Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far) Read Free

with regard to Spain being a major world power.
    Meanwhile, exciting progress was being made in Russia, which had decided, after centuries of operating under the Marauding Horde System of government, to switch over to the Lone Homicidal Psychopath System, choosing as its first leader Ivan the Terrible (son of Becky the Terrible). And speaking of progress, in the…
    1600s
    â€¦humanity’s understanding of the universe took a giant leap forward. It had long been theorized that the Earth orbited around the sun, but there had been no proof until one night in 1609 when an astronomer named Galileo, who had just invented a new device called the “telescope,” peered through it and discovered that he could see directly into the bedroom window of a woman who lived nearly five hundred feet away. As a result, many guys became interested in astronomy. Or so they told their wives.
    Another important scientific advance occurred in 1614 when the logarithm was invented by Scottish mathematician John Napier. Someday, when time travel is invented, high-school students will go back and kill him.
    But the greatest scientific advance of the century came in 1687, when Sir Isaac Newton, after watching an apple fall off a tree, wrote his famous Principia Mathematica, which states that there is a universal force, called “gravity,” inside apples. Later scientists would expand this definition to include grapefruit, but the basic concept remains unchanged to this day.
    On the political front, 1618 marked the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War, in which the German Protestants joined forces with France, Sweden, Denmark, Wisconsin, and the San Diego Chargers to fight against the old Holy Roman Empire, which was led by the Hapsburgs (Stan and Louise). The fighting went on until 1648, when the combatants realized that they would either have to stop fighting or change the name of the war. This led to the Peace of Westphalia, under which the various parties formally agreed that the letters in HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE could be rearranged to spell O RIPEN MY ARM-HOLE, thus paving the way for Europe as we know it today.
    At this time, France was experiencing its glory years under Louis XIV, who became known as the “Sun King” because he was more than two million miles in circumference. But things were not so good for England, which in 1665 suffered through the Great Plague of London, which was followed in 1666 by the Great Fire of London, which was followed in 1667 by the first recorded attack on London by Godzilla.
    Nevertheless, there was hope, and that hope was focused on the New World, where a group of hardy settlers had founded the first permanent English colony in Jamestown, Va., where the Native Americans introduced them to a local plant with broad leaves. The Virginians found that when these leaves were cured, shredded, and smoked in a pipe, they tasted terrible.
    â€œThat’s because it’s corn, you morons,” pointed out the Native Americans. So things looked bad for the colonists, but then they discovered tobacco, which was not as bad, and which was introduced to consumers back in England via a media campaign using the slogan “Tobacco—Eventually, You Stop Throwing Up.” This marked the dawn of modern marketing.
    Meanwhile, two other famous settlements were being established farther up the North American coast. One was an island on the north end of what we now call New York Bay, which the Dutch settler Peter Minuit purchased from the Manhattan Indians for $24, plus $167,000 a month in maintenance fees. Minuit named this settlement “New Amsterdam,” although after it was taken over by the English it became known by the name that has become synonymous with urban greatness: “Easter Island.”
    The other famous settlement was of course Plymouth Colony, which was founded by Puritans, a group of religious separatists who sailed across the Atlantic in search of a place where they