Lewis Lapham

An Italian with a passion rode through southern Germany in the winter of 1417. His destination was a remote monastery likely to have a library full of neglected manuscripts. On this journey, Poggio Bracciolini dusted off an epic that changed the world.

The Rome of Ovid’s time was devoted to self-indulgence. Aristocrats amused themselves with endless parties, theatrical performances, circuses and sexual adventures.

With a ragtag band of his Green Mountain Boys, Ethan Allen launched a pre-dawn attack on the greatest fortress in colonial America.

After his father ran up huge debts, German Margrave Casimir forced him to abdicate and took over. He put the creditors in charge of running Brandenburg-Bayreuth, and they began squeezing the peasants, many of whom soon became hopelessly indebted themselves.

Though a flaming sword may keep us out forever, that has not stopped people from searching for the Garden of Eden. Paradise has been “found” in places as far- reaching as Iraq, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Florida, Missouri and the North Pole.

The U.S. love affair with the car pretty much began in 1893, when the first gasoline-powered Duryea Motor Wagon appeared. The horse-less carriage had many drawbacks: It was open to the weather, slow to stop and often tipped over. The one big advantage was the absence of a horse.

No one had a better understanding of the papal machinery than Rodrigo Borgia. A cardinal at age 25, he served in the Roman Curia under five popes, so when Innocent VIII died, he knew what to do: Four mules packed with bullion were sent to a crucial cardinal, and in 1492 Borgia duly became Alexander VI.

Dug into trenches behind massive rows of barbed wire at Loos, France, the Germans couldn’t believe their eyes on Sept. 26, 1915.

During the reign of Pope Alexander VI, the Vatican hosted “bunga bunga” parties each evening when more than 25 young women would be brought to the palace. Unlike other Popes, the lusty Alexander openly acknowledged his many children, the oldest of whom was Cesare Borgia.

The USS Hatteras was blockading the port of Galveston, Texas, during the Civil War, when a mystery ship appeared.

In 1660, the British ambassador to Constantinople, Heneage Finch, arrived for an audience with the sultan at the grand Topkapi Palace, where his entourage was fed sweetmeats. Gifts were exchanged with the Grand Vizier, and finally everyone went through the Gates of Felicity to enter the Inner Court.

Railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington was traveling in his private car along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe tracks when the train plowed into a young girl. When he saw that her right leg had been “cut off and mashed above the knee,” Huntington offered to pay for treatment.