The Flip Side of History: Strange News, Hard-to-Believe Headlines, and Other Curious Stories from History

by Steve Silverman

Overview

Amazing forgotten true stories from the creator of the Useless Information blog and podcast.

A prominent lawyer leaves his entire estate to a town for the establishment of a library that forbids women—setting off riots, arrests, and the near hanging of a judge.

The amazing story of the only person rescued from slavery by the Underground Railroad four times.

That time a man in the 1950s stole hundreds of women’s shoes in Coronado and San Diego, California. The shoes, most of them the left shoe, were found dispersed randomly all over town.

There are so many historical facts and stories that get left out of textbooks. Now the author of Einstein’s Refrigerator and host of the popular Useless Information podcast, Steve Silverman, presents a collection of fun facts and strange news—some that made headlines and others that have been lost to history—that highlight the quirks, complexities, and curiousness of humankind.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642502213
Publisher:	Mango Media
Publication date:	07/14/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	330
Sales rank:	933,914
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Steve Silverman has been a highly-regarded science teacher at Chatham High School in upstate New York for the past twenty-nine years and will retire in June 2020. Each year, on the second Tuesday in May, a number of students dress up as Mr. Silverman to celebrate Steve Silverman Day. He has previously published Einstein’s Refrigerator and Lindbergh's Artificial Heart. His collection of unusual stories began with a desire to add some pizazz to his classroom lectures. As an early adopter of the internet, he quickly took advantage of the new opportunities that the World Wide Web offered and began to post some of his favorite stories online. His Useless Information blog was one of the first 25,000 websites ever. Few people noticed that the website existed until Yahoo! chose it as its Pick of the Week on July 9, 1997. In January 2008, the Useless Information Podcast was started and its audience has continued to grow ever since. The topics chosen for this book are a good reflection of the author’s personality. First, his role as an educator is clearly evident in his writing style. The stories are humorous and fun to read, yet they unsuspectingly educate the reader at the same time.