History jokes, famous anecdotes and short funny stories. Dogs, cats and other animals featured in jokes
The Poor Animal: a Prisoner's Dog
Wednesday, April 16, 2008, 02:04 PM - Dogs, Cats and other Animals featured in Jokes, Life and Death
FATAL SYMPATHY. One of the prisoners in the Port Royal, or Port Libre, during the government of Robespierre, had brought a favorite dog with him to prison. The poor animal ate, drank, and slept, with its master, until it was deprived of him by a denunciation from one of the prison spies, and his consequent death. The dog now became an interesting object in the prison, and was caressed by everybody. One gentleman in particular, an intimate friend of the deceased, was overheard by one of these guillotine providers, as he was apostrophizing the poor beast in the following terms : "Poor fellow, what will now become of you 1 Your friend and master is gone." The eaves-dropper came up and said, " You, sir, who seem so much interested in the fate of this dog and his master, look to yourself ; we shall contrive to settle your business." This threat was verified in a short time ; the poor man's compassion for the dog cost him his life.
From Percy Anecdotes
Dog training ideas
P.T. Barnum's Elephant
Tuesday, April 8, 2008, 06:28 PM - American history in jokes,anecdotes and funny facts, Best Funny Short Stories in History, Dogs, Cats and other Animals featured in Jokes, Jokes and anecdotes of famous people
P. T. Barnum, the famed American circus entrepreneur and the reputed originator of the phrase "There's a sucker born every minute", at one point used an elephant to draw a plow at his private farm. A bewildered neighbor, although a friend of the circus man, got into an argument with Barnum about the appropriateness of this enterprise. Barnum expressed his view that an elephant is after all just another working animal on the farm.
Isaac Newton and his dog
Wednesday, March 26, 2008, 12:28 AM - British humor, history of England, Dogs, Cats and other Animals featured in Jokes
While Newton was attending divine service in a winter
morning, he had left in his study a favourite little
dog called Diamond. Upon returning from chapel
he found that it had overturned a lighted taper on
his desk, which set fire to several papers on which
he had recorded the results of some optical experiments.
These papers are said to have contained the
labours of many years, and it has been stated that
when Mr. Newton perceived the magnitude of his loss,
he exclaimed, " Oh, Diamond, Diamond, little do you
know the mischief you have done me!"
From The Life of Sir Isaac Newton by David Brewster
Sir Isaac Newton and the Apple
The Oxford Dragon
Tuesday, March 4, 2008, 09:30 PM - British humor, history of England, College humor, Dogs, Cats and other Animals featured in Jokes, Modern Age History, Practical Jokes and Silly Pranks
Jacob Bobart the younger, and son of a German
horticulturist of the same name, who superintended
the Physic Garden in Oxford, in the
seventeenth century, once played an ingenious
hoax on the learned of that university. He
found a large dead rat in the garden, and transformed
it by art into the shape of a dragon, as
represented in old and curious books of natural
history, particularly in Aldrovandus. This was
shown to various learned men, all of whom believed
it to be a genuine and invaluable specimen
of the dragon. Many fine copies of verses were
written by the literati, in honor of Bobart and
his matchless discovery, and persons flocked
from all parts to see it. Bobart owned the cheat
some years after, but it was for a long time preserved
as a masterpiece of art.
From The Percy Anecdotes