If history were a person, it'd be a stuffy old white guy in an ascot who still says the word "orientals." Or so historians would have you believe. In reality, history is more like a toga-wearing frat boy named Moose who duct-tapes malt liquor bottles to his hands before he gropes you. See, some of the most serious moments in history were total farces behind the scenes. Like how ...

如果歷史是一個人，那他一定是一個打著寬領(lǐng)帶，嘴里念叨著“東方人的”的老白人，或者是歷史學(xué)家會讓你這么覺得。實際上，歷史更像是一個穿著袍子兄弟會男孩，名字叫做穆斯，還會在摸你之前用管子將麥牙酒瓶綁在手上?？?，一些最嚴肅的歷史瞬間的背后完全是鬧劇。就像...
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5
The Manhattan Project's Safety Standards Were So Bad That A Guy Once Accidentally Swallowed Plutonium

曼哈頓工程的安全標準非常糟糕，一個家伙竟偶然吞下了钚

One would assume the Manhattan Project had some rigorous safety standards, what with the atomic bombs and all.
One would be wrong.

人們會認為由于事關(guān)原子彈和其它原子器，所以曼哈頓工程會有著嚴格的安全標準。
人們錯了。
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An example: During one of the project's critical experiments, the only thing keeping the whole shebang from going nuclear was a single screwdriver held by a nearby technician. Naturally, the screwdriver slipped, and the plutonium went critical, killing the technician.
This happened twice.
They nicknamed it the "demon core," because it was easier to blame the deaths on an evil experiment rather than horribly lax safety protocols.

舉個例子：在該項目的一次臨界測試的實驗期間，唯一阻止所有的一切變成原子級的物什就是一把技術(shù)員手里的螺絲刀。自然，那個螺絲刀滑落下來，钚變成臨界態(tài)，殺死了這個技術(shù)員。
這種事情發(fā)生了兩次。
他們昵稱其為“惡魔核心”，因為將造成死亡的過錯歸咎于邪惡的實驗比起歸咎于松散的安全規(guī)章要更為容易。
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And then there was the case of scientist Don Mastick, who once picked up a vial of plutonium, unaware that some of the liquid inside had converted into gas. When he tried to uncork it, the vial popped open and sent plutonium spewing into his mouth. He washed his mouth out with sodium citrate and repeatedly pumped his stomach, then handed the contents to a colleague and told him to go separate out the precious plutonium. No point wasting it, right?
Mastick survived without any major health problems, though for days afterward, his breath remained so radioactive that it could affect sensitive lab equipment from across the room. Did he use his powers to briefly fight crime as a superpowered vigilante? History doesn't say, so we're forced to assume that yes, he did, and further that his name was Dr. Meltmouth.

下面就是馬斯蒂克先生的案例了，他拿起了一瓶钚，渾然未覺里面有些液體已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)化成了氣態(tài)。當他試圖打開時，小瓶呯地一下就開了，將钚噴進了他的嘴里。他用檸檬酸鈉沖洗嘴巴，反復(fù)地洗胃，然后把吐出來東西交給了一個同事，讓他去把寶貴的钚分離出來。沒理由浪費的，對吧？
馬斯蒂克幸存了下來，身體也沒有大恙，雖然接下來的幾天里，他的呼吸仍帶有放射性，會從房間對面影響到整個實驗室的敏感的設(shè)備。
他有用他的暫時的超能力去像一個超能警察那樣打擊犯罪嗎？歷史沒有說，所以我們只能去假設(shè)他這樣做了，進一步設(shè)想，他的名字叫做曼哈頓博士。
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4

略

3
LBJ Announced The First African American Presidential Secretary By Having Her Stump Contestants On A Game Show

約翰遜宣告了第一任非裔總統(tǒng)秘書，通過讓她在一場游戲表演中挑戰(zhàn)競爭對手

Geraldine "Gerri" Whittington broke barriers when she became the first African American executive secretary to the president. Since the president in question was Lyndon "Let Me Show You My" Johnson, you can bet that he handled the announcement like only he could.
First, he broke the news to Whittington by cold-calling her at 10 p.m. and asking her to come to the White House. Once she got there, Johnson told her about the promotion, and that he intended to announce it by having her appear on the hit game show What's My Line?, which featured celebrity panelists trying to guess the occupation of mystery guests.
She waited for him to laugh.
He did not.
See, Johnson didn't want to hold a big press conference to announce his new hire, because that would've been the presidential equivalent of boasting about your one black friend. Johnson also knew that What's My Line? would get way bigger ratings than any press conference, though his plans were almost spoiled when Jet broke the news of Whittington's appointment with a full-page profile ...

杰拉格爾丁·“格里”·惠廷頓打破障礙成為了第一個非裔總經(jīng)行政秘書。因為問題中的總統(tǒng)是林登·讓你看看我的·約翰遜，所以你可以打賭他操辦了相關(guān)新聞發(fā)布會，就像只有他能似的。
首先，他冷不丁地在晚上十點給惠廷頓打電話爆料，讓她到白宮來?；萃㈩D一到，約翰遜告訴了她升職的事，還有打算要通過讓她在猜謎游戲明星猜猜看（What's My Line）現(xiàn)身，這個節(jié)以讓一組名人猜神秘來賓的職業(yè)為特色。
她等著他笑。
他沒有笑。
看，約翰遜不想通過大型新聞發(fā)布會來宣布他的新任命，因為吹噓一個黑人朋友，這才是配得上總統(tǒng)身份的做法。約翰遜知道明星猜猜看是什么嗎？這樣會比新聞發(fā)布會獲得的收視率更高嗎，雖然杰特用整版版面爆料了惠廷頓的任命，幾乎使得約翰遜的計劃破產(chǎn)。
幸運的是，即使是在雜志的時代里，也沒人去讀雜志。
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Luckily, even in the age of magazines, nobody read magazines.
Whittington appeared on the show as planned. Journalist Dorothy Kilgallen eventually guessed that she was a secretary in the White House, and that's how racism was ended forever.

惠廷頓按計劃出現(xiàn)在了節(jié)目里。記者桃樂茜·基爾加倫最終猜中了她是一名白宮秘書，而種族主義也自此消亡。

2
Civil War Soldiers Continually Stopped Fighting ... To Watch Fistfights

內(nèi)戰(zhàn)士兵們逐漸地停止戰(zhàn)斗...來觀看格斗賽

During the extremely bloody Battle of the Wilderness, one unx and one Confederate soldier ended up hiding together in the same gully. Naturally, they tried to take each other prisoner, which devolved into a bare-knuckle boxing match.
Eventually, the fight spilled into view of the rest of the battle, which promptly came to a halt as both sides stopped firing ... so they could get closer to the fight and cheer for their boy. The Confederate fighter won and took the Yankee prisoner, as was agreed upon before the fight.

在整個懷爾德尼斯的血腥戰(zhàn)斗期間，一名聯(lián)邦士兵和一名同盟士兵都不再躲在溝里。自然地，他們都試圖俘虜對方，最終演變成了一場徒手搏擊賽。最終這場搏斗加入了戰(zhàn)爭中的其他人觀看，兩方士兵都停止了開火，戰(zhàn)斗就這么產(chǎn)生了空檔，這樣他們才能近距離觀看格斗，并為已方選手加油。最終同盟軍的選手贏了，把北方佬俘虜了，就像賽前約定的那樣。

A similar report came out of 1862, in a battle near Fredericksburg, wherein a Wisconsin regiment had gotten into a shootout with the Confederates that somehow became personal for two soldiers. A makeshift truce was called solely so the two soldiers could punch each other in the face in relative peace. A few missing teeth and bruised kidneys later, and the fight was declared a draw, and anyway, that's probably how the Civil War ended.

1862年也有一個相似的報道，弗雷德里克斯堡附近的一場戰(zhàn)斗，其中威斯康星州一個兵團同同盟軍進行交火，最終也演變成了兩個士兵之間的私人戰(zhàn)斗。雙方暫時停戰(zhàn)，讓兩士兵能夠?qū)捫牡匕讶^往對方臉上招呼。在掉了幾顆牙，而且腎臟也受傷后，這場戰(zhàn)斗平局收場，不管怎么說，這也可能是內(nèi)戰(zhàn)結(jié)束的原因。

1
The Soviets Grabbed A Random Peasant Off The Street And Took Him To Negotiate Russia Pulling Out Of World War I

蘇聯(lián)人隨時從大街上抓了一個農(nóng)民，讓他去談關(guān)于蘇聯(lián)退出一戰(zhàn)的相關(guān)事宜
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In 1917, Lenin's Bolsheviks seized control of Moscow, and decided to try to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Russians with the bold new policy of not making them run straight at German machine guns. To that end, they scheduled a peace conference in Brest-Litovsk to end Russian involvement in the First World War. Although the delegation was led by prominent activists, the Bolsheviks made a point of also bringing a soldier, a sailor, and an urban worker to really hammer home that Com...ism was all about the good of the common people.
But you know how it goes when packing for a trip -- something always gets forgotten. In this case, the politicians were on their way to the train station when they realized they had forgotten to bring a peasant!

在1917年，列寧的布爾什維克黨奪取了莫斯科的控制權(quán)，為了贏得民心，列寧決定采取一個醒目的政策，即不再讓人民去面對德國人的槍口。為此，他們計劃在布雷斯特-立托夫斯克來談讓俄國退出一戰(zhàn)的事。雖然代表團由一個杰出的政治活動家?guī)ш?，但是布爾什維克還是決定再帶上一個士兵，一個水手和一名城市工人來宣示共產(chǎn)主義完全是為了大眾好。
但你知道當準備行裝的時候會發(fā)生的事——總是會有什么落下。在本例中，政治家已經(jīng)到了車站了才想起來還差一個農(nóng)民！


So they cruised around town until they spotted an elderly guy in shitty clothes, lured him into the car with promises of beets or something, and then told him he was coming to negotiate peace with the Germans. That man was Roman Stashkov, and he was only trying to get back to his village when he suddenly found himself sitting across from European royalty. He rolled with it pretty well, although he apparently kept addressing the other delegates as "master," and when asked whether he wanted red or white wine, he inquired, "which one is the strongest?"

他們沿著城鎮(zhèn)到處找，直到發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個衣著破爛的老人，用甜菜或者其它什么承諾將老人騙上車后才告訴他要去和德國談和平。這個老人叫做羅曼·斯塔什科夫，這個老人發(fā)現(xiàn)坐在對面的人是歐洲皇室的時候，唯一想做的事就是回家。雖然他還是稱呼代表團其他成員為“大人”，但他表現(xiàn)得還好，當問起他想要喝紅葡萄酒還是白葡萄酒的時候，他問道：“哪種勁兒大？”
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