This week’s humor page consists of rewritten history—that is, historical facts as remembered by bewildered schoolkids. These are just a small sample of thousands of hilarious items collected by teacher and author Richard Lederer over the years and published in his books and articles (try his Anguished English for starters!).
The Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense. |
Benjamin Franklin invented electricity by rubbing two cats together. Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead. | King Solomon, one of David’s sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines. |
A myth says the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intolerable. | The famous composer Handell was half German, half Italian and half English. He was a very large man. | The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were called mummies. They always traveled by Camelot. |
Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Commandments. |
Sir Francis Drake circumsized the world with a 100-foot clipper. | King Charles was the smallest monarch in English history. He was only 4-foot-6, but I don’t know if that was before or after his head was cut off. |
The Gorgons had long snakes in their hair. They looked like women, only more horrible. | The difference between a king and a president is that a king is the son of his father, but a president isn’t. |
At the start of The Grapes of Wrath, Oklahoma has been hit by a dust bowl. |