I love it when history is used in standup acts or other comedy. I like to think that it means we are such a historically literate society that we find jokes about George Washington funny, but it probably means I'm just a geek.
Anyways, two recent history comedy occurrences brought this to mind. The first was on Last Comic Standing last night. Comedian Gary Gulman's act claimed that he had a dream where he was a history professor at an elite university in the Northeast and he was having problems with his girlfriend because she was failing his class. When she came to his office hours and offered to do anything to pass his class, he got all excited and told her to write a 12 page paper on the industrial revolution and get a 70 on the final. Yea... the industrial revolution that is what turns history profs on. (Okay - my explanation is not quite as funny as actually watching the act.)
Second occurrence is story in the Onion titled: Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years of American Independence. I especially liked the paragraph that explains how the U.S. defeated the British in the war:
The special anniversary tribute refutes many myths about the period and American history. According to the entry, the American Revolution was in fact instigated by Chuck Norris, who incinerated the Stamp Act by looking at it, then roundhouse-kicked the entire British army into the Atlantic Ocean. A group of Massachusetts Minutemaids then unleashed the zombie-generating T-Virus on London, crippling the British economy and severely limiting its naval capabilities.
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