In 1914 a train pulled into a provincial British railway station. The porter, a curious chap, asked the regiment of soldiers where they were from. ` Ross-shire, ` one called down, but the porter heard ` Russia`. & so began a rumour that led to Germany losing the First World War. Often the history we learn at school is only half the story. We hear of heroic deeds & visionary leaders, but we never hear about the people who turned up late for court & thereby changed the law, or who stood in the wrong queue at university & accidentally won a Nobel Prize. The Great Cat Massacre: A History of Britain in 100 Mistakes demonstrates that the nation is as much a product of error as design. Through chapters on religion, law, culture, war, science & politics, it reveals such things as how an edict from Pope Gregory IX helped spread the Black Death, how the sister of cricketer John Willes invented overarm bowling, & how, had a letter not been lost, Disraeli might never have become prime minister. This book is history told through human failings, schoolboy errors, bad luck & extraordinary consequences; a history of mishearing, misdiagnosis & misinterpretation
- a history that you won`t find in the textbooks.