Michael Farquhar - Bad Days in History: A Gleefully Grim Chronicle of Misfortune, Mayhem, and Misery for Every Day of the Year

A t first glance, the title of this collection seems so simple and direct: Its all about bad days in history. Yet, on deeper examination, its bewilderingly broad. There are literally billions of miserable episodes throughout human history from which to choose; a single year of the 20th century alone could fill hundreds of volumes. Thus, the subtitle. But that, too, is a bit murky. Gleefully Grim? What exactly does that mean? Well, take genocidea decidedly dark topic not often associated with mirth. Unless unless a perpetrator of such a gross atrocity is having a bad day, just as Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels was on October 26, 1928, when he whined in his diary: I have no friends. Or when a State Department spokesperson blathered her way through a press conference on June 10, 1994, desperately trying to avoid using the word genocide to describe the mass slaughter in Rwanda.

Still, while the ugliest moments in history are largely avoided here, at least in their rawest form, some days recounted were certainly grimmer than others. A child killer is a child killer, for example, despite the irresistible irony that Gilles de Rais was Joan of Arcs close ally and, on August 15, 1434, personally dedicated a lavish place of worship that he had funded: the Chapel of the Holy Innocents. To the reader, the juxtaposition of this unholy day with the firing of Beatles drummer Pete Best on the next calendar day, in 1963, might be a bit jarring. And so it goes throughout this Chronicle of Misfortune, Mayhem, and Misery for Every Day of the Year, as the rest of the subtitle reads: the sublime, grotesque, unsettling, and absurd, all jumbled together in an awkward waltz through time.

Plucked from all eras of history, and from around the globe, the bad days in this book are intended to amuse, tantalize, and enlightenwithout being predictable. Thus, to cite one famously rotten day, Lincolns assassination gets short shrift. Look instead for the deleterious effect it had on two ex-presidents several days later. Or discover how surviving the Titanic actually sank the reputation of one of its passengers later that week. Finally, as you peruse this collection, just remember: No matter how lousy your day has been, you can be sure that somewhere in time someone elses was so much worse.

Washington, D.C.
November 2014

January, month of empty pockets!
Let us endure this evil month,
anxious as a theatrical producers forehead.
C OLETTE

Crappy New Year!

A h, New Years: a day filled with new hope and fresh startsexcept when it wasnt. For some unfortunates in history, January 1 was a dead end. And a rather ghastly one. Take the fifth-century monk and martyr Telemachus, who stepped into the middle of a gladiatorial fight in Rome and tried to stop the human slaughter, only to be stoned to death by the bloodthirsty audience unappreciative of the effort. Or Charles II of Navarre, known as the Bad, who in 1387 burned to death in his own bed after an attendant accidentally ignited the brandy-soaked bandages with which the king had been bound head to foot as a remedy for his ailments.

Then there was Louis XII of France, who, though aging and decrepit, was lucky enough to wed a young and beautiful English princess, Henry VIIIs younger sister, Mary, in 1514. Alas, the vigorous attempts to sire an heir proved too much for the gouty old king, and he dropped dead from exhaustion just three months after the wedding. Yet unlike those others whose grim demise fell on the New Year, at least Louis had fun on the way out.