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Cleopatra Lived Closer to the Computer Age than to the Pyramids, and Other Atypical History Facts

Khalid Elhassan December 30, 2019 33 min

1. Betty White Is Actually Not the Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread

Improvements to the slicing machine made the loaves appear less sloppy, and sliced bread eventually gained in popularity until it became an American staple. By then, the early and over-the-top advertising puffery had caught on with the public, and made the introduction of sliced bread a marker and frame of reference in the popular lexicon for subsequent claims of greatness.

So, could Betty White possibly be the greatest thing since sliced bread? Well, America’s sweetheart and a most beloved grandmotherly icon was born on January 17^th, 1922. That was about six and a half years before the Chillicothe Baking Company sold its first loaf of sliced bread, on July 7^th, 1928. Since her birth predates sliced bread, it follows that Betty White could not be the best thing sliced bread. Thus, as a matter of straightforward historic fact, the answer must be in the negative: Betty White is not the best thing since sliced bread. However, sliced bread can make the argument that it is the best thing since Betty White.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

BBC – Trial by Ordeal: When Fire and Water Determined Guilt

Buzzfeed – 16 Strange and Surprising Facts About Medieval England

Cracked – 44 Important Parts of History You’re Picturing Wrong

Encyclopedia Britannica – Albert Einstein

Harvard Magazine, July-August 2003 – Who Built the Pyramids?

Historia Cartarum – What Does a Stick of Eels Get You?

History Extra – 8 Things You (Probably) Didn’t Know About Medieval Elections

Houston Chronicle – Historical Events You Had No Idea Happened at Around the Same Time

Huffington Post – 8 Surprising Historical Facts That Will Change Your Concept of Time Forever

Live Science – Albert Einstein: The Life of a Brilliant Physicist

Mental Floss – France Stopped Using the Guillotine as Star Wars Premiered

National Geographic – Doggerland, The Europe That Was

National Geographic, November 1^st, 2016 – Here’s What Happened the Last Time the Cubs Won a World Series

Ranker – Were Medieval People Really Drunk on Beer and Wine All the Time?

Time Magazine, July 7^th, 2015 – How Sliced Bread Became ‘The Greatest Thing’

Times of London, January 13^th, 2018 – Our Grandfather John Tyler, the US President Born in 1790

National Geographic Channel – Woolly Mammoths Wiped Out by Grass Invasion?

Wikipedia – Maudie Hopkins

Wikipedia – St Scholastica Day Riot

World Atlas – Did Woolly Mammoths Still Roam Parts of the Earth When the Great Pyramids Were Built?

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.