Imagine King John of England in 1215, affixing his seal to the Magna Carta with no idea of how it would change the course of history. Or imagine chairmaker John Folwell in colonial Philadelphia -- could he have foreseen that the chair he made would be used by George Washington in the Constitutional Convention, or that it would survive to be displayed in the place that came to be known as Independence Hall? Could Marilyn Monroe have known how popular the white dress she wore in The Seven Year Itch would become -- or that later it would be involved in a massive New York police manhunt?History is made up of not just the great figures that have shaped the fate of nations. Sometimes the course of history can be changed by something as small as a nail, or a ball, or a dress. There are thousands of these historical oddities, littered throughout the museums and libraries of the world -- artifacts that have survived the test of time, that have come through the fires and furies of history to stand before us. Harvey Rachlin picks up where he left off in the popular Lucy's Bones, Sacred Stones, and Einstein's Brain, here exploring the fascinating and often hilarious tales behind forty more historical objects, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the glorious to the grotesque. Each is a tangible piece of history with its own story to tell, offering a glimpse into the time from which it came and the people whose lives it affected.
Rachlin, insatiably curious, examines them all, from Galileo to Jefferson, Edison to ENIAC. He tells the stories of Able, the first monkey to survive space travel; of the Zimmermann telegram, which was instrumental in American involvement in World War I; ofLincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves in the American South. He reaches into the distant past to discover the legend of the Sacred Tooth of the Buddha, and into the annals of American history to trace the voyages of Lewis and Clark.
Funny, farcical, or tragic, the stories behind these artifacts are the legacies from our past. In sharing them with us, Harvey Rachlin gives us a chance to understand those who have come before us.
