History Revisited

"History," in the opinion of Tolstoy, "is nothing but a collection of fables." "All the coloring of history," wrote Dr. Johnson, "is conjecture." George Santayana went on record as saying, "History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten," a view also held by Oscar Wilde, who declared: "The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it."

Historian Jerry Yulsman (he also takes pictures) agrees wholeheartedly with these eminent gentlemen, so, deciding that one man's conjecture is another man's truth, he has set about rewriting history not with the pen but with the camera. Future generations may rank his findings with the uncovering of the Rosetta stone, and in the meantime, The Playboy Historical Society gives them its unalloyed approval and endorsement. We have long suspected that the noted men who shaped history were not the dullards our school textbooks made them out to be. Mr. Yulsman has merely confirmed our belief that behind every outstanding figure of history was another kind of outstanding figure.

Archimedes, previous historians tell, observed things about the relationship of bulk to water displacement when he lowered his own bulk into a bathtub, causing him to cry out, "Eureka! I have found it!" This is true, except in one significant detail: both the bathtub and the beautiful bulk belonged to a nubile next-door neighbor of Peeping Archimedes'. Her name: Eureka.

Leif Ericson, valiant Viking, discovered America long before Columbus, but did his best to play down the fact. History has been at a loss to explain this--until now. It seems Leif, ever eager to propagate Scandinavian customs, taught Swedish massage to the daughter of a savage Indian chief and things went so well that her father soon started talking about a tomahawk wedding. Leif left the New World under a cloud and the daughter was exiled to the wilds of the inland territories, where she founded the Scandinavian community which, to this day, is known by her name, Minne-So-Ta.

Marco Polo endured the long, perilous journey to the Far East for the sake of those exotic Oriental spices, conventional historians claim, and for once they are telling the truth. However, they cravenly abridge the list of spices, which included Nutmeg, Ginger, Pepper, Curry Powder, Cassia Leaf, Lotus Blossom, and Lotus Blossom's sisters, Golden Bell, Fragrant Incense and Exquisite Form.

Sir Isaac Newton, sometimes known as Mr. Gravity, hit upon the what-goes-up-must-come-down theory when (so the story goes) he was boinked on the bean by a falling apple. Actually, it was the apple of his eye who boinked him--inadvertently, with a slipping slipper, whilst sneaking out to meet Sir Isaac's younger rival.

William Shakespeare really did write all those plays and sonnets which bear that illustrious byline, and cranks who aver they were written by Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, the Earl of Oxford, the Count of Derby and others are all wet. A point not so well known is that William Shakespeare was a woman, probably the one who started the "modern" trend for masculine monickers on girls (Billie, Bobbie, Jackie, etc.). The fellow in the foreground? That's Bacon or Marlowe or Oxford or Derby or someone.

Paul Revere was not revered by Colonial men, no matter what Longfellow said. His famous ride was planned as a hoax to lure husbands, brothers and fathers away from their homes so Paul could be alone with their wives, sisters and daughters. Coincidentally, the Redcoats did attack that night, all unbeknownst to pleasure-prone Paul and his fair friends. They read about it in the papers the next morning.

Ulysses s. Grant, Northern general, won the War of the States all right, but not even Southern textbooks give the true reason. Things had been going badly for both sides and General Grant had every intention of surrendering to General Lee on that fateful morning of April 9, 1865. However, having tented on the old camp ground with an appetizing little abolitionist the night before, Grant awoke somewhat later than usual. Lee, who also planned to surrender his sword that morning, beat Grant, so to speak, to the draw.

Napoleon Bonaparte, as everybody knows, set out to conquer the Russian Bear and suffered ignominious defeat. Until now, chroniclers have suppressed the fact that it was not the Russian Bear but the bare Russians, or camp followers, that so distracted the Little Corporal with vodka and venery that all his maps began to look alike and his famed strategy dissolved like the mists of the morning. This fiendish forerunner of brainwashing was known as Russian Coquette.