By Ron Bingham
British historian and comedian Paul Coulter (who lives in Australia) chooses five points in history when a mistake had profound repercussions. The five mistakes he has chosen to regale us with are:
- The death of Alexander The Great.
- The introduction of tomatoes to Europe.
- A Missisippi (sic) steamship captain being distracted in 1850 ( Paul never specified the river, but they ended up in New Orleans and I wanted to see if I could spell Missisippi (sic) – I’m not checking [ See me after class – Editor Squirrel] ) which led to a young Annie Oakley taking centre stage.
- The Meiji Emperor seeking advice on how to advance Japan to catch up with the rest of the world in the 1870s.
- A young Winston Churchill on a disastrous yet ultimately successful mission to South Africa during the Boer War.
The stories are illustrated by pictures and videos (and some distracting side stories) including a number of visual jokes. The best picture was of a young Paul wearing his self-made English Civil War armour and helmet, which he wore to school for a week, apparently. We couldn’t see the scars.
Paul kept the full house engaged and laughing for the whole hour. I’m sure even people who hated history at school will get some entertainment out of this. For us history nerds, it was excellent.
5 Mistakes That Changed History is on at Assembly George Square Studios until August 25
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/5-mistakes-that-changed-history