Don't know much about history? You'd be surprised.

See how much more fun history is when you take the context into account? For one thing, you feel a lot smarter. After all, some of these answers are just a matter of common sense. Others involve knowing a bit about people, or the times. Besides, this is a lot less like memorising the phone book. It kind of makes the whole story come alive, right?

You probably guessed all these, but here are some answers, anyway.

1. William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes died on the same date – but not on the same day. How did this happen?
   They used different calendars. The Spanish had upgraded to Gregorian 1.0, while the retrograde English were still using Julian. Technophobes.
2. In the 19th Century, Turkish men were ordered to stop wearing turbans and switch to fezzes. They resisted this 'modern' change. Why?
   They were snobs. Those turbans were class markers. The fancier the turban, the bigger deal you were. Fezzes were a move in the direction of egalitarianism, and they Did Not Want.
3. Fezzes were hats. Why didn't they have brims?
   Mecca, for bowing in the direction of. Hard to touch the ground with a hat brim in the way. And not polite.
4. In 1860, newly elected US President Abraham Lincoln grew a beard. The suggestion came from an eleven-year-old girl, Grace Bedell. Why did she think he'd look better in a beard, and how does this story fit in the context of 1860?
   In a word, fashion. For one thing, beards were in. For another, people were turning lookist: Lincoln's face was too thin, and they thought he looked like an inelegant bumpkin.
5. In 1861, Lincoln had to move to Washington. The Pinkerton Detective Agency was charged with getting Lincoln to his inauguration safely. Why was this necessary?
   Death threats. That about says it all, except to add, see next question.
6. In 1865, alas, John Wilkes Booth shot and killed Abraham Lincoln. Police were looking for the fugitive assassin everywhere, but he wasn't too hard to spot. You see, Booth's face was almost as
   famous as Lincoln's. Why?
   He was a pinup. Seriously. All the lovestruck female theatregoers had Booth's carte de visite, an early form of the 8x10 glossy. Some were even autographed. He was a high-grossing actor.
7. Enough about Lincoln. Actress and writer Ruth Gordon was born in 1896, so she never met him. In 1920, when she was already a successful stage actress, Gordon voluntarily underwent a painful procedure to cure her hereditary bowleggedness. Why then?
   Hemlines. Look at the date. Think 'flappers'. Ruth hadn't needed to worry about her legs onstage before.
8. Actor Cameron Mitchell was born in 1918 in Pennsylvania. But at that time, his name was 'Mitzel'. His mentors, the famous Lunts, suggested that he change it when he started acting in the years between the world wars. Why?
   It sounded too 'Hun'. That's what they told him. German names were not in vogue at the time.
9. The US president who decided to drop atomic bombs on Japan didn't even know the weapon existed four months before. How come?
   Nobody told him. Truman was only let into the loop after he became President on 12 April, 1945, when FDR died suddenly. We bet he was surprised.
10. During the 2003 Iraq war, reporter Anne Garrels sent in her reports from a Baghdad hotel room. She was naked at the time. Why?
    To embarrass security guards. The clever reporter figured (correctly) that a state of undress was most likely to flummox would-be kibitzers from the police, giving her time to conceal what she was doing.

Now, wasn't that fun? Go find some unwitting victim at the pub, and preen with your new knowledge. Keep saying, 'It's the context, you know.'

Dmitri Gheorgheni

04.08.14 Front Page

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