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

murderous rampages with semiautomatic muskets.
    But the straw that finally pushed the camel over the edge of the cliff and caused the dam to burst came in 1773, when the British Parliament placed a tax on tea. In retaliation, a group of Boston patriots dressed up as Indians, sneaked aboard a ship, and threw its cargo into Boston Harbor. Unfortunately, this was a cruise ship and the cargo consisted of retired couples, many of whom were poor swimmers. But the die had been cast, and there was no way to put the shoe back on the other foot. The hostility between the colonies and the British government, headed by King Big Fat Stupid III, was bound to turn into violence, and, finally, on the fateful night of April 18, 1775, the Revolutionary War began when Paul Revere made his legendary “midnight ride,” galloping all the way from Boston to Lexington while shouting the message that would resound through the annals of history: “I CAN’T STOP MY HORSE!”
    This rallying cry united the colonies, which decided to hold a Continental Congress in Philadelphia, where, on July 4, 1776, the delegates, after passionate debate, signed the Gettysburg Address. To lead the Revolutionary Army, they chose a man named George Washington, who was known and respected throughout the colonies because his picture was on the dollar. Washington scored many important victories, most notably on the dark and bitter cold Christmas night of 1776, when he set out across the Delaware River in a small boat and, after several anxious minutes, discovered land, which he named “New Jersey,” after his mother.
    Finally, after many historic battles whose names all American schoolchildren should be forced to memorize before they are allowed to buy one more damn Pokemon card if you want our frank opinion, the British surrendered. At last, after years of oppression, all Americans were truly free! (Except for the slaves.)
    Soon the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were hard at work, and in 1788 the constitution they created underwent formal ratification, a complex legal procedure involving actual rats. And thus was born a new nation—a nation that would grow and prosper and ultimately become the mightiest nation that the world had ever seen, a shining beacon of hope that today is known throughout the world as “Easter Island.”
    This new spirit of freedom spread, in the words of the historian William Hickling Prescott, “like crazy.” It reached across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, where the French, warmly embracing the concept of democratic self-government, brotherhood, and equality under the law, whacked many people’s heads off.
    Yes, the times, as Bob Dylan (1746–present) once observed, were a-changing. And the pace of that change would only increase in the…
    1800s
    â€¦which started off with a “bang” in the form of the Louisiana Purchase, in which Thomas Jefferson bought 828,000 square miles from the French for just $15 million, including all appliances. (The French originally wanted $30 million, but they came way down on price when Jefferson pointed out that the parcel included North Dakota.) The newly acquired territory was then explored by two brothers, Lewis and Clark Expedition, who spent two arduous years traveling through the uncharted wilderness, forced to eat virtually every meal at the International House of Jerky. Finally, the Expeditions returned to Washington and presented Jefferson with a map that was amazingly accurate down to the smallest detail, because it was a map of Germany. And that was the beginning of the Interstate Highway System.
    But the fledgling nation was soon to find its very existence threatened with the outbreak of the War of 1812 (1807–10), during which the British marched into Washington, D.C., and, with the help of local residents, burned the Internal Revenue Service to the ground. Tragically, it was rebuilt, and eventually the British went back to