Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader (24 page)

On May 12, 1862, Captain Relyea attended a party and decided to spend the night ashore. With the captain and white crew landlocked, the black crew was left in charge of the ship, which was not uncommon—they were well within Southern strongholds, protected by the guns of Fort Sumter. Smalls had counted on this; he smuggled his wife, his son, and 13 other slaves aboard. On May 13 at 3 a.m., the ship slowly pulled away from the dock, supposedly to take its place as a picket ship guarding the harbor. Smalls put on the captain’s uniform—including the broad-brimmed hat, which shadowed his dark face—and sounded the proper whistle signals when the
Planter
passed Confederate forts. At 4 a.m., as the ship passed under the guns of Fort Sumter, he was ordered to halt and state his destination. Smalls mimicked Relyea’s voice, said all the right things, and was allowed to continue. When they were out of range of the rebel batteries, Smalls lowered the Confederate flag.

As the sun came up, the CSS
Planter
was sailing right into the Union blockade. The first ship she approached was the USS
Onward
—and her captain was preparing to fire on the Confederate vessel. But Smalls put their fears to rest when he waved a large white flag and shouted out a friendly greeting: “Good morning, sir! I have brought you some of the old United States guns!”

WAR HERO

The daring escape made headlines in the North, hailing Smalls for his cunning and guile. This led to a meeting with President Lincoln in August. Smalls so impressed the Union leader that Lincoln took the politically dangerous step of authorizing 5,000 blacks to be recruited for military service. Before the war ended three years later, more than 180,000 black American volunteers would serve in Lincoln’s army—most of them former slaves.

The federal government awarded Smalls $1,500 for capturing the
Planter
, but he still chose to enlist and fight for the Union. After making a recruiting tour of New York, Smalls was sent back to South Carolina and commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant, Company B, 33rd Regiment, United States Colored Troops. He was once again given the wheel of the renamed USS
Planter
, now part of the Union blockading fleet.

Humans have about 1,400,000 hairs on their body.

PROMOTION

In November 1863, the
Planter
took part in a futile attack on Fort Sumter with Smalls as pilot under the white Captain James Nickerson. When the ship was caught in a deadly crossfire from Confederate shore batteries, the captain deserted his post and ran below deck, hiding in the coal bin. Smalls took command, keeping the guns firing while he used his encyclopedic knowledge of Charleston Harbor to maneuver the damaged ship to safety.

A Naval Board of Inquiry dismissed Nickerson for cowardice, but Smalls was again regarded as a hero…and was given his first command. His ship: the
Planter
, the same ship on which he had escaped two years earlier. In combat, Captain Smalls fought in 17 naval engagements; off duty, he studied with tutors to learn to read and write, skills which had been forbidden him as a slave.

CONTINUING THE FIGHT

When the war ended Smalls returned to Beaufort. Using the money he earned, he purchased the house in which he was born and moved his family into it (which now included two daughters and his recently freed mother). Smalls entered politics and served five non-consecutive terms in Congress. In 1897 the government belatedly recognized his wartime service by awarding him a $30-per-month veteran’s pension.

Robert Smalls died in Beaufort on February 23, 1915. His home has since been designated a National Historic Landmark. A naval cargo vessel, the USS
Robert Smalls
, was named in his honor. Beside Smalls’s grave is a statue with an inscription that sums up his life’s work: “My people need no special defense, for the past history of this country proves them to be the equal of any people, anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.”

*         *         *        

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

—John F. Kennedy

The odors of gardenia and orange blossoms, combined together, have no smell.

A ROOM OF HER OWN

Words of wisdom from worldly women
.

“The first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on a woman.”

—Lady Nancy Astor

“God gave women intuition and femininity. Used properly, the combination easily jumbles the brain of any man I’ve ever met.”

—Farrah Fawcett

“The great and almost only comfort about being a woman is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is and no one is surprised.”

—Freya Stark, writer

“Women are the only oppressed group in our society that lives in intimate association with their oppressors.”

—Evelyn Cunningham

“I’m not denyin’ that women are foolish: God Almighty made ’em to match the men.”

—George Eliot, writer

“When you belong to a minority, you have to be better in order to have the right to be equal.”

—Christine Collange, writer

“Women are like tea bags; you never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.”

—Eleanor Roosevelt

“Why are women so much more interesting to men than men are to women?”

—Virginia Woolf

“There is a growing strength in women—but it’s in the forehead, not the forearm.”

—Beverly Sills

“Women might start a rumor, but not a war.”

—Marga Gomez, artist

“A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. A woman must do what he can’t.”

—Rhonda Hansome, actor

“All women want from men is a partner who will share his hopes, his thoughts, his dreams. And if you don’t, we’re going to bitch at you until the day you die.”

—Stephanie Hodge, actor

“Until all women have made it, none of us have made it.”

—Rosemary Brown

A hummingbird’s heart rate drops from 500 beats a minute to 10 when it goes to sleep.

THE WOMAN EMPEROR

In a civilization ruled by men for thousands of years, only one woman ever made it to the top in imperial China—Empress Wu
.

H
IGH CHINA
China hasn’t had a monarchy since the Communist Revolution of 1949. But for more than 4,000 years before that, it was a ruled by 308 different emperors spanning 14 dynastic periods. Of those 308, only one was a woman.

It happened during the T’ang Dynasty, which ruled China from A.D. 618–907, an era commonly considered the height of Chinese art, literature, philosophy, trade, and technology. The capital city, Chang’an (modern-day Xi’an), was the largest and most culturally advanced city in the world, with a population of more than a million. This was also a rare era of freedom for women in China; women had long been treated as inferior but now enjoyed such freedoms as the right to be educated, to divorce, to own land, and to take part—to a degree—in politics. But no one could have expected a woman to take as large a role as the girl known as Wu Zhao.

LUCKY GIRL?

Wu Zhao was born in 624 into a noble and wealthy family, and was educated from an early age in music, art, literature, and philosophy. That education would help her immensely. When she was 13 years old, her family’s connections allowed her the great privilege of becoming a
Cairen
, one of nine “fifth-tier” concubines of the Emperor Tai-tsung. Her education, her musical talent, her beauty, and her wit made her stand out from the other girls, and she soon became one of the emperor’s favorites. He gave her the title
Meiniang
, or “Charming Lady,” and assigned her to work in the imperial study. There she would add to her knowledge the workings of government—knowledge she would put to great use in the coming years.

In 649, when Wu Zhao was 25, Emperor Tai-tsung died—not a good thing for a concubine: in keeping with tradition, all the concubines were sent to a Buddhist convent, where they were to spend the rest of their lives. But Tai-tsung’s son, Kao-tsung, became emperor and soon began visiting Wu at the convent. Many historians believe that Wu Zhao had been having an affair with the prince for a number of years, possibly because she knew he could get her out of the convent when his father died. True or not, two years later the new emperor broke tradition and had Wu Zhao returned to the palace, where she became Wu Zhaoyi,
Zhaoyi
signifying the highest rank of the second-tier concubines. There were now only two women above her in what became her quest for the throne: Kao-tsung’s wife, Empress Wang, and his first consort, Xiaoshu.

How old was the youngest soldier to die in the Civil War? 12.

HEIR REPLACEMENTS

Within a few years, Wu Zhaoyi had two sons by the emperor—two possible heirs to the emperor’s throne if she got rid of the two women in her way. And she soon did.

When Wu Zhaoyi’s newborn daughter died during childbirth, Wu accused Empress Wang of infanticide. Some versions of the story say that Wu actually killed her own daughter, then blamed it on the empress. In any case, in 655 the emperor imprisoned his wife and made Wu Zhaoyi empress. She quickly used her new power to have the former empress and the first concubine, Xiaoshu, executed. Wu Zhao now became Empress Wu Zetian. But she still wanted more.

Emperor Kao-tsung allowed Wu Zetian to take an active role in the government, and historians say she did it very well. Implementing such changes as improved agricultural practices, tax reductions, and increased efficiency in government administration, the empress helped bolster an already thriving empire. She also began to eliminate people who dared oppose her, replacing them with her supporters. Emperor Kao-tsung became aware of what she was doing, but historians believe he was either afraid of her or powerless to stop her. In 660 Kao-tsung, just 32 years old, had a debilitating stroke. He survived, but Empress Wu now essentially took his place, becoming the actual, if not the named, ruler of China. That still wasn’t enough.

ONE MORE STEP

Wu now began a brutal purge of the royal court. Anyone who opposed her was imprisoned, exiled, or executed—including family members. When the emperor finally died in 683, Wu’s eldest son, Hung, would have been first in line for the throne. (By this time she had four sons.) But he was already gone, having died mysteriously a year earlier after complaining about his mother’s rule. Her second son was also out of the picture; he had once complained about an affair his mother was having, so she had him exiled (he eventually committed suicide). The third son, Li Xian, was put on the throne…and was exiled 54 days later, apparently too difficult for the empress to control. That left the fourth son, Li Dan, to become emperor—in name only—and to carry out his mother’s wishes.

The favorite pizza topping in Australia: eggs.

By 690 Wu Zetian had eliminated enough of her enemies to do what had never been done by a woman in Chinese history: she deposed her puppet son and declared herself the sole ruler of China—giving herself the male name Emperor Shengshen.

BIG WU

Emperor Shengshen declared the end of the T’ang Dynasty and a return to the Zhou Dynasty (Wu Zetian believed herself to be descended from the ancient Zhou emperors). She ruled China for the next 15 years. It was an ironically brutal rule during which she spread the compassionate teachings of Buddhism while ruthlessly butchering her enemies. In 695 she expanded her royal name, taking the Buddhist title Emperor Tiance Jinlun Shengshen—the Divine Emperor Who Rules the Universe. In 705, now 80 years old, her rule was ended by a successful palace coup. Her third son once again became emperor, ending the Zhou Dynasty after having just one ruler and restoring the T’ang Dynasty. She died nine months later.

Wu Zetian was vilified by Chinese scholars for centuries after her rule. Stories of her brutality and “immoral behavior” may even be false histories written by her critics in the centuries following her death. Many historians point out that her actions as ruler stand out only because she was a woman and were not very different from the actions of male emperors of the time. In all, the former concubine ruled China for nearly 45 years, 15 of them as emperor. No woman would ever rule China again.

Bad omen: General Custer once accidentally shot his own horse during a buffalo hunt.

HOAX!

Everything you read on this page is true. Or is it?

S
HOPPING FOR ATTENTION

Background:
A new piece of ancient artwork turned up in the British Museum in 2005. The artifact was a rock bearing painted images of animals, a man, and an unusual tool. The sign beneath it read: “Early man venturing towards the out-of-town hunting grounds.”

Exposed!
The “tool” in the picture was a shopping cart; the “artifact” had been secretly placed there by British hoax artist Banksymus Maximus, also known as “Banksy.” He designed it to look like the authentic ancient pieces in the museum—and it stayed up for three days before “experts” at the museum noticed it. (The sign on the piece also dated it to “the Post-Catatonic era.”) The museum took the hoax in good humor, and even returned the piece to the artist. It quickly went up at Banksy’s latest show at another museum, with the label “On loan from the British Museum.”