For armchair admirals, history buffs, and naval enthusiasts everywhere, A Naval Miscellany is an indispensible and entertaining collection of fascinating and little-known facts, anecdotes, lists, curiosities and stories from our naval past. Forgotten heroes, amazing blunders, surprising trivia, and strange-but-true stories are all included. Who were the naval heroes of the ancient world, and the world's worst admirals? How much did a midshipman get paid in the eighteenth century? What are the origins of sea shanties? Where are the biggest naval bases in the world today? And how does a ship float? It's all here in this little book that will amaze and enlighten even the most avid student of naval history!

For armchair generals, history buffs, and military enthusiasts everywhere, A Military Miscellany is an essential and entertaining collection of fascinating and little-known facts, anecdotes, lists, and stories from America’s rich military legacy. Forgotten heroes, amazing blunders, surprising trivia, and strange-but-true stories overlooked by historians, it’s all here in a book that will enlighten and amaze even the most avid student of American military history. Did you know that American soldiers have been sent to invade foreign nations or their territories more than two hundred times since Thomas Jefferson dispatched troops to North Africa in 1803 to punish Muslim pirates? Or that during the Vietnam War a can opener was called a John Wayne? Or that a downed World War II airman once trekked across Germany, through occupied France, and across the mountains into Spain to avoid capture–only to be treated as a spy because Allied military intelligence said it couldn’t be done? Open this book anywhere and you’ll find yourself instantly captivated. From the "peace president" who was our most frequent practitioner of gunboat diplomacy to the Revolutionary War hero whose refusal to cut his hair set off a four-year rebellion that went all the way to the White House, there’s plenty of fascinating lore here–from the monumental to the trivial–in an indispensable encyclopedic work that takes up where ordinary history books leave off.

Impossible to read at one sitting, but utterly unputdownable, Schott's Original Miscellany is a unique collection of fabulous trivia. What other book boasts an index that includes shoelace lengths, sign language, and the seven deadly sins; dueling and dwarves; the hair color of Miss America and the Hampton Court maze? Where else can you find, packed onto one page, the names of golf strokes, a history of the Hat Tax, cricketing dismissals, nouns of assemblage, an unofficial motto of the US Postal Service, and the flag of Guadeloupe? Where else but Schott's Original Miscellany will you stumble across John Lennon's cat, the supplier of bagpipes to the Queen, the labors of Hercules, and the brutal methods of murder encountered by Miss Marple? A book like no other, Schott's Original Miscellany is entertaining, informative, unpredictable, and utterly addictive.