Respect yourself in the morning -- read One-Night Stands with American History!

This collection of little-known facts and anecdotes is American history with the boring parts left out. Richard Shenkman and Kurt Reiger have uncovered numerous stories about hoaxes, inventions, secrets, and rare incidents -- many involving the most famous and powerful people in America.

• President U. S. Grant was arrested for speeding in his horse carriage.
• J. Edgar Hoover refused to allow people to walk on his shadow.
• France shipped Louisiana twenty-five prostitutes because women were in short supply in 1721.
• H. L. Hunt won his first oil well in a game of five-card stud.

Even historians find that One-Night Stands with American History features fascinating stories they never knew. Now updated with facts and anecdotes from the last twenty years, this volume is a treasure trove of remarkable stories that will startle, entertain, and inform you. And the best part is that they're all true!

The truth and nothing but the truth--Richard Shenkman sheds light on America's most believed legends:

• The story of Columbus discovered that the world was round was invented by Washington Irving.

• The pilgrims never lived in log cabins.

• In Concord, Massachusetts, a third of all babies born in the twenty years before the Revolution were conceived out of wedlock.

• Washington may have never told a lie, but he loved to drink and dance, and he fell in love with his best friend's wife.

• Independence wasn't declared on July 4 (and the Liberty Bell was so little regarded that Philadelphia tried to sell it for scrap metal but nobody wanted it).

• After World War II, the U.S. Government concluded that Japan would have surrendered within months, even if we had not bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Bestselling author of Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History now takes on the world! Skewering the nonsense we were all taught about the world's revolutions, religions, heroes, and inventors, Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of World History is a whirlwind tour of history from the Trojan War to World War II. Eclectic and fun, Richard Shenkman's well-documented revelations prove that muck of history is indeed "but a fable agreed upon."

• Queen Victoria may have usually worn black, but she loved to drink and party.

• During World War II the English were conned into believing it was Winston Churchill who broadcast the speech about this being their finest hour. But it wasn't Churchill, it was Norman Shelley, a radio actor hired as a stand-in.

• Marie Antoinette did not say, "Let them eat cake," Churchill didn't coin the phrase "the Iron Curtain," and Caesar never said, "Et tu, Brute?"

• Scandal in the English monarchy is nothing new: Fifteen kings fathered children out of wedlock. One queen helped depose her husband so her lover could take his place. Three English kings were gay.

In this timely, illuminating, and often shocking book, Richard Shenkman reveals that it is not just recent presidents but all presidents who have been ambitious--and at times frighteningly so, willing to sacrifice their health, family, loyalty, and values. Presidential Ambition is a book that will permanently alter the way we think about past, present, and future American presidents.