Uncle John’s Unstoppable Bathroom Reader (22 page)

Europe is the only continent without a desert.

I
THE ’80
S
!

Yo, Rambo, remember the Gimme Decade? The Teflon President, and “Who Shot JR?” Relax, it’s like, totally awesome! (Part 2 on
page 391
.
)

1980

• Ronald Reagan elected 40th U.S. president (defeats Jimmy Carter)

• John Lennon assassinated

• Mount St. Helens erupts

• #1 movie:
The Empire Strikes Back

• U.S. hockey team wins Olympic Gold over Finland

• Country Grammy: Willie Nelson’s “On The Road Again”

• 1% of American homes have a PC

1981

• President Reagan and Pope John Paul II shot; both recover

• Prince Charles weds Lady Diana

• Sandra Day O’Connor becomes first woman appointed to Supreme Court

• 52 U.S. hostages released from Iran

• AIDS identified for the first time

• MTV debuts

• Best Picture Oscar:
Chariots of Fire

1982

• Falklands War begins and ends

• First issue of
USA Today
hits stands

• Graceland opens to the public (adults: $6.50; kids: $4.50)

• First permanent artificial heart transplant performed on Barney Clark

•
Time
magazine man of the year: Pac-Man

•
Late Night with David Letterman
debuts on NBC

• #1 movie:
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

1983

• U.S. invades Grenada

• President Reagan first proposes SDI (Star Wars) program

• Vanessa Williams becomes first black Miss America

• America’s first poet laureate: Robert Penn Warren

• Truck bomb in Lebanon kills 284 U.S. Marines

• Michael Jackson’s
Thriller
becomes bestselling album of all time

•
M*A*S*H
ends after 251 episodes

•
Terms of Endearment
wins 5 Oscars

1984

• First photos of missing children on milk cartons

• Bishop Desmond Tutu awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

• Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi assassinated

• Soviet Union boycotts summer Olympics in L.A.

• Dan Marino (Miami Dolphins) throws single-season record 48 TD passes

• #1 movie:
Ghostbusters

• #1 single: Prince’s “When Doves Cry”

•
Newsweek
magazine dubs 1984 the “Year of the Yuppie”

Q: On what sitcom did Nancy Reagan appear to tell kids to “Just Say No?” A:
Diff’rent Strokes
.

DUMB CROOKS

Here’s proof that crime doesn’t pay.

R
EVOLVING DUMMIES

“In August 1975 three men were on their way in to rob the Royal Bank of Scotland at Rothesay, when they got stuck in the revolving doors. They had to be helped free by the staff and, after thanking everyone, sheepishly left the building.

“A few minutes later they returned and announced their intention of robbing the bank, but none of the bank employees believed them. When they demanded £5,000, the head cashier laughed at them, convinced that it was a practical joke.

“Disheartened, the gang leader reduced his demand first to £500, then to £50 and ultimately to 50 pence. By this stage the cashier could barely control her laughter.

“Then one of the men jumped over the counter and fell awkwardly on the floor, clutching at his ankle. The other two attempted a getaway, but got trapped in the revolving doors for a second time, desperately pushing the wrong way.”

—
The Incomplete Book of Failures

SMILE

“A Mexico City mugger known to police as ‘Teeth’ stopped a news photographer at gunpoint, demanding everything the photographer was carrying, including his camera. But first, Teeth wanted his picture taken. The lensman clicked away…and then ran. The next day his newspaper,
Reforma
, ran the ‘mug shot’ on page one.”

—
Christian Science Monitor

PHOTO FINISH

“Sheriff’s detectives arrested 28-year-old Einetta Denise Brown of Tampa, Florida, on identity theft charges. They said Brown, who is unemployed, has made her living since 1996 off credit card scams worth tens of thousands of dollars, leaving behind scores of angry victims.

“Detective Skip Pask said he first learned of Brown in 1998, but he was unable to catch up with her until December 2000, when she foolishly used a stolen credit card to pay for Christmas portraits of herself and her two young daughters.

Q: What is a
bilateral periorbital hematoma
? A: A black eye.

“ ‘She had been doing it for so long, she got comfortable,’ Pask said. ‘And careless.’”

—
St. Petersburg Times

“I
AM
A CROOK”

“William Nixon did not know he had carried out a robbery—he was drunk at the time. Then he saw himself on a security video tape on television. Nixon, 36, immediately surrendered himself to police and admitted robbing the Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, filling station several weeks earlier. He pled guilty to the robbery of about £250 ($400) from two women assistants, using an imitation firearm. Nixon had already spent the full amount from his welfare check on drink and could be seen staggering during the robbery. The proceeds of the robbery also went to alcohol.

“After the hold-up, he left the shop with a cigarette in his hand saying: ‘All the best,’ to the women, and sauntered off down the road.”

—
Belfast News Letter

TRY ACTING SMART

“Actor Brad Renfro (
The Client
and
Sleepers
) and a pal were charged with grand theft after trying to take a $175,000 yacht on a joy ride. Catching them might have been harder if they hadn’t forgotten to untie the boat, causing it to smash back into the dock.”

—
Stuff
magazine

BOOK HIM

“Gregory Roberts, 43, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, was arrested at the public library shortly after 2 a.m. Tuesday, for breaking and entering. Officers found his shoeprints on broken glass where he allegedly entered by kicking in a windowpane.

“Once inside the library, Roberts got himself trapped between the outer and inner doors of the foyer. He couldn’t get back in, and he couldn’t get back out. What could he do? He called police from a pay phone in the foyer. They got him out, but now Roberts is trapped behind another door: a jail door.”

—
Albuquerque Journal

A flea can jump 30,000 times in a row without taking a break.

FAMOUS CLOSE CALLS

Too many world leaders—Gandhi, JFK, and Anwar Sadat to name a few—have lost their lives to assassins. But the death toll would be even higher if fate hadn’t thwarted a few assassination plots. Here are some intriguing examples.

G
ENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT (1822–1885)

THE ATTEMPT:
On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln invited General Grant and his wife, Julia, to accompany him and Mrs. Lincoln to Ford’s Theatre. The Grants declined. That night, of course, Lincoln was assassinated. “Had his assassination plot gone according to plan,” Carl Sifakis writes in
The Encyclopedia of Assassinations
, John Wilkes Booth “would have killed not only the president, but a future president as well, General Ulysses S. Grant.”

WHAT HAPPENED:
Why didn’t the Grants go? Because Julia Grant
detested
Mary Lincoln. A few weeks earlier while touring Grant’s headquarters together, Mary snubbed Julia so many times in front of so many important people that she refused to spend another night in her company. Grant, biographer William S. McFeely writes, “was left to make to the president the most classic—and limp—of excuses: He couldn’t go because of the children.”

PRESIDENT CHARLES DE GAULLE (1890–1970)

THE ATTEMPT(S):
De Gaulle, president of France from 1959 to 1969, may have set a record as the modern world leader with the most attempts on his life—31. Some examples:

•
September 1961.
Assassins planted plastic explosives and napalm at the side of a road and set the bomb to go off when de Gaulle’s car approached. But they detonated it too soon. De Gaulle’s driver sped the undamaged car straight through the flames to safety.

•
August 1962.
A team of assassins, using submachine guns and hand grenades, planned to attack de Gaulle’s motorcade. But the lookout failed to spot the cars until they were already speeding by. The killers only managed to shoot out a window and a tire on de Gaulle’s car, and de Gaulle escaped unharmed…except for a cut on his finger that he got brushing broken glass off his clothes.

In 1910 about 32 million Americans lived on farms. Today, less than 5 million do.

•
July 1966.
The last attempt made on de Gaulle’s life and perhaps his luckiest break. Would-be assassins packed more than a ton of dynamite into a car and parked it on the road to Orly Airport. They made plans to set it off as de Gaulle was driven to the airport for a flight to the USSR.

WHAT HAPPENED:
At the appointed time, de Gaulle’s car drove past the car bomb…and nothing happened. Why not? The night before the attack was to take place, the “assassins” decided to commit a robbery to raise the money they would need to make their getaway. But they got caught—and were sitting in jail, unable to trigger the bomb.

KING HASSAN II (1929–1999)

THE ATTEMPT:
On August 16, 1972, King Hassan of Morocco was flying home from France aboard his private Boeing 727. As the plane approached the airport in the capital city of Rabat, it was attacked by four jet fighters of the Royal Moroccan Air Force.

WHAT HAPPENED:
In the middle of the attack, someone claiming to be a mechanic on the royal plane radioed to the attackers, “Stop firing! The tyrant is dead!” The fighters backed off, and the royal 727 was allowed to land.

The “mechanic” turned out to be the king himself. Unharmed, he exited the plane and then participated in the scheduled welcoming ceremonies as if nothing had happened. When the plotters realized they’d been fooled, eight more fighter planes attacked the ceremonies with machine gun fire, killing 8 people and wounding more than 40…but missing the king (he hid under some trees). Later that day still more fighters attacked a guest house next to the royal palace, where it was thought the king was hiding. Hassan survived all three attempts, executed the general behind the plot, and remained on the throne until July 1999, when he died from a heart attack at age 70.

CZAR ALEXANDER II (1818–1881)

THE ATTEMPT:
In 1879 a violent anarchist group called Will of the People tried to bomb the czar’s train outside Moscow.

WHAT HAPPENED:
It was common for the czar’s entourage to consist of two trains—one in front to test the rails and a second in back to carry the czar. So when the first train rolled by, the attackers let it go and blew up the second train…only to learn later that Alexander had been riding on the
first
train. The second one was a decoy.

The country of Tonga once issued a stamp shaped like a banana.

AFTERMATH:
In 1881 Will of the People made another attempt, as Alexander was returning by carriage to the Winter Palace. They tunneled under a road along the czar’s intended route and packed the space with explosives. But they were thwarted at the last minute when the czar’s guards changed the route.

This time, however, there were backup bombers, and as the czar passed by, one of them tossed a bomb at the imperial carriage, blowing it apart and killing two of the czar’s guards. Alexander somehow escaped unscathed and might well have survived the entire attack had he not lingered at the scene to tend to the wounded. But moments later a second bomb killed him.

So in murdering Alexander II, did the anarchists get the revolution they were hoping for? No—the czar, a reformer by czarist standards, was succeeded by his son Alexander III, considered one of the most repressive czars of the 19th century.

PRIME MINISTER MARGARET THATCHER (1925– )

THE ATTEMPT:
Four weeks before a scheduled meeting of Thatcher’s Conservative Party in the seaside town of Brighton, an Irish Republican Army bomber named Patrick Magee checked into the Grand Hotel, where Thatcher and numerous other high government officials would be staying. He then rented a room five stories above Thatcher’s and planted 30 pounds of explosives.