History Jokes: A Stamp for King George

George V, an avid stamp collector, was with his private secretary one afternoon when his secretary remarked,"I see in The Times today that some damn fool has given fourteen hundred pounds for a single stamp at a private sale." The king replied, "I am that damn fool."

While in France, Benjamin Franklin often played chess with an elderly duchess. Once, after he put her king in check and taking it, she reprimanded him by saying, "We do not take kings so". "We do in America", Franklin responded matter-of-factly.

Richardson, in his anecdotes of painting, says, a gentleman came to me to invite me to his house: "I have," says he, "a picture of Rubens, and it is a rare good one. There is little H. the other day came to see it, and says it is a copy. If any one says so again, I'll break his head. Pray, Mr. Richardson, will you do me the favour to come, and give me your real opinion of it?"

A visitor at a Ford factory in Dearborn, Michigan had the good fortune of encountering Henry Ford himself, who, demonstrating a newly finished automobile, proudly stated that there were "exactly forty-seven hundred and nineteen parts in that model."

Impressed by Ford's exhaustive wealth of knowledge, the visitor located a company engineer and asked the man for confirmation: Were there in fact exactly forty-seven hundred and nineteen parts in that model?

The engineer shrugged his shoulders. "I certainly don't know," he replied. "I can't think of a more useless piece of information!"

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, enjoyed practical jokes. He is said to have once sent a telegram to twelve of his friends, all people of great significance and power. The telegram said: 'Flee at once, the secret is discovered'. Within 24 hours all twelve had left the country.