Mental-floss Presents Forbidden Knowldge PDF
Preview Mental-floss Presents Forbidden Knowldge
*OUSPEVDUJPO <JJJ> mental_floss presents: =FI9@;;<E KNOWLEDGE edited by N`ccG\Xijfe# DXe^\j_?Xkk`bl[li# and<c`qXY\k_?lek *OUSPEVDUJPO <WJJ> h w wit ore o m 2n 0 % vil! e :: 8888 LLL KK @@@FFFEEE :fekX`ejJ\m\e;\X[cp@e^i\[`\ekj *OUSPEVDUJPO <WJJ> h w wit ore o m 2n 0 % vil! e :: 8888 LLL KK @@@FFFEEE :fekX`ejJ\m\e;\X[cp@e^i\[`\ekj *OUSPEVDUJPO <JY> Introduction There’s no dearth of great literature in the li- or thank-you without overdoing it. And then brary here at mental_floss. Sure, you’ve got there’s the press: endless coverage of us help- your heavyweights: Beckett, Proust, even a ing old women cross streets and plucking kit- little section dedicated to obscure Chilean tens out of trees. But don’t let that fool you. playwrights. But perhaps the most telling title Look a little deeper and you’ll find there’s on the rack is a dog-eared copy of the picture more than a little yin that comes with all this book The Fire Cat. yang. From the outset it looks like an ordinary The truth is, we’re kind of bad seeds. Reb- kid’s tale. Oversized pages, colorful drawings, els, baby. Catch us when the media’s not easy-to-pronounce words. But if you turn a around and you might see us doing something couple of pages in, you’ll learn in giant I Can c-r-a-z-y. Like standing on a moving bus—you Read Book print that Pickles, who’s under the know, just for the thrill of it. Or going into a care of Mrs. Goodkind, is neither a good cat library and using our outdoor voices. Some- nor a bad cat. He is a good and bad cat. times we’ll even bite into a piece of fruit with- Profound. He also has big paws with which out giving it a good rinse first. Does it taste a he plans to do big things, but that’s neither little sweeter? Oh, you know it does. here nor there. Okay. While we might not be as bad as we’d What we mean to say is that we can relate. like to believe, there is some comfort in know- See, the cats at mental_ floss often get pegged ing that someone’s made up of more than just as a little too good. You know? All toothy grins medals and virtues. And history’s exactly the and saccharine-sweet reputations. And yeah, same. It’s not the hearts of gold and battles we’ve got the good grades to back it up. Not won that are interesting. It’s the smirks and to mention the clean-cut hairstyles, and the quirks. It’s juicy anecdotes. It’s history’s great- finely honed sense for when to insert a please est figures telling Jiminy Cricket to shove off, < vi>*OUSPEVDUJPO then getting caught on the wrong side of their thing you feel you’re supposed to know, this conscience. follow-up is the exact opposite: it’s all the stuff Take Ben Franklin, for instance. Doesn’t his you shouldn’t. It’s every bawdy story and whole perfect patriot, Renaissance man act get dirty secret your history teacher wanted to a little more intriguing when you find out he tell you, but couldn’t for fear of losing his or was sort of a man slut? Or Adam Smith’s Invis- her job. So thumb through the pages. Find a ible Hand of Capitalism. Don’t the yawns come name, person, or place you used to admire. a little slower when you watch it waving at de- And then read on. We’re betting the naughty veloping nations with just one finger? ending will make you smile. Forbidden Knowledge is exactly that. It’s the worst history has to offer, all deliciously Enjoy. broken up into seven sin-tastic chapters. If our Will, Mangesh, and Liz first book, Condensed Knowledge, was every- GI@;< Utopian Communities (That Bombed Miserably) Dictator Grooming Tips Pampered Celebrities Greatest Hoaxes of All Time Mandatory Fashion Trends Writers Who Fancied Themselves Peerless Artists Who Were Full of Themselves Secret Societies That Ain’t All That Secret Worst Miscalculations Insane Soviet Projects Bodies That’ve Never Been Found Structures Built as Symbols of National Pride World Leaders Obsessed with Their Own Images Recent Cases Where Diversity Would Have Helped Individuals Who Taught Us How to Sing the Blues The Secret Lives of Civil Activists Famous Bastards Who Made Their Mark The Dish on National Anthems Ignominious Things Named for Napoléon Bonaparte Mortals with Minor God Complexes <>NFOUBM@¿PTTQSFTFOUT'PSCJEEFO,OPXMFEHF Talk of the Town: Utopian Communities (That Bombed Miserably) &WFSZPODFJOBXIJMFBQSPVEMJUUMFDPNNVOJUZXJMMTQSPVUVQKVTUUPMFUUIFXPSME LOPXIPX6UPQJBTIPVMECFSVO8JUIDIJOTSBJTFEBMNPTUBTIJHIBTJEFBMT UIF DPNNVOJUZNBSDIFTGPSUIUPCFBOFYBNQMFPGQFSGFDUJPO#VUJONPTUDBTFT BMM UIBUIBSNPOJPVTNBSDIJOHHFUTUSJQQFEVQQSFUUZRVJDLMZ)FSFBSFGPVS²QFSGFDU³ DPNNVOJUJFTUIBUXIJ[[FEBOETQVUUFSFEUIBOLTUPIVNBOOBUVSF _01:: Brook Farm, or Ripley’s was hit by an outbreak of smallpox followed Follow Me or Not by fire and finally collapsed in 1847. Probably the best-known utopian community in America, Brook Farm was founded in 1841 _02:: Fruitlands: A Utopian in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, by George Community (for Six Months and Sophia Ripley. The commune was built on Anyway) a 200-acre farm with four buildings and cen- After visiting Brook Farm and finding it al- tered on the ideals of radical social reform and most too worldly by their standards, Bronson self-reliance. For free tuition in the community Alcott (the father of Louisa May) and Charles school and one year’s worth of room and Lane founded the Fruitlands Commune in June board, the residents were asked to complete 1843, in Harvard, Massachusetts. Structured 300 days of labor by either farming, working around the British reformist model, the com- in the manufacturing shops, performing do- mune’s members were against the ownership mestic chores or grounds maintenance, or of property, were political anarchists, believed planning the community’s recreation projects. in free love, and were vegetarians. The group The community prospered in 1842–1843 and of 11 adults and a small number of children was visited by numerous dignitaries and uto- were forbidden to eat meat or use any animal pian writers. However, Ripley joined the un- products such as honey, wool, beeswax, or popular Fourierism movement, which meant manure. They were also not allowed to use an- that soon the young people (out of a “sense of imals for labor and only planted produce that honor”) had to do all the dirty work like re- grew up out of the soil so as not to disturb pairing roads, cleaning stables, and slaughter- worms and other organisms living in the soil. ing the animals. This caused many residents, Many in the group of residents saw manual especially the younger ones, to leave. Things labor as spiritually inhibiting and soon it be- went downhill from there. The community came evident that the commune could not pro-
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