Did you know there once was a craze for consuming a powdered mummy as a cure for any ailment? Or that Peter the Great put a tax on beards? History needn't be as boring as school textbooks have led you to believe These 40 strange-but-true stories prove that scattered between the famous milestones are tiny gems of incredible information just waiting to be discovered. Find out all about the 38-minute war and the time when Niagara Falls stopped falling. Learn which US president was shot--and died not from the bullet wound, but from his doctors' bungled efforts to save him. Forgotten, weird, and bizarre facts; unusual firsts and lasts; and a few unpalatable truths assure this illustrated collection will tickle the fancy of readers young and old.