A sunny and breezy day in Keller, TX, (thanks again, Taynar) allowed me to finish a very interesting book, That’s Not in My American History Book by Thomas Ayres. Ayres is an investigative reporter who has written for the Dallas Times Herald and has collected a lot of old stories, owing his interest to an encounter with Doug Storer, who wrote for Robert Ripley’s Believe It or Not! and Amazing But True.

Ayres begins his book with a note on the political correctness of history, where the victors of war often write the history books and extremism, even (especially?) in multiculturalism, taints the record of what really happened. The book is divided into five sections: Stories Lost Between the Pages, America’s Forgotten Heroes, The Underside of History, Little-Known Facts about Famous People, and Myths That Become History.

The facts in these pages are intriguing even for those less interested in history: Betsy Ross likely did not sew the first American Flag. Horseflies likely hastened the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Constantino Brumidi painted most of the frescoes in the Capital’s great rotunda, lying on his back for long periods of similar to Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. The James gang collected (only?) $90,000 in proceeds from their bank robberies. President Woodrow Wilson drew up football plays and invented the reverse. The men at Custer’s Last Stand were not only outnumbered, but a large number drank whiskey instead of water. The legend of Belle Star came from a fiction writer who heard of a woman who claimed she was an outlaw queen…and this is the start of it.

The stories are very easily read, like the stories in Believe It or Not! or Paul Harvey’s The Rest of The Story. They are short, ranging from 3-6 pages. While the book is well indexed, it didn’t contain any references to back up the statements in these stories. It is impossible to directly corroborate with other sources, and this is the book’s only downside.

I enjoyed the book and read it quickly, which is comforting to me after having read the likes of William F. Buckley. The tone has some light humor and is slightly sarcastic regarding the history education in public schools. This book was an impulse buy from a Barnes & Noble, and the $14.95 list is money well spent.