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.