History’s Greatest Flip Flops
Sometimes the first thought is the best one, but often it is not.
1. King Sneferu (c. 2600 BC) changed his mind halfway through the building of his pyramid. He originally wanted it to be 55 degrees to celebrate his birthday, but then thought people should think he was a younger 43.
2. Shakespeare hummed and hawed while writing Hamlet’s soliloquy. Before deciding on the final draft he tossed around the lines, “Hey, it could be worse,” and “Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish.”
3. European history would have been much different had Archduke Ferdinand decided to to take the route his WAZE app suggested.
4. Apparently, there had been a heated argument about who would get to carry which gifts to baby Jesus. Balthazar wanted the frankincense but then thought myrrh was a much better gift, and a great answer to the Jerusalem Times Wordle.
5. Russian debated whether to sell Alaska to the United States. One called it a land of swamp and rocks, while another said it would jumpstart the bridge construction industry. Finally a decision was made on the advice, “It’s not like it’s full of gold or anything.”
6. Ptolemy had a hunch his solar system model was wrong when he entered it in the high school science fair but thought it looked cooler than that nerd Copernicus’s with the yellow styrofoam ball in the middle, that he obviously got from the Michaels store.
7. The original inventor of the flying disc thought up the name Frisbee first but then let that trademark lapse when he decided on calling it a Flingy Thingy.
-Leon
Leon Stevens is a multi-genre author, composer, guitarist, songwriter, and an artist, with a Bachelor of Music and Education. He published his first book of poetry, Lines by Leon: Poems, Prose, and Pictures in January 2020, followed by a book of original classical guitar compositions, Journeys, and a short story collection of science fiction/post-apocalyptic tales called The Knot at the End of the Rope and Other Short Stories. His newest publications are the novella trilogy, The View from Here, which is a continuation of one of his short stories, a new collection of poetry titled, A Wonder of Words, and his latest sci-fi mystery, Euphrates Vanished.
My new book page: http://books.linesbyleon.com/
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