Subject: History of the World according to kids

The following newscript was taken from the May 1, 1995 edition of C&EN:

From the neighborhood of Chicago comes an unidentified document that purports to be a history of the world "pasted together...from genuine student bloopers collected by teachers throughout the U.S., from eighth grade through college level." Excerpts follow:

Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies, and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot.

David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Finkelsteins, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.

The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns - corinthian, ironic, and dorc - and built the Apocalypse. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth.

Queen Elizabeth was the Virgin Queen. As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted "hurrah." Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.

During the Renaissance, America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Fe...Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.

Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire invented electricity and also wrote a book called "Candy". Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees.

Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between, he practiced on an old spinster, which he kept up in his attic.

The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the east and the sun sets in the west.