We Did That? Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Sophie Stirling 2020.

  Published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.

  Cover Design: Elina Diaz

  Cover Photo/illustration: Nattle/shutterstock.com

  Layout & Design: Elina Diaz

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  We Did That?: Human Bloopers, Secret Histories, Medical Mysteries, Strange Superstitions, and Other Curiosities from Our Past

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: 2020933475

  ISBN: (print) 978-1-64250-201-5, (ebook) 978-1-64250-202-2

  BISAC category code HUM000000—HUMOR / General

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Antonio Frexes

  Table of Contents

  Introduction: A Cabinet of Curious History

  We Did That? Bloopers, Blunders, and the Bizarre

  We Believed That? Superstitions

  We Prescribed That? Medical Cures, Quacks, and Craziness

  We Invented That? Surprising and Wacky Inventions

  We Did That? Pain and Death is Beauty

  We Did That? Odd Jobs

  Closing the Creaky Cabinet

  References

  About the Author

  Introduction

  A Cabinet of Curious History

  Human history. So much can be imagined from those two simple words: The fall of empires, rising of new nations, founding of new religions, wars, inventions, scientific breakthroughs, mysteries, victories. There is no doubt our species has interesting stories to tell.

  Many tales are the stuff of legends, showcasing the beauty, wisdom, and ingenuity of humanity. But other moments from history are full of blunders, weirdness, and endearing foolishness. These are the moments history nerds like me live for. So, instead of blissfully going about our lives feeling proud of our species, I say we take a tour of the cringe-worthy and delightfully embarrassing moments of history to shake things up.

  Some might say ignorance is bliss, but I say ignorance is boredom. In your hands you hold a book of unabashed weirdness. We’re weird and proud here. So let’s entertain ourselves. After all, if aliens are really watching from space, I think we’ve give them some pretty great reality TV. It’s time for us to turn on the channel too!

  Let’s now amuse ourselves with some of the oddest and funniest moments that we have on record. There are a lot—and I definitely can’t capture all our history’s greatness and shamelessness in one book. But for a little while, let’s take a peek at just one shelf in the cabinet of our curious history.

  Sit back, relax, and try not to cringe.

  Oh and fair warning: there are puns running amok throughout the pages of this book. The dad jokes have broken loose from their little cages, and I’ve done nothing to constrain them. In fact, I was drinking a piña colada and working on my tan as I watched them make their prison break. Enjoy.

  We Did That?

  Bloopers, Blunders, and

  the Bizarre

  “The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.”

  —Tom Clancy

  Our Peculiar History

  On a daily basis I am amazed. I watch the news, read articles, scroll on my socials…and I observe. Sometimes, I can’t believe the crazy stuff I hear. I’m sure you do, too. Did Florida Man really assault someone with a fried chicken drumstick? Did the president really say that? Someone seriously set a world record for the stuffing the most toothpicks in a beard? (Over two thousand toothpicks, by the way.)

  Humans are as brilliant as they are barking mad. You can’t keep up with us. I can’t even keep up with myself sometimes, I admit. But don’t judge…I’m pretty sure we’ve all been on both sides of the “seriously?” fence. We all make our fair share of embarrassing decisions, while at the same time laughing at others’ misfortune. History is chock full of these moments, and will continue to be, I’m pretty sure, until we are extinct. Which, if you watch the news, shouldn’t be long now!

  Bloopity Bloopers

  Gatekeeper Out Fishing

  Constantinople, now Istanbul, was prime real estate during the Middle Ages. Not only was it the gateway between Europe and Asia, but it was also beautiful, culturally rich, and sat on a busy harbor. It also came with a washer and dryer. Every empire wanted a piece of it. But with two rings of strong walls fortressing the city, it held off over twenty sieges. It was unattainable.

  But then, you know how it goes—you want what you can’t have. And Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire wanted Constantinople badly. So in 1453, he led a siege against the city, without high hopes of succeeding. That was…until one of his men discovered a gate had been left unlocked. The gate, called the Kerkoporta, allowed the invading army to flood through the city, surprising all those inside, and they conquered it with very little resistance. What exactly happened to the gatekeeper? Did he fall asleep at the wheel? Go out fishing in that beautiful harbor with a view? Simply have a bad case of brain farts? We may never know. But I’m sure he probably ended up getting sacked—just like the city. Hehe.

  A Jarring Accident

  When the great American poet Walt Whitman passed away in 1892, his brain was donated to the University of Pennsylvania. As one of the most prolific writers and brilliant minds in American history, it was a great privilege to have his actual brain in their possession. Can you imagine? I’m sure the veins in his brain rearranged themselves into poems over time.

  Anyway, Whitman, who often wrote about phrenology, donated his brain to science. But one day, a young lab technician reported that he’d dropped the jar it was held in, and damaged the brain. Not even the pieces could be saved. He dropped the poemy brain.

  This was the official story from Dr. Henry Cattell, the head pathologist at the university. But what really happened, Cattell took to the grave. The truth is, he accidentally destroyed the brain. After he finished making observations for the day, he accidentally forgot to seal the brain, and left it sitting out in the open overnight. By morning, it had completely decayed. Out of fear of what would happen to his career, he kept mum, only torturously confessing the truth in his diary:

  “I am a fool, a damnable fool, with no conscious memory, or fitness for any learned position. I left Walt Whitman’s brain spoil by not having the jar properly covered. Discovered it in the morning. This ruins me…”

  Poor Dr. Cattell needn’t have been so hard on himself for letting Whitman’s brain decay. After all, Whitman knew that all flesh was only passing. In his poem “Time to Come,” Whitman wrote:

  This curious frame of human mould,

  Where unrequited cravings play,

  This brain, and heart, and wondrous form

  Must all alike decay.

 
You see? Cheer up, old Cattell.

  Thirteen Times a Charm

  The Dutch painting, Het Lam Gods, translated to “Lamb of God,” is the most stolen work of art in history. This 1432 religious oil painting depicts most of Christian mysticism, from the Annunciation (an angel announcing to Mary she would conceive the savior) to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, symbolized as a lamb, bleeding into a goblet. Painted on oak panel and weighing two tons, this fourteen-by-eleven-foot artwork has been stolen thirteen times. That’s basically like stealing a very flat, wide, wooden car.

  It’s a very desirable work of art, not only for its skilled artistry and for its age, but also for its beauty and religious connection. It has been burned, blow up, thrown around, had some panels separated, yet, the bulk of it survives. Eleventh-twelfths to be precise. Its long and twisted history is filled with heists, wars, ransom notes, conspiracy theories, and more.

  It was originally created for St. Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent (modern day Belgium), and after its journey around the world, it resides there today. Napoleon was the first to steal it, and since then, it has been stolen by Calvinists, Nazis, Germans, and a host of unknowns. The theft of the last remaining missing panel, “The Just Judges,” which belongs on the bottom left corner, is still considered an open case with the Ghent police. So not only is it the most stolen painting in history, but it’s also got the longest-running open case, too. The last tip that the police received said that it was hiding in plain sight. So, who knows…next time you’re abroad in Europe, keep your eyes peeled.

  The Het Lam Gods with all its panels intact.

  Stormy Weather

  King George VI of England was not expected to inherit the throne of Great Britain. He’d always lived in the shadow of his elder brother, Edward, who had been coronated king, but abdicated the throne for love. When this happened, George had to step up. Maybe growing up under the impression that he could take a back seat led to a major gap in George’s artistic education.

  John Piper was an English painter who specialized in dark, stormy landscapes. He grew particularly popular for his work depicting WWI, but his most striking works were his landscapes. When King George was shown some of Piper’s work at an exhibit, he commented to Piper: “Pity you had such bloody awful weather.” Oh, Georgie.

  Fake News

  There are surprising number of embarrassing moments in newspaper history. Before telephones and the internet, it was the source from which our species hoped to gain its trusted news of the world. But the figures behind the ink are human like us, after all. Here are some carved-in-ink headlines to look and smile and/or cringe upon.

  “Titanic Sinking. No Lives Lost.”

  April 15, 1912 became a heartbreaking and chaotic day for the world when the Titanic sank into the freezing, dark water of the Atlantic, killing over half of the passengers and crew on board. But the world didn’t know that yet. Especially not the Vancouver World.

  On that fateful Monday, when word first came in about the disaster, the Canadian newspaper rushed to print with the headline “Titanic Sinking. No Lives Lost.” Unfortunately, as we now know, they couldn’t have been more wrong. Despite the embarrassment, however, it’s not all their fault. The wire they received reported that a ship was being towed to Halifax, and that the passengers were OK—it just wasn’t referring to the Titanic. The Vancouver World wasn’t alone—several other newspapers mistakenly reported a lack of fatalities or guessed an incorrect number.

  Until the dust settles, accurate information can be hard to come by when tragedy strikes. But since it’s the business of newspapers to give their readers information as quickly as possible, there have been many editors who counted their chickens before they hatched, so to speak. Inaccurate reporting is not rare, especially in the haze of confusion that accompanies an event like this. The Titanic’s demise is one that went down in history, just like this headline, though for very different reasons.

  The Wizard of Mars

  While many aspects of our galaxy remain a mystery, over the last hundred years, our knowledge about Mars has grown vastly. Take this example: In the early 1900s, it was quite commonplace to believe there was life on Mars, based on the knowledge available. Actual Martians. This article alone from the Salt Lake Tribune has a lot of interesting information to enlighten us with.

  In 1877, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli reported to have found what he believed were long, thin lines on the surface of the orange planet. He called them canali, meaning “channels” in Italian. Many years later, in the late eighteen - early nineteen hundreds, the renowned astronomer Percival Lowell picked up this observation and ran with it.

  Lowell hypothesized that the long channels on the planetary surface were the result of Martian engineering—that the inhabitants of the red planet had built an extensive irrigation canal network to draw water from the planet’s snowy icecaps in an attempt to save their drying-out planet.

  The lines on Mars as drawn by Lowell’s team.

  Since the appearance of the canals on the planet comes and goes throughout the year, instead of reporting the laughable theory that the Martians were digging them and filling them in yearly, the Tribune reported on the theory that the lines we see waxing and waning were formed by vegetation lining the banks of the canals. Not the canals themselves.

  And—in comparing Martian vegetation to earth’s carnivorous plants that learn and grow, some began to wonder—why couldn’t the plants on Mars evolve intelligently, too? Here’s where it gets good!

  The Tribune further surmised that the vegetation had a mission of its own to keep the planet alive, that there must be a grander intelligence behind the whole scheme: a giant eyeball that sprouted up from the planet’s surface:

  “The white spot which we sometimes see [on Mars] is not really a pile of snow but an ‘eye’. Supported on a tenuous flexible column, it can raise itself miles above the surface of the planet and watch the operations of its vegetable body at any point.”

  That so many scientists and astronomers missed this eye isn’t surprising, they reassured their readers. The canals had only been seen by a few experts, and many denied their existence at all. They couldn’t possibly reach such a theory without this knowledge.

  Kind of like the Wizard of Oz, the eye watched over all its vegetable munchkins, and ensured that the planet received its nutrients. But the best was yet to come… Apparently, when this eye was not busy keeping tabs on its planet, it was busy keeping tabs on us.

  The Tribune reports: “When not engaged in watching the physical condition of its body, the great ‘eye’ makes observations of the earth, sun, planets, stars, and the whole universe. From its vast [position] it is able to see more and farther than all the telescopes of our earth put together.” It could be watching us right now…

  Just to keep with the eerie space theme, here is an aerial photo taken by NASA in 1976, showing a geological formation on Mars that kinda looks like a creepy masked face. Perhaps this is the true face of the Wizard of Mars? Or maybe just another reason to keep you up at night. You’re welcome, earthling!

  The New Dinosaurs

  I’m thankful we can count this section under the category of false predictions. In April 1905, the Saint Paul Globe forecasted the downfall of a big chunk of the animal kingdom. The name of the article really says it all. The story begins by describing scientists at the American Natural History Museum fitting together the bones of a brontosaurus—a dinosaur that I think looks like Nessie with four feet. It then predicts how it won’t be long “before the bones of animals and birds now familiar to men will be sought, almost, if not quite as eagerly, as curiosities for museums.”

  The article goes on to list a series of species that have become extinct (that are in reality not) such as the bison, sea cow (manatee), and sea lion. Soon to follow the brontosaurus to the grave, they predict, are the musk ox, sea otter, elephant seal, Galapágo
s tortoise, giraffe, and fur seal. I’ll admit, like many scientists, panic is a natural reaction—many species are quickly disappearing from our modern world. But thankfully, most of their predictions have not come to pass yet.

  Today, over a hundred years later, the only one of these species that is endangered (but not extinct!) is the Galapágos tortoise. Sea otters are listed as threatened. As luck would have it, the only thing in this case that became extinct is the Saint Paul Globe—this edition was one of its very last printings!

  Epic Typos

  The Missing Hyphen

  The space race of the 1950s and ’60s resulted in brilliant accomplishments. From sending the first man into orbit, to putting a man on the moon. But, since the work was actual rocket science, you can bet there were many flops and screw ups. One particularly epic failure was the infamous mission of the probe Mariner 1 in July of 1962.

  Mariner 1 was on a mission to travel to Venus to collect scientific data. But on launch day, only a few minutes after a brilliant liftoff, the internal guidance system started glitching. It began navigating back to earth on a collision course. As it rocketed back towards land, the launch controllers had to hit destruct. Poof! went an 80-million-dollar probe.

  What could have gone so wrong? The story goes that in NASA’s haste to launch Mariner 1, someone left out one teeny hyphen from the code. One hyphen that sent the rocket off-course. A hyphen that cost millions of dollars, and, of course, a lil bit of Amurican pride.

  The Mariner 1, before things went awry.

  Shakespyr

  As an English major, the foundation upon which my life stands was rocked when I discovered that the spelling of Shakespeare’s name isn’t specifically confirmed. Many of the historical documents discovered bear different variations of his signature. Perhaps he was lazy. Some hypothesize he didn’t know how to spell. After all, his works have noted spelling inconsistencies, like spelling the word “alley” differently (allie, allye) all in the same sentence, and other quirks. During Shakespeare’s era, however, spelling was laxer than it is nowadays. Some variations of his name are Shaksper, Shakspere, Shackspeare, and Shakespyr; the latter being how some of his contemporaries wrote it. Despite the panic I felt upon discovering this fact, I had to tell myself it doesn’t truly matter in the grand scheme of things. What’s in a name, after all? By another other word his writing would be just as sweet.