. But that didn"t stop the Persian from stealing a bit of glory for himself. On a monument erected in his honor in Behistun (in modern Iran), Darius claimed the kingship of 23 nations, virtually all conquered by his predecessors.
_02:: Pope Gregory"s Calendar In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII ordered the Catholic world to adopt an adjustment to the old Roman "Julian" calendar then in use. And while many people can tell you the new "Gregorian" calendar corrected some of the misplaced leap years of the old system, which had resulted in the year being slightly too long, few people knew the ident.i.ty of the real inventor. The calendar was actually designed by Aloysius Lilius, a Neapolitan doctor. And Lilius himself had relied upon the calculations of Roger Bacon, a 13th-century English philosopher who had once been incarcerated by the Church for heresy. Not surprisingly, Pope Gregory got all the credit because the system change was mandated in the papal bull Inter Gravissimas, but we"re pretty sure he didn"t mind too much.
_03:: The Many Inventors of the Telescope Most people credit Galileo Galilei (15641642) with the invention of the telescope. But then most people are wrong! Until recently it was believed that Galileo was the first to use the telescope for observation of the heavenly bodies, and that Hans Lippershey (15701619) was the first to build a workable telescope. This conventional view, however, may be mistaken as wellvarious cryptic remarks in Leonardo da Vinci"s (14521519) notebooks, which discuss the science of optics, actually seem to refer to the use of telescopic devices to study the moon. And in 1938, Domenico Argentieri discovered a previously ignored diagram in a Leonardo ma.n.u.script that appears to depict the plans for a primitive telescope. Chalk another great invention up to old Leonardo.
_04:: Morseward Bound Forget what you learned in grade school: Samuel Morse was at the least a second placer when it came to the telegraph. Instead, set your sights on the true champ, Sir Charles Wheatstone (18021875). It"s true! The British inventor built the first practical electric telegraph in 1837 or 1838, at the very least four years before Morse received his U.S. patent (and around the time he was conducting his early experiments with electric telegraphy). Even in America, though, Morse"s "invention" of the telegraph is fraught with controversy: a friend, Dr. Charles Jackson, accused the inventor of stealing his idea (which could move Morse from second into third place). Also in dispute is the extent to which Morse"s a.s.sistant, Alfred Vail, contributed to both the design of his telegraph machine and the development of the "Morse code," which was originally called the "Morse-Vail." (Does that even leave Sammy in the running anymore?) Well, whatever the case, you can always trust that the telegraph system will forever bear the good old Morse name.
Touch of Evil.
After Hank Ballard failed to show up on American Bandstand to promote "The Twist," host d.i.c.k Clark asked his protege, Chubby Checker, to record the tune for the program. He did, and it became the biggest dance record of its era.
Acknowledgments.
mental_ floss would like to thank the Devil for making a book about sins possible. Also, Napoleon, Caligula, Nero, Boss Tweed (and the entire Tammany Hall gang), Genghis Khan, Atilla and all the Huns, Shanta Hattikudur, the victors who wrote history (you know who you are), and Voldemort. It"s your inspiration that truly fills this book.
We"d also like to thank Winslow Taft, Lisako Koga, Sandy Wood, and Kara Kovalchik.
Finally, we thank Greg Chaput at Collins for his expert editorial guidance and support.
About the Editors For the first 22 years of their lives, Will Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur were really well rounded, in the "wow, nice resume" kind of way. Joining and starting any clubs they could, doing anthropological research in Tibet, trying to save whales, wetlands, and any other b.u.mper-sticker cause they saw. So, what happened to those days? Now they"re only well rounded in the "you should really slow down on the chips and queso" kind of way. Ever since the duo started mental_ floss as Duke University students, all they want to do is talk trivia. In fact, it"s kind of a problem. If anyone knows of a good trivia-addicts support group, please contact the mental_ floss staff immediately.
mental_ floss presents: Forbidden Knowledge is their fourth book together. The pair also worked on mental_ floss presents: Condensed Knowledge, mental_ floss presents: Instant Knowledge, and Lolita, published under the pen name Vladimir Nabokov.
Elizabeth Hunt was not a trivia bufffor years she felt compelled to share her SAT scores to look smart at social gatherings. Then Mangesh introduced her to mental_ floss, and she discovered that trivia knowledge is even more impressive than high school achievements. Now she often opens bar conversations with the cla.s.sic line "So...did you know that beer is made by bacteria feeding on yeast cells, then defecating?" mental_ floss presents: Forbidden Knowledge is her second mental_ floss book. When she"s not flossing, she works as a book editor at the International Reading a.s.sociation.
mental_floss magazine, currently available at newsstands everywhere, was founded in 2001 with the mission of blurring the lines between education and entertainment. The magazine has received rave reviews in a variety of publications, including Newsweek, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and Entertainment Weekly. The mental_ floss staff has contributed to more than 80 segments on CNN Headline News and recently released its first board game, mental_ floss: The Trivia Game. Daily trivia and the mental_ floss store are easy to find online at www.mentalfloss.com.
About the Contributors Erik Sa.s.s is a freelance journalist in Brooklyn, New York, covering American foreign policy, New York"s immigrant communities, and anything else that strikes his fancy. His interests include geography, espionage, guerrilla warfare, and microbrewed beers from around the world. He"s good at the history questions in Trivial Pursuit but is completely clueless about sports, science, and entertainment, so don"t choose him as your partner.
John Green writes for Booklist magazine, where his reviewing niches include books about Islam, Christianity, boxing, and conjoined twins. John"s background in religious studies prepared him for a lifelong study of sin, which culminated in his work for this book. Besides writing for mental_ floss and regularly contributing to NPR"s All Things Considered, John is also the author of the novel Looking for Alaska.
Christopher Smith is a regular contributor to mental_ floss magazine and also contributed to its first book, mental_ floss presents: Condensed Knowledge. As a writer and creative director in the advertising field, he has written for some of the industry"s best-known brands, including Motel 6, Home Depot, 7-Eleven, Red Lobster, Chick-fil-A, Red Roof Inn, and Bennigan"s. Since 1997 he has performed with Ad-Libs, one of America"s most successful comedy troupes. A native of upstate New York and graduate of Penn State, he lives in Dallas with his wife, Heather, and their toddler, Clara, who, at the time of this writing, is looking forward to the expected addition of twin baby brothers.
Steve Wiegand is a senior writer for the Sacramento Bee, where he specializes in covering vices.e.x, drugs, and gambling. Wiegand"s 30-year newspaper career has also included stints at the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Diego Tribune. He"s the author of two books, Sacramento Tapestry and U.S. History for Dummies. In his spare time he"s a woodworker, and plays blues harp and sings with the nearly legendary Sacramento band Deadline.
Brian Gottesman is (he a.s.sumes) the only contributor to mental_ floss presents: Forbidden Knowledge to be put in apprehension of imminent attack by a feral reindeer while hiking in Iceland. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Rochester, where he earned a B.A. in history, and of Harvard Law School. An aficionado of the obscure (he enjoys reading Icelandic sagas, and his college thesis was on Eurasian nomad tribes so obscure that they are widely thought to be mythological), Brian is making his first contribution to a mental_ floss project. He is the author of The King of Zion: A Tale from the Age of Faith, as yet unpublished, and Lords of the Steppe, a work in progress. Brian practices law in Wilmington, Delaware.
Peter Haugen (rhymes with "now then"), author of World History for Dummies and a contributor to mental_ floss presents: Condensed Knowledge, has been theater critic of the Sacramento Bee, a regional news editor of the St. Petersburg Times, and a contributor to mental_ floss, History Magazine, and Psychology Today, among many other publications. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, he once held a job stacking wet turkey feathers with a pitchfork (really). Trained in journalism at the Defense Information School, he was awarded the Keith L. Ware Award and a Meritorious Service Medal during his. .h.i.tch as a U.S. Army journalist. He has taught journalism at the University of Wisconsin and at California State University, Fresno. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife, two sons, and a.s.sorted pets of various species.
Bill Hauser, Ph.D., contributed to mental_ floss presents: Condensed Knowledge, and is currently an a.s.sistant professor of marketing and an adjunct professor of sociology at the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio. After two decades of directing market research for Fortune 500 companies, Bill is currently fulfilling his lifelong dream of teaching, research, and writing.
Also from mental_floss: mental_floss presents: Condensed Knowledge mental_floss presents: Instant Knowledge Credits Cover design by Leander Reeves/www.kittycave.net Copyright MENTAL_FLOSS PRESENTS: FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE. COPYRIGHT 2005 BY MENTAL FLOSS LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of PerfectBound.