Encyclopedia idiotica : history's worst decisions and the people who made them /
Weir, Stephen, 1957-
Encyclopedia idiotica : history's worst decisions and the people who made them / Stephen Weir. - 1st ed. - Hauppauge, N.Y. : Barron's, 2005. - 256 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-256).
In the beginning: Adam and Eve, the original idiots -- Menelaus and his lost wife -- Hannibal and the avalanche -- Cleopatra's men -- Nero and the burning of Rome -- Erik the Red's dream island: the first real estate scam -- Pope Sylvester and the end of the world -- Pope Alexander and the search for Prester John -- George Podiebrad, the last Bohemian, and world peace -- Moctezuma and the returning God -- Johan de Witt, New Amsterdam and Pulau Run: the worst deal ever made -- Lord North and King George III's tea party -- Napoleon, the march to Russia--and Frankenstein -- The war office versus the lady with the lamp: disease in the Crimea -- The War Office versus the Indian Army: mutiny and beef fat -- Thomas Austin's rabbits -- General Custer and Little Big Horn -- King Leopold and the scramble for Africa -- Nicholas, Alexandra, and the mad monk -- Ismay's lifeboats -- Gavrilo Princip's deli sandwich: the assassination of Franz Ferdinand -- Winston Churchill and the disaster at Gallipoli -- Trench warfare, General Haig, and the Battle of the Somme -- Maginot's line -- Winston Churchill strikes again: the map of Iraq -- Stalin and the great purge --Shenton Thomas's little men and the fall of Singapore -- Suhrawardy, partition, and the Bengal rice famine -- Wakefield's nuts -- Mohammed Mossadegh, Time's man of the year, and democracy in Iran -- The British nuclear legacy: the black mist of Maralinga -- Sir Anthony Eden, Suez, and speed -- Grrünenthal's outstandingly safe drug: Thalidomide -- Vaccines, AIDS, and the chimps of the Congo -- Mao and the great leap forward -- Robert McNamara's terrible wrong: Agent Orange -- Murphy's Law and the missing hyphen -- Bernard Dowiyogo's bird droppings -- Drinking Jim Jones's kool-aid: the Jonestown suicides -- Union Carbide's cost cutting: Bhopal -- Robert Maxwell and the mirror pensioners -- The Soviet nuclear legacy: Chernobyl -- Ahmed Bahdib, Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, and the CIA -- Gerald Ratneer's "crap"
0764159178 9780764159176
2005920534
History--Miscellanea.
Encyclopedia idiotica : history's worst decisions and the people who made them / Stephen Weir. - 1st ed. - Hauppauge, N.Y. : Barron's, 2005. - 256 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-256).
In the beginning: Adam and Eve, the original idiots -- Menelaus and his lost wife -- Hannibal and the avalanche -- Cleopatra's men -- Nero and the burning of Rome -- Erik the Red's dream island: the first real estate scam -- Pope Sylvester and the end of the world -- Pope Alexander and the search for Prester John -- George Podiebrad, the last Bohemian, and world peace -- Moctezuma and the returning God -- Johan de Witt, New Amsterdam and Pulau Run: the worst deal ever made -- Lord North and King George III's tea party -- Napoleon, the march to Russia--and Frankenstein -- The war office versus the lady with the lamp: disease in the Crimea -- The War Office versus the Indian Army: mutiny and beef fat -- Thomas Austin's rabbits -- General Custer and Little Big Horn -- King Leopold and the scramble for Africa -- Nicholas, Alexandra, and the mad monk -- Ismay's lifeboats -- Gavrilo Princip's deli sandwich: the assassination of Franz Ferdinand -- Winston Churchill and the disaster at Gallipoli -- Trench warfare, General Haig, and the Battle of the Somme -- Maginot's line -- Winston Churchill strikes again: the map of Iraq -- Stalin and the great purge --Shenton Thomas's little men and the fall of Singapore -- Suhrawardy, partition, and the Bengal rice famine -- Wakefield's nuts -- Mohammed Mossadegh, Time's man of the year, and democracy in Iran -- The British nuclear legacy: the black mist of Maralinga -- Sir Anthony Eden, Suez, and speed -- Grrünenthal's outstandingly safe drug: Thalidomide -- Vaccines, AIDS, and the chimps of the Congo -- Mao and the great leap forward -- Robert McNamara's terrible wrong: Agent Orange -- Murphy's Law and the missing hyphen -- Bernard Dowiyogo's bird droppings -- Drinking Jim Jones's kool-aid: the Jonestown suicides -- Union Carbide's cost cutting: Bhopal -- Robert Maxwell and the mirror pensioners -- The Soviet nuclear legacy: Chernobyl -- Ahmed Bahdib, Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, and the CIA -- Gerald Ratneer's "crap"
0764159178 9780764159176
2005920534
History--Miscellanea.