The Interesting Bits

More about the book

Did you give your school history lessons your undivided attention?Even if you did, you're probably none the wiser as to how exactly Henry II of France came to have a two-foot splinter in his head, or why Alexandra of Bavaria believed she had swallowed a piano. Or where terms like bunkum, maverick, John Bull and taking the mickey come from; or how the Tsarina of Russia once saved a life with a comma; or why Robert Pate hit Queen Victoria on the head with a walking stick.For some unknown reason, the most interesting bits of history are kept out of lessons and away from syllabuses. Relegated to history's footnotes, they lie buried beneath the dense text like a few golden nuggets in a mountain of granite.Now "The Interesting Bits" rights this wrong; it is a veritable treasure trove of those surprising, eccentric, chaotic, baffling asides that don't fit neatly into history's official narrative.They are history's little-known treasures - the gems that generations of teachers have excised from lessons on the grounds that they might make history too much like - well - fun.