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“Tragabigzanda was a rather large girl. Later on, Captain Smith named a portion of Massachusetts after her. [Footnote: This was afterwards changed to Cape Ann, because you really can't have a part of Massachusetts named Tragabigzanda. ]”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part VI: Now We're Getting Somewhere, Captain John Smith

“[About experts' disbelief that Egyptians could build pyramids] It hardly seems possible that the ancient Egyptians were as smart as these experts. Still, they went right ahead and did it, and you can draw your own conclusions.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part I: It Seems There Were Two Egyptians, Cheops, or Khufu

“[Footnote] Livy informs us that Hannibal split the huge Alpine rocks with vinegar to break a path for the elephants. Vinegar was a high explosive in 218 B. C., but not before or since.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Hannibal

“[Footnote:] The Dotterel weighs only four ounces. It has long been a scientific riddle how so much wrong-headedness can manage to exist in so small a space. Still, there's the Least Gnatcatcher.”

Will Cuppy

The Dotterel
How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes (1931)

“As for Lucrezia, there wasn't even a rumor in her own day that the strawberries at her Wednesday luncheons were dipped in sugar of lead and the other dishes tastefully sprayed with antimony, hellebore, corrosive sublimate, and deadly nightshade, all popular Renaissance flavors.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part III: Strange Bedfellows, Lucrezia Borgia

“The War of the Spanish Succession lasted thirteen years and would have been wonderful if it hadn't been for the Duke of Marlborough. Things went from bad to worse until just about anybody could defeat the French. On one occasion, Louis's favorite regiment was knocked out by a man named Lumley.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Louis XIV

“The more snuff Frederick took, the more memoirs he wrote. He loved literature, but not enough to let it alone and stop trying to improve it.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Frederick the Great

“Attila was now sixtyish. His mind was weakening and he decided to marry again, as he had been terribly misunderstood the first three hundred times.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part III: Strange Bedfellows, Attila the Hun

“The colonists, it seems, had to "pay taxes to which their consent had never been asked." [Footnote: Today we pay taxes but our consent has been asked, and we have told the government to go ahead and tax us all they want to. We like it. ]”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part V: Merrie England, George III

“[Footnote:] The head of a Pike, served at supper, is said to have caused the death from terror of Theodoric the Goth, who imagined the fish's features to be those of Symmachus, a man he had just killed. But for this story, we of today would have no idea what Symmachus looked like.”

Will Cuppy

The Pike
How to Become Extinct (1941)

“Egypt has been called the Gift of the Nile. Once every year the river overflows its banks, depositing a layer of rich alluvial soil on the parched ground. Then it recedes and soon the whole countryside, as far as the eye can reach, is covered with Egyptologists.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part I: It Seems There Were Two Egyptians, Cheops, or Khufu

“The Egyptians of the First Dynasty were already civilized in most respects. They had hieroglyphics, metal weapons for killing foreigners, numerous government officials, death, and taxes.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part I: It Seems There Were Two Egyptians, Cheops, or Khufu

“[on the Borgias' illegitimate births] All children are natural, but some are more so than others and are therefore known as natural children.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part III: Strange Bedfellows, Lucrezia Borgia

“[Footnote:] An Ant on a hot stove-lid runs faster than an Ant on a cold one. Who wouldn't?”

Will Cuppy

The Ant, from Insects for Everybody
How to Attract the Wombat (1949)

“The Ancient Egyptians considered it good luck to meet a swarm of Bees on the road. What they considered bad luck I couldn't say.”

Will Cuppy

The Bee, from Insects for Everybody
How to Attract the Wombat (1949)

“Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Alexander the Great

“Sartor Resartus is simply unreadable, and for me that always sort of spoils a book.”

Will Cuppy

How to Get from January to December (1951)

“Most of the original group [of elephants] succumbed to the climate, and he [Hannibal] was always begging Carthage for more, but the people at home were stingy. They would ask if he thought they were made of elephants and what he had done with the elephants they sent before. Sometimes, when he hadn't an elephant to his name, he would manage to wangle a few from somewhere, a feat which strikes me as his greatest claim to our attention.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Hannibal

“[Footnote:] A few Cobras in your home will soon clear it of Rats and Mice. Of course, you will still have the Cobras.”

Will Cuppy

The Cobra
How to Become Extinct (1941)

“During the Cretaceous Period many of the inland seas dried up, leaving the Plesiosaurs stranded without any fish. Just about that time Mother Nature scrapped the whole Age of Reptiles and called for a new deal. And you can see what she got. [Footnote: Here we see the working of another Law of Nature: No water, no fish. ]”

Will Cuppy

The Plesiosaur
How to Become Extinct (1941)