Uncle John's Facts to Go: History Makers

By Bathroom Readers' Institute

Uncle John takes readers on a journey through the ages, shedding new light onto some of the past’s most famous (and infamous) figures, and digging up obscure history you’d never learn in school. Featuring classic BRI articles along with some great all-new material, History Makers travels from the Far East to the Old West, from ancient times to the recent past, debunking myths and exposing the truth along the way. So wind up your wayback machine and read all about…- The lost “Cloud People” of Peru - Twelve countries that no longer exist- Looney English Lords- The mystery of Great Zimbabwe’s ruins- What happens when a U.S. president goes bonkers- The strange fate of some famous body parts- History’s most hilarious blunders- Building the Great Wall(s) of China- Some startling predictions that didn’t pan out…and some that didAnd much, much more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781626861572

Bathroom Readers' Institute

The Bathroom Readers' Institute is a tight-knit group of loyal and skilled writers, researchers, and editors who have been working as a team for years. The BRI understands the habits of a very special market—Throne Sitters—and devotes itself to providing amazing facts and conversation pieces.

Book preview

LOONEY LORDS

Noblemen were usually dignified people who acted with grace. Just as often, they were fools made insane by generations of blue-blooded inbreeding.

THE HERMIT OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

William John Cavendish Scott-Bentinck (1800–79) was a member of England’s Parliament before he was 30, and seemed destined for a serious career in politics. Then his uncle died in 1854 and Scott-Bentinck inherited the title of fifth Duke of Portland. Almost immediately, the new duke rejected public life, preferring to be alone—very alone. He moved into his newly inherited estate in Nottinghamshire and quickly rid the house of everything inside it, tossing most of his family’s priceless treasures into a huge pile in one empty room. Scott-Bentinck then dedicated five empty rooms of the house for his living quarters, and had the rest of the empty house painted pink. But apparently that wasn’t secluded enough, so the duke commissioned the construction of a series of underground rooms connected by 15 miles of tunnels. Among the subterranean rooms were an 11,000-square-foot ballroom and a billiard room large enough to house 12 pool tables. But nobody ever saw them; no visitors were permitted. In fact, from 1854 until his death in 1879, Scott-Bentinck saw only one person—his valet.

THE AQUAMAN OF KENT

Matthew Robinson, the second Baron Rokeby (1713–1800), was from a noble Scottish family that lived in Kent, England. He inherited the title in his 40s and served in the House of Lords. Then Robinson took a vacation in the German spa-resort town of Aachen. When he returned to Kent, Robinson was suddenly and permanently obsessed with water. He started skipping work and spent most of his days swimming in the ocean at a private beach in Kent. Every day Robinson walked to and from the beach wearing tattered peasant clothes, and would then swim for so long and so strenuously that he’d faint, requiring a servant to drag him out of the sea. Robinson drank lots of water, too, and he had drinking fountains installed along the path to the beach. If commoners were caught using them, Robinson didn’t punish them—he gave them a gold coin to reward their good taste. Robinson’s embarrassed family eventually talked him into installing a swimming pool at his home. He still spent most of the day swimming, but now tried to prevent fainting by eating a roast leg of veal…underwater.

THE DOG LOVER OF BRIDGEWATER

Francis Henry Egerton, the eighth Earl of Bridgewater (1756–1829), wasn’t a hermit, but he didn’t care much for the company of people. He liked dogs. Throughout his life he always had 12 of them, and he liked to dress them in tiny, specially made leather boots to protect their paws. Every day, six of the dogs would join him on a carriage ride, then the menagerie would return home for dinner. At a long dinner table, all 12 dogs—and Egerton—would eat off of silver with white linen napkins tied around their necks. Egerton enjoyed the dinners for the lively conversations he imagined he was having with the dogs. He also liked shoes, wearing a new pair each day. At night he hung the used shoes on the wall as a makeshift calendar.

THE DUKE, DUKE, DUKE OF GIRL

Edward Hyde (1661–1723) was the third Earl of Clarendon and a cousin of Queen Anne of England. In 1701, Anne appointed Hyde to the position of governor of the American colonies of New York and New Jersey. Hyde took the task seriously and literally: He said that if he was governing the colonies on behalf of a woman, he should dress the part. So at the opening of the New York Assembly in 1702, Hyde attended wearing a blue silk gown and satin shoes, waving his face with a fan. Outside of work, he was often spotted on the streets wearing a hoop skirt. By 1708, Hyde was forced to relinquish the governorship and return to England because he was deeply in debt from spending too much money on women’s clothes.

In 1888, a new rule in professional baseball baseball allowed bats to have one flat side. (It was revoked the next year.)

MIGHTY MUSTANGS

Few things embody the romanticism of the Wild West better than the mustang.

NEIGH-SAYERS

The word mustang comes from the Spanish mesteño, meaning stray. Today, these equine strays roam in 10 Western states. Modern mustangs are descended from Spanish stock that escaped during the 17th and 18th centuries, and from horses who were brought west by ranchers.

On the Plains, ranchers often released their horses in the winter and then recaptured them (or others) in the spring. Some never came home, and others became the property of the Native American tribes that raided European settlements. By the 1700s, mustangs were a staple among Native Americans in the West.

CATCH AND RELEASE

In the 1830s, a smallpox epidemic swept through the Plains tribes. Unable to care for all their animals, the Native Americans released many of their mustangs into the wild.

About 50 years later, when the U.S. government was trying to turn the tribes into farmers, officials introduced draft horses to some mustang herds to change the horse stock from a wild to a farming breed. As a result, different herds of modern mustangs can vary widely in appearance.

Mustangs