The Mental Floss History Of The World Part 28

Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothing yet!-First line spoken in The Jazz Singer The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length "talking picture," 1927

SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE...

A Sub Is Not Always a Sandwich [image]

Although the first military submarine debuted in 1775 (an American-made one-man sub tried and failed to sink a British wars.h.i.+p), most navies around the world didn't consider them big deals as weapons at the start of World War I.The exception was the German navy, which was heavily outmatched when it came to surface s.h.i.+ps. So the Germans countered with the U-boat, whose name was derived from the German word Unterseeboot Unterseeboot, or "undersea boat." The standard sub was slightly more than two hundred feet long and displaced about one hundred tons. But as the war progressed, the Germans developed a boat close to three hundred feet long, with bigger deck guns and more torpedo capacity.

SINK THIS!.

Among the Brits' countermeasures against the U-boats were the "Q-s.h.i.+ps." These were decoy vessels, such as fis.h.i.+ng boats, armed with concealed weapons and designed to engage U-boats when they surfaced and moved in close to sink what looked like an easy target.

The Germans' first U-boat efforts were disastrous-for the Germans. One boat hit a mine, another was rammed and sank, and a third sank for no apparent reason. But as the boat's technology improved, it had better hunting. U-boats generally cruised on the surface using diesel engines, then submerged during attacks, using electric power.Once the war's pace sputtered to a crawl a few months after it began, both the Allies and the Central Powers began to consider harsher measures. The British navy clamped an effective blockade on German ports. The Germans countered with U-boat attacks on nonmilitary targets. In 1917, the Germans adopted a policy of "unrestricted warfare," which meant that any s.h.i.+p in certain areas of the high seas was considered fair game.The policy may have made sense militarily, but not politically. The bad feeling it caused among Americans was a significant factor in the United States' entry into the war.Plastic...Fantastic!

What do elephants, billiards, and a Belgian scientist looking for a better way to insulate wire have in common? Right, plastic.In the 1860s, people were looking for an inexpensive subst.i.tute for ivory to make billiard b.a.l.l.s, since most ivory came from elephants, and it was a nuisance to have to go shoot an elephant just to be able to play pool. One of the first attempts, by an American printer named John Wesley Hyatt, was a substance that used cellulose and camphor. Hyatt called it "celluloid."It turned out that celluloid wasn't great for making billiard b.a.l.l.s because the b.a.l.l.s tended to shatter. It was also highly flammable. But celluloid proved to be very useful for a host of other things, such as s.h.i.+rt collars that could be easily cleaned, corset stays that wouldn't rust, and motion picture film.In 1909, while looking for a synthetic subst.i.tute for sh.e.l.lac to insulate wires in electric motors and generators, a Belgian-born scientist named Leo Baekeland developed the first true plastic-that is, a substance made entirely from synthetic ingredients.

OFF HER CHEST.

In 1913, a New York society matron named Mary Phelps Jacobs put together two handkerchiefs and some ribbons and cords, and used it to keep from revealing too much of herself under a sheer evening gown. Other women liked the invention so much that Phelps patented the device the following year-and gave the world the modern bra.

He somewhat immodestly called it Bakelite: a cheap, strong, and moldable substance that quickly became used in thousands of ways, from toys to weapons-and also billiard b.a.l.l.s, which made it very popular with elephants.Firebirds, Rites-and Riots Like most nine-year-olds taking piano lessons and forced to practice their scales, Igor Stravinsky sometimes got bored. Unlike most nine-year-olds, he amused himself by noodling out his own scales.Russian born and the son of an opera singer, Stravinsky earned a law degree and then began focusing seriously on a music career. He studied under the master composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and got his big break in 1910, at the age of twenty-eight, when the director of the world-famous Ballets Russes commissioned him to compose a piece for the ballet troupe's performance at the Paris Opera.The result was The Firebird The Firebird, a suite written for a very large orchestra that included four times as many woodwinds as customary and three harps. It was a huge success, and Stravinsky followed it with a piece called Petrushka Petrushka. Then, in 1913, Stravinsky composed the third of what would be a trilogy of pieces for the ballet that were based on Russian folk themes.On May 29, 1913, The Rite of Spring The Rite of Spring opened at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, and caused a riot-literally. Some audience members were a little disquieted by the fact that the piece ended with the depiction of a human sacrifice. Others were put off by its primitive rhythms, dissonance, or the fact that it opened with just about the highest notes it's possible to play on a ba.s.soon. opened at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, and caused a riot-literally. Some audience members were a little disquieted by the fact that the piece ended with the depiction of a human sacrifice. Others were put off by its primitive rhythms, dissonance, or the fact that it opened with just about the highest notes it's possible to play on a ba.s.soon.Whatever the cause, some patrons stormed out, others got into fistfights, and others booed and hissed so loudly the performers missed their cues. Police were called in to settle things down.Critics initially ripped the piece for wildly diverging from the expected. But The Rite of Spring The Rite of Spring eventually came to be recognized as the birth of modernism in music. eventually came to be recognized as the birth of modernism in music."There is not a composer who lived during his time or is alive today who was not touched, and sometimes transformed, by his work," wrote composer-performer Philip Gla.s.s, in a 1998 Time Time magazine piece that named Stravinsky one of the twenty greatest artists of the twentieth century. magazine piece that named Stravinsky one of the twenty greatest artists of the twentieth century.Monet! (That's What I Want) Oscar-Claude Monet set out to make an impression with his art-and succeeded. The son of a prosperous grocer, Monet found initial success as an artist at the age of fifteen, when he sold a series of well-crafted caricatures.After two years in the military, Monet and several contemporaries spent the 1860s developing a style of painting that didn't attempt to faithfully reproduce a scene, but instead tried to record a more visceral and less cerebral image."I want the un.o.btainable," Monet said. "Other artists paint a bridge, a house a boat, and that is the end...I want to paint the air which surrounds the bridge, the house, the boat..."Monet often chose simple subjects, such as haystacks or buildings, and then painted the same scene at different hours or different seasons to capture the effects of varying light on colors and shapes.The Impressionist style (so dubbed by a French journalist after viewing a Monet painting named Impression: Sunrise Impression: Sunrise) was not well received by critics or the art-buying public. During the 1870s, Monet moved around a good deal, sometimes destroying his own work rather than see it seized by creditors.In the 1880s, however, Monet's paintings began to sell, particularly to American collectors. By the end of the decade, he was financially secure enough to settle into a farmhouse in the rural hamlet of Giverny, establish an elaborate water-lily garden, and create some of his most famous work.Despite being almost completely blind at the end of his life because of cataracts, he continued to paint until his death in 1926 from lung cancer, at the age of eighty-six. His grave is now a French national landmark.Air Mail In 1919, a New York hotel owner named Raymond Orteig offered a $25,000 prize for the first person or persons to fly from New York to Paris. Several tried, and failed.But a twenty-five-year-old flying mailman named Charles Lindbergh figured he could pull it off if he could get the right plane. The son of a former Minnesota congressman, Lindbergh dropped out of college to indulge his pa.s.sion for flying. In 1923, he bought a World War I plane, took some lessons, and got a job with the U.S. Post Office, flying a mail route between Chicago and St. Louis.In 1927, Lindbergh won financial backing from a group of St. Louis businessmen. Then he went to San Diego, where a small firm named Ryan Aeronautical put together a specially designed craft, under Lindbergh's supervision.It was, in the words of one observer, "a two-ton flying gas tank." There was no radio, no parachute, no brakes, and no front wind-s.h.i.+eld. To test it, Lindbergh flew the plane, dubbed Spirit of St. Louis, Spirit of St. Louis, from San Diego to New York. from San Diego to New York.On May 20, he took off from New York, with quiet confidence, and five sandwiches. "If I get to Paris, I won't need any more," he told reporters who questioned his lack of provisions. "And if I don't, I won't need any more either."The 3,600-mile trip took Lindbergh 33.5 hours. He sometimes flew less than 100 feet above the waves. Lanky, handsome, and affably laconic, "Lucky Lindy" captured the fancy of virtually the entire world, and was arguably its most famous personage after his feat. He also showed he was fairly prudent: on the return trip to New York, he hitched a ride on a U.S. Navy cruiser.

Which way to Ireland?-Aviator Charles Lindbergh to a boat of startled fishermen off the Irish coast, on his solo transatlantic flight, May 20, 1927

AND THANKS, BUT NO THANKS, FOR...

Burning Down Tokyo [image]

j.a.pan's capital had suffered earthquakes before, even bigger ones in terms of magnitude. But very few were as devastating. The Great Kanto Quake (named after the region that surrounds Tokyo) struck a little before noon on September 2, 1923. It measured 8.3 on the quake scale in use in j.a.pan at the time; estimated at 7.4 on the Richter scale.The quake itself, which lasted more than four minutes, did enormous damage, as did the landslides it triggered. But the fires it sparked did far more. Since it was lunchtime, thousands of charcoal and coal cooking stoves had been lit, along with gas ovens. The results were scores of small fires that quickly joined into major conflagrations. In the most horrible incident, more than thirty thousand people who gathered in or near a supposed shelter were suffocated or incinerated in a firestorm.More than eighty-eight major blazes broke out in the city of Yokohama, about seventeen miles south of Tokyo. Burst water mains hampered fighting the fires, and people who gathered on s.h.i.+ps in Tokyo Bay had to quickly put to sea when oil on the water began to burn.The death toll has been put at more than 130,000, with as many as 50,000 injured and more than 700,000 residences destroyed.In the aftermath of the quake and fires, rumors spread that foreigners were invading the area. Vigilante mobs formed and began beating or killing non-j.a.panese, particularly Koreans. In an effort to stop the violence, the j.a.panese army opened a shelter in which Koreans could seek protection. On September 8, the city was put under martial law.If there was a bright side to the disaster, it was the quick and generous response by other countries to provide aid, particularly Great Britain and the United States.The Mummy's Curse The Egyptian expedition's financial angel dies suddenly. At the time of his pa.s.sing, his dog suddenly dies-thousands of miles away. The lights in the city of Cairo go out. A cobra eats a canary.Sounds like a curse.At least that's what much of the world's media decided in April 1923, after a British earl named George Herbert, Lord Carnarvon, died in Cairo.Carnarvon had financed the explorations of American archeologist Howard Carter, which resulted in the fabulous discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen in November 1922. Carnarvon had been one of the first to enter the tomb.The official cause of his death was listed as pneumonia, brought on by an infection caused by a mosquito bite. But imaginative writers put together a few facts, a few rumors, and a little speculation, and came up with another cause: a three-thousand-year-old curse:-A cobra ate Carter's pet canary the day the tomb was opened.-There was an inscription above the tomb entrance that vaguely resembled a warning.-The power in Cairo may or may not have gone out at the time of Carnarvon's death.-His dog may or may not have died in England about the same time.

Somber statements by "experts" such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes and a leading exponent of spiritualism, fueled the media frenzy."The pharaohs were very anxious to guard the tombs of their kings," Conan Doyle explained the day after Carnarvon died. "There is reason to believe they placed 'elementals' there and such may have caused his death."The curse story grew over the years, as various members of the expedition died, sometimes in accidents or as a result of suicide or mysterious illness.Studies, however, have shown that there was no statistically significant difference between the life span of the two-dozen Westerners at the tomb's opening and that of the general population.That didn't stop a San Francisco policeman from citing the curse as the cause of a mild stroke he suffered in 1982 while guarding a display of Tut artifacts.A judge dismissed the cop's disability claim.Curses.The Kansas Flu Popular history recalls it as the Spanish flu epidemic. But the evidence is that it more likely started at U.S. Army camps in Kansas in the spring of 1918 than in Spain. And it was really a pandemic, because it wasn't localized, but occurred all over the world.Did it ever. The estimates are that at least twenty-five million people-and maybe as many as fifty million-were killed during the three main waves of the flu. Virtually every area of the world was. .h.i.t, with as many as one third of the planet's human population being infected. India lost more than twelve million people. In the United States, more than half a million died. Entire villages from Alaska to the Amazon were wiped out.The flu hit in three stages: the spring of 1918, the summer of 1918, and the winter of 19181919. By the summer of 1919, it had all but disappeared, although there were minor outbreaks during the 1920s.It was often a swift death: victims might be dead within twenty-four hours of being stricken, their lungs wracked by violent hemorrhaging. One of the more unusual things about this flu, aside from its stunning virulence, was that its victims were often people in the prime of life instead of the very young or very old that influenza usually targets.Although its origins are still something of a mystery, the pandemic is believed to have started at Camp Funston and Camp Riley, Kansas. It may have been pa.s.sed on to humans from birds, and almost certainly was hastened in its trip around the world by troop movements during World War I.And the "Spanish" moniker it acquired? Various theories ascribe it to the fact that since Spain was neutral during the war, its media were freer to report about the flu; that among its early victims were members of the Spanish royal family, and that it killed a lot of Spaniards in a very big hurry in May 1918.BY THE NUMBERS [image]

0.

number of pa.s.senger pigeons left in the world in 1915. The last member of a species that once numbered in the tens of millions died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914

1.

number of pounds of bread rationed daily to Russian soldiers by late 1916 4:19:52.

record time, in days, hours, and minutes, it took the British liner Lusitania Lusitania to cross the Atlantic in 1907 to cross the Atlantic in 1907

6.

number of Western Front battles during World War I in which at least 250,000 people were killed

11.

number of revolutionary movements against the Manchu Dynasty in China between 1895 and 1911

12.

size, in horsepower, of motorcycle engine that powered the Wright Brothers' flying machine at Kitty Hawk

42.

number of countries that were charter members of League of Nations in 1920

56.

combined number of battles.h.i.+ps in German and Austro-Hungarian fleets, 1914

74.

number of battles.h.i.+ps in British fleet, 1914

90.

percentage of Austro-Hungarian military personnel killed or disabled in the war 340.

weight, in pounds, of U.S. president William Howard Taft in 1912 728.

number of minutes it took to build a Model T Ford in 1913

93.

number of minutes it took to build a Model T Ford in 1915 452.

U.S. stock market industrial index in September 1929

58.

U.S. stock market industrial index in July 1932 3,000.

number of people killed in earthquake and fire in San Francisco in 1906 10,000.

number of people killed by typhoon in Tahiti in 1906 250,000.

estimated number of people killed by bubonic plague in India in 1901 48,909.

number of U.S. soldiers killed in action during 1917 and 1918 55,985.

number of Americans killed in motor vehicle accidents during the same period 8,500,000.

number of soldiers killed in World War I 21,000,000.

number of soldiers ga.s.sed, wounded, or sh.e.l.l-shocked in World War I 20,000,000.

number of telephones in the United States in 1929, twice as many as the rest of the world combined 186,000,000,000.

estimated cost, in U.S. dollars, of World War I

TO THE BRINK OF THE ABYSS.