HISTORY simply is the study of the past. The discipline is supposed to dwell on past events, of people, their achievements and failures and their wars and exploits, if nothing else.

The key phrase is "past events", perhaps that alone make it archaic, ancient even boring. Walter Bagehot has this to say, "Much of history is necessarily of little value -- the superficies of circumstances, the scum of events".

Ambrose Bierce in The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary says, history is "an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which is brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools".

Little wonder there is a new breed of historians (revisionists no, entertainers, yes), who choose to make history more palatable to lesser mortals. David Wallace came out with Twentieth Century: History With the Boring Parts Left Out. It claims to be "a history book for people interested only in the juicy parts". How sweet.

Our very own Tunku Halim came out with a book that is not the standard textbook for history in schools, A Children's History of Malaysia. It is a history book with a difference -- entertaining as much as informative.
How about The Totally Useless History of the World compiled by Ian Crofton? Certainly out of this world! As the title suggests, it is written as a chronology of curiosities that adds up to an alternative history of the world.

Seriously, this is one book that will certainly make your day in trying times like these. What do you do in times of political uncertainty and politicians exhibiting their shenenigans as clowns demostrating their wares? Or when one finds never a dull day in politics as is the case now? Or when the escalating cost of almost everything is suppressing the mood of even the most optimistic person in the land?

Read this book. It contains incredible facts and information that will make you understand better what makes humans the most incredulous creation ever attempted by God.

Humans are by nature, well, weird, if you believe the narratives in the book. They certainly do incredible things, some live to tell the tale, others simply and literally became dead people.

The book is divided into sections representing the ancient world, the Middle Ages, the 16th to the 19th centuries and from 1900 to the present. Present? Yes, up till last year to be exact.

The only entry for last year is that the word "shit" is permitted in the British Parliament. On Jan 9 last year, Sir Michael Lord, deputy speaker of the House of Commons, made a landmark ruling that the word "shit" was not necessarily "unparliamentary language". Sigh. Such an achievement after centuries of the revered institution's attempts to be "proper".

Fiona Mactaggart, Labour MP for Slough, used the word while discussing about sewage (what else could it be?) The deputy speaker told the parliamentarians that the word as Mactaggart uttered it "is appropriately used". (Anything to be learnt here? One, apparently we are way, way ahead of our MPs in terms of terminologies. Two, MPs beware, times are changing, so, too, words and phrases used).

Now you are getting my attention. That is the kind of item you'll find in the book -- historical facts that entertain.

They are bizarre, surprising yet engaging and enlightening.

Let's go down history lane. Some time in 456 B.C. there lived a famous Greek dramatist, Aeschylus. One day he was walking the streets when an eagle (accidently, what else?) dropped a tortoise on his head. He died immediately. Don't you think some dramatists today deserve that for insulting our intelligence with their works?

You have certainly heard a lot about Alexander the Great, one of the greatest conquerors the world has ever known. But I am sure you have never heard this version of his story.

While crossing the Dardanelles to begin his conquest of the Persian Empire, Alexander's army had to go through Lampascus, a city where one of his trusted aides Anaximenes was born. Anaximenes, hailed as a rhetorician, begged to see Alexander.

The conqueror, anticipating that Anaximenes would ask for his native city to be spared, vowed that he would not grant the wish. Anaximenes instead told Alexander, "Sir, I have come to beg you to destroy my city." Alexander had to keep his promise. The city was saved.

Do you know that the lunatic Emperor Caligula of Rome made it an offence to look at him? Reason? His thinning pate and copious body hair.

Emperor Nero didn't just watch Rome burning with sadistic satisfaction, he popularised the word "matricide", which means killing one's own mother. Philosopher Peregrinus Proteus, upon realising his fame was waning, burnt himself alive at the Olympic Games in 165 AD "to make a sensational exit". Any followers?

Sometime in the 13th century, the widow of a Scottish king was so in love with her late husband that she had his heart embalmed and placed in an ivory and silver casket. She would place it on the table as her "sweet silent companion". Who says the Taj Mahal is the ultimate love symbol?

Are you aware that Kublai Khan had his harem replenished with a fresh batch of six carefully chosen virgins every three days?

Now Emperor Charles VI of France suffered the delusion that he was made of glass that would shatter any time. In 1457, the Scottish Parliament banned football and golf. The fact that both games were mentioned in the same breath proves that no one game is more elitist than the other. In 1531, Henry VIII appointed Sir William Pauler to the post of "Surveyor of the King's Widows, and Governor of All Idiots and Naturals in the King's Hands". The governor of all idiots -- that sounds relevant today, don't you think?

Did you know that Manhattan in New York was sold for about RM2,100 in today's money by the then director-general of New Netherlands, Peter Minuit, because he hated the inhabitants so much?

They were, in his words, "entirely savage and wild, strangers to all decency, uncivil and stupid, proficient in all wickedness and ungodliness". That amount cannot buy even a square metre of real estate in Manhattan today, but the point is, has there been any change with regard to the inhabitants? You tell me.