historia mundi discipulorum (340)
Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Sat, 25 Feb 89 18:23:05 EST
Humanist Mailing List, Vol. 2, No. 650. Saturday, 25 Feb 1989.
Date: 25 February 1989
From: Willard McCarty <mccarty@utorepas>
Subject: history as students see it, in two parts
[The following has been borrowed from the History discussion group,
contributed by Gary Woodill (FCTY7310@RYERSON), who in turn got it
from another source. Since we all need something to cheer us up at
this time of year, I'm passing it on to you. Apologies to those that
need them. --W.M.]
A BRIEF HISTORY OF EUROPE
(Five year veteran of the University classsroom, historian Anders
Eriksson -- possibly as an act of vengeance -- has assembled a
brief history of Europe from the Middle Ages to the present,
derived from papers submitted by his freshman classes at McMaster
University and the University of Alberta. The spelling is
as written.)
* * * * * * * * * *
History, as we know, is always bias because human beings have to
be studied by other human beings not by independent observers of
another species.
During the Middle Ages, everybody was middle-aged. Church and
state were co-operatic. Middle Evil society was made up of monks,
lords and surfs.
After a revival of infantile commerce slowly creeped into Europe
merchants appeared. They roamed from town to town exposing
themselves and organizing big fairies in the countryside. Mideval
people were violent. Murder during this period was nothing.
Everybody killed someone.
England fought numerously for land in France and ended up winning
and losing. The Crusades were a series of military expaditions
made by Christians seeking to free the holy land (the "Home Town"
of Christ) from the Islams.
Finally, Europe caught the Black Death. The bubonic plague is a
social disease in the sense that it can be transmitted by
intercourse and other etceteras. It was spread from port to port
by inflected rats. The plague also helped the emergance of the
English language as the national language of England, France
and Italy.
The Middle Ages slimpared to a halt. The renasence bolted in from
the blue. Life reeked with joy. Italy became robust, and more
individuals felt the value of their human being.
Man was determined to civilise himself and his brothers, even if
heads had to roll! It became sheik to be educated. Europe was
full of incredable churches with great art bulging out their
doors. Renaissance merchants were beautiful and almost lifelike.
The Reformation happened when German nobles resented the idea
that tithes were going to Papal France or the Pope thus enriching
Catholic coiffures. An angry Martin Luther nailed 95 theocrats to
a church door. Theologically, Luthar was into reorientation
mutation. Calvinism was the most convenient religion since the
days of the ancients.
The Popes, of course, were usually Catholic. Monks went right on
seeing themselves as worms. The last Jesuit priest died in the
19th century.
After the refirmation were wars both foreign and infernal. Louis
XIV became King of the Sun. He gave the people food and
artillery. If he didn't like someone, he sent them to the gallows
to row for the rest of their lives.
The enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire wrote a book
called Candy that got him into trouble with Frederick the Great.
Philosophers were unknown yet and the fundamental stake was one
of religious toleration slightly confused with defeatism.
The French revolution was accomplished before it happened. The
revolution evolved through monarchial, republican and tolarian
phases until it catapulted into Napolean.
Great Brittian, the USA and other European countrys had
demicratic leanings. The middle class was tired and needed a
rest. The old order could see the lid holding down new ideas
beginning to shake. Among the goals of the chartists were
universal suferage and an anal parliament. Voting was to be done
by ballad.
A new time zone of national unification roared over the horizon.
Nationalism aided Itally because nationalism is the growth of an
army. Here, too, was the new Germany; Loud, bold, vulgar and full
of reality.
Culture fomented from Europe's tip to its top. Wagner was master
of music and people did not forget their own artists. France had
Chekov.
World War I broke out around 1912-1914. German was on one side of
France and Russia was on the other. At war people get killed and
then they aren't people anymore but friends. Peace was proclaimed
at Versigh, which was attended by George Loid, Primal Minister of
England. President Wilson arrived with 14 pointers.
In 1937 Lenin revolted Russia. Communism raged among the peasants
and the civil war "team colors" were red and white.
Germany was displaced after WWI. This gave rise to Hitler.
Germany was morbidly overexcited and unbalanced. Berlin became
the decadent capital, where all sorts of sexual deprivations were
practised. A huge anti-Semantic movement arose.
Germany invaded Poland, France invaded Belgium and Russia invaded
everybody. War screeched to an end when a nukuleer explosion was
dropped on Heroshima. A whole generation had been wipe out...and
their forlorne families were left to pick up the peaces.
According to Fromm. individuation began historically in medieval
times. This was a period of small childhood. There is increasing
experience as adolesecence experiences its life development. The
last stage is us.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE WORLD
'The World According to Student Bloopers'
by Richard Lederer
St. Paul's School
(Spring 1987, Verbatim, The Language Quarterly, Vol. XIII,
No. 4)
One of the fringe benefits of being an English or History
teacher is receiving the occasional jewel of a student blooper in
an essay. I have pasted together the following "history" of the
world from certifiably genuine student bloopers collected by
teachers throughout the United States, from eighth grade through
college level. Read carefully, and you will learn a lot.
The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were called mummies. They lived
in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the
Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so
certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation. The
Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular
cube. They Pramids are a range mountains between France and
Spain.
The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first
book of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an
apple tree. One of their children, Cain. once asked, "Am I my
brother's son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount
Montezuma. Jacob, son of Isaac, stole his brother's birth mark.
Jacob was a patriarch who brought up his twelve sons to be
patriarchs. but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons,
Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.
Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw.
Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread,
which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses
went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was
a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the
Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times.
Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.
Without the Greeks we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented
three kinds of columns--Corinthian, Doric, and Ironic. They also
had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the
mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became
intollerable. Achilles appears in The Illiad, by Homer. Homer
also wrote the Oddity, in which Penelope was the last hardship
that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not
written by Homer but by another man of that name.
Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people
advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of
wedlock.
In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the
biscuits and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a
coral wreath. The government of Athens was democratic because
people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in
Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn't climb
over to see what their neighbors were doing. When they fought
with the Persians, the Greeks were outnumbered because the
Persians had more men.
Eventually, the Ramons conquered the Geeks. History calls people
Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At
Roman banquets, the guests wore garlics in their hair. Julius
Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The
Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to
be made king. Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his
poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.
Then came the Middle Ages. King Alfred conquered the Dames, King
Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harold mustarded his
troops before the Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized
by Bernard Shaw, and victims of the Black Death grew boobs on
their necks. Finally the Magna Carta provided that no free man
should be hanged twice for the same offense.
In midevil times most of the people were alliterate. The
greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and
verses and also wrote literature. Another tale tells of William
Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his
son's head.
The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the
value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the
church door at Wittenburg for selling papal indulgences. He died
a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the
painter Donatello's interest in the female nude that made him the
father of the Renaissance. It was an age of great inventions and
discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Sir Walter Raleigh
is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes. Another
important invention was the circulation of blood.
Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.
The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII
found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee.
Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a
success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they
all shouted, "hurrah." Then her navy went out and defeated the
Spanish Armadillo.
The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear.
Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of
his plays. He lived at Windsor with his merry wives, writing
tragedies, comedies, and errors. In one of Shakespear's famous
plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a
long soliloquy. In another, Lady Macbeth tries to convince
Macbeth to kill the King by attacking his manhood. Romeo and
Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing at the same
time as Shakespear was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote.
The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise
Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.
During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a
great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the
Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the
Santa Fe. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the Ocean, and this was
known as Pilgrims Progress. When they landed at Plymouth Rock,
they were greeted by the Indians, who came down the hill rolling
their war hoops before them. The Indian squabs carried porpoises
on their back. Many of the Indian heroes were killed, along with
their cabooses which proved very fatal to them. The winter of
1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many
babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all
this.
One of the causes of the Revolutionary Wars was the English
put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their
parcels through the post without stamps. During the War, the Red
Coats and Paul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The
dogs were barking and the peacocks were crowing. Finally, The
colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis.
Delegates from the original thirteen states formed the Contented
Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were
two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin had
gone to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf
of bread under each arm. He invented electricity by rubbing cats
backwards and declared, "A horse divided against itself
cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.
George Washington married Martha Curtis and in due time became
the Father of Our Country. Then the Constitution of the United
States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the
Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.
Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's
mothe died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he
built with his own hands. When Lincoln was President, he wore
only a tall silk hat. He said, "In onion there is strength."
Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while traveling from
Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope. He also
freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation, and
the Fourteenth Amendment gave the ex-Negroes citizenship. But
the Clue Clux Clan would torcher and lynch the ex-Negroes and
other innocent victims. It claimed it represented law and odor.
On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and
got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture
show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a
supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.
Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time.
Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy.
Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable
in the Autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees.
Bach was the most famous composer in the world. and so was
Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English.
He was very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present.
Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he
wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when
everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and
later died for this.
France was in a very serious state. The French Revolution was
accomplished before it happened. The Marseillaise was the theme
song of the French Revolution, and it catapulted into Napoleon.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were
trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorillas came down
from the hills and nipped at Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon became
ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained.
He wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a
baroness, she couldn't bear children.
The sun never set on the British Empire because the British
Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen
Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years.
Her reclining years and finally the end of her life were
exemplatory of a great personality. Her death was the final
event which ended her reign.
The nineteenth century was a time of many great inventions and
thoughts. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of
rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick
raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Samuel Morse invented
a code of telepathy. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis.
Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the
Species. Madman Curie discovered radium. And Karl Marx became
one of the Marx brothers.
top
The First World War, caused by the assignation of the
Arch-Duck by a surf, ushered in a new error in the anals of human
history.
*****END*****