It was Henry's company, all right. It even bore his name. But in the business world, your investors own you. So, Henry's investors owned him. 

There were five of them, in fact, each having put up ten thousand dollars to get Henry's company started. "You're the designer," they told him. "You're the expert." In return for his designs and expertise, his backers awarded him a thousand shares of his own company's stock. Then, they stepped back and awaited results.

But here was the problem: everywhere Henry had gone in the past, he had a habit of working on his own personal projects during company time. Now, he was doing it again. The company had his own name on it, but as before, he was caught conducting personal business when he was supposed to be attending to corporate affairs.

Henry's investors, deeply concerned for the security of their investment, sought the advice of a much-respected local manufacturer named Leland. Mr. Leland agreed to visit Henry's company, assess the situation, and make a recommendation. And he did. The bottom-line result was that Henry was forced out of his own business.

If you think it's complicated up to here, it's going to get more so. But stay with me.

His backers, after forcing him out, gave Henry a $900 cash settlement on the condition that his designs stayed with the firm. Then, they showed him the door. The company was promptly renamed, and that, it seemed, would have been that.

But Henry, stung by this bitter setback, was nevertheless more determined than ever to succeed in his chosen field—the fledgling automobile industry. Six years later, in 1908, he presented to the American public the car that made him famous: the Model T.

Yes, of course. Henry was Henry Ford.

But this is the rest of the story.

Ford's first automobile company—the Henry Ford Company, the one he lost in 1902—continued to operate based on his own automotive blueprints. In other words, they kept making Ford cars, but they didn't call them Fords. One of the leading figures of that very company was Mr. Leland—Henry Leland—the Detroit manufacturer who had helped to oust Ford in the first place.

Well, Leland eventually left that corporation and started one of his own: the Lincoln Motor Company. But late in 1921, The Lincoln Motor Company filed for bankruptcy. Nobody wanted to bid on the assets.

Except, that's right—nobody wanted them except Henry Ford.

And there's something else you may have guessed: after acquiring The Lincoln Motor Company, Ford had its founder, Henry Leland, voted out and—quite rudely—evicted from the premises, personal belongings and all. Fair play, Ford decided; that was the way he himself had been treated by Leland.

Yet the poetic turnaround did not stop there.

You see, when Ford's early backers, in league with Henry Leland, had bounced him out of his company in 1902, they kept his automotive designs but changed the name. The Henry Ford Company was reborn as the Cadillac Automobile Company.

So now you see: the most prestigious Ford product, the Lincoln, came from the man who built the first Cadillac. But the first Cadillac was really a Ford.

And now you know… the rest of the story.

The Girl Who Tamed the Pharaoh's Army.

When Cecil B. DeMille filmed his epic The Ten Commandments—the original silent movie version of 1923—the production was a spectacle of almost unimaginable scale. Consider the chariot scenes alone: they required an entire week to shoot. At one point, DeMille was spending up to forty thousand dollars a day. The action sequences were lavish beyond compare.

To bring his vision to life, three hundred chariots were meticulously manufactured for the epic. Each was to be drawn by a team of stallions worth ten thousand dollars and driven by… well, that is the rest of the story.

C.B. DeMille needed hundreds of chariot drivers, but he faced a monumental problem: the art of charioteering had been a lost skill for millennia. Lacking anyone specifically trained for the task, DeMille recruited Hollywood cowboys and real-life soldiers. The cowboys knew their way around horses and had ample motion picture experience. The soldiers were rugged physical specimens from the 2nd Battalion of the 76th Field Artillery—"Presidio boys" from Monterey. In command of these soldiers was Lieutenant Tony McAuliffe, who would later become famous during World War II for his gallant stand at the Battle of the Bulge. But for now, there was another battle to be fought in the service of the Pharaoh's army.

At first, a friendly rivalry sprang up between the movie cowboys and the artillerymen, each group claiming superior skill at the reins of an Egyptian chariot. However, the challenge of chariot driving quickly proved more formidable than either had imagined. DeMille had even stationed a 20-piece orchestra on location to set the mood for the actors. On the first day of shooting, the chaos began. One driver lost control of his chariot and drove it straight through the string section, while his comrades collided in a massive, ancient-style traffic jam.

In fact, the Ten Commandments as millions eventually saw it was almost never completed. When DeMille later ordered his charioteers to charge down a steep, treacherous sand dune, they outright refused. These big, strong, brawny movie cowboys and those fierce fighting men from the United States Army itself took one look over the Southern California dune, another look at the tricky contraptions they were driving, and told DeMille unequivocally: no.

With an unprecedented movie budget at stake and time running out, what was director DeMille to do?

He turned to a stunt person and issued a command: "Take a chariot up on that high sand dune and drive it down."

At DeMille's demand, the task was performed. Not just once, but successfully and repeatedly, until the humiliated cowboys and soldiers were forced to admit that it could, indeed, be done. And with the cameras rolling, they finally did it for him.

He had chagrined his charioteers into action through the example—not of a stunt man—but of a stunt girl. To prove that the Pharaoh's army could safely do what they were told, this girl took the reins of a chariot and guided it over that towering dune without ever having performed a single movie stunt in her entire life.

The young lady who drove up and down that dune that afternoon, cheerfully and even giggling with laughter—the girl who led motion picture professionals and the United States Army into battle—was Cecilia DeMille, director Cecil B. DeMille's own daughter. She was twelve years old.

And now you know the rest of the story.

The story begins with three adventurers setting out on their journey in the violet darkness before dawn. Beneath a huge, pale moon and icy white stars, everywhere—everywhere—was snow. The village of Davos itself sat some five thousand feet up in the mountains, fast disappearing behind the travelers.

There were two brothers, natives of Davos named Branger, and a third, a foreigner named Arthur. It was because of him that they were making this historic attempt: to traverse the twelve treacherous miles across the Furka Pass to the village of Arosa… on skis. Never done before. No, sir, never done before. And it might have remained undone to this day, except for the rest of the story.

Arthur and Louise had the kind of happiness together that seemed unshakable, invincible. But then, Louise became seriously ill. Tuberculosis—the virulent type, sometimes called galloping consumption. The doctors they consulted rendered the same grim prognosis: Louise's condition would grow steadily worse, and within a few months at most, she would be dead.

Promptly, Arthur—a medical doctor himself—nonetheless indulged in what colleagues today call denial. Louise was not going to die, he said. What his wife needed, he decided, was fresh mountain air. So, the couple abandoned their new, big-city home. They packed up their belongings and their two small children, and they headed for the mountains.

When the family arrived in the snowy village of Davos in December of 1893, Arthur was concerned with one thing only: Louise's health. But as her condition quickly, dramatically, almost miraculously began to improve in the high, dry atmosphere, the good doctor, greatly relieved, began looking around him. And what amazed him was this little community's utter isolation.

There was another village only twelve miles away, for instance: the town of Arosa. And yet, such was the steep, snow-engulfed terrain between here and there that Arosa might as well have been on another planet.

And that is when Arthur, an expert skier, made up his mind to demonstrate for the local villagers how they might better visit their neighbors. Accompanied by the athletic Branger brothers, whom he had instructed in the use of Norwegian skis, Arthur glided out of Davos at 4:31 on a morning in late March, 1894.

Three hours later, the sun rose over the distant peaks, turning the night to gleaming white. Sometimes they shuffled sideways along the mountain face, where one careless move might send them plummeting a thousand feet. Other times, they soared down the valley slopes with the thin, brittle air singing in their ears.

Just past 11 o'clock, the townspeople of Arosa, searching the distance with binoculars, caught sight of the wayfarers skiing over the last precipice high above the fir tree forest. And as their incredible seven-hour expedition drew to a close, the villagers greeted them with cheers and back-slaps and "Well done!"

As for Arthur's death-sentenced wife, Louise, the change of environment—supplemented with mega-doses of love—kept her alive and thriving for a dozen years more.

But something else wonderful came from their therapeutic trip to the mountains. For the people of that region, once snowbound to their villages, were liberated by a daring sportsman named Arthur, who introduced their country to skis.

Do I mean to say that doctor-turned-writer Arthur—Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the world's most famous fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes—that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle introduced skiing to Switzerland?

That is precisely what I mean to say.

That is indeed… the rest of the story.

Of all the schools in New York, none was more prestigious for drama than the John Murray Anderson-Robert Milton School of the Theatre and Dance. One could tell its importance at a glance, from its imposing Georgian facade on East 58th Street, through its elaborate wrought-iron gates, and into its elegant foyer with parquet floors, wing chairs, and mahogany tables.

Its founders and faculty were legends. Producer John Murray Anderson was a theatrical giant on two continents. Directors Robert Milton, David Burton, James Light, and Frederick Stanhope were immensely respected masters of their craft. And so, the school became a mecca for innumerable aspiring actors, directors, playwrights, and designers—including one profoundly shy teenager named Diane Belmont.

To many of the students, Diane was known simply as "the girl in the back." So intimidated by the torrent of talent around her, she would often stand at the rear of the classroom or hide behind stage scenery, watching performances in quiet awe. Among the school's gifted pupils was a young firebrand named Bette Davis, whose original ideas and forceful delivery riveted everyone’s attention. Diane, the girl in the back, wished with all her heart to be like Bette. She never could, and so, eventually, did everyone else in the school.

Finally, one day, co-founder Robert Milton called Diane into his office. He was clearly exasperated.

"What on Earth brought you here in the first place?" he asked.

Diane thought for a moment, but she could not bring herself to tell Mr. Milton the rest of the story. For only a short while ago, she had been a soda jerk at a Walgreens. After being fired for leaving the banana out of a banana split, she resolved to try another line of work—something exciting, like modeling or acting. She did, in fact, land a part-time job modeling for the fashion designer Hattie Carnegie. It was then she had changed her name to Diane Belmont. But her true love was musical theater, and she thought that if only she were properly trained, she might be good enough to appear on Broadway someday.

That last part—the part about Broadway—was all she confessed to Mr. Milton.

The renowned director scowled. He thundered, "You will never be an actress, young lady! Not on Broadway, nor anyplace else!" He proceeded to enumerate the reasons: her frozen, awkward manner; her impenetrable shyness; her inescapable Midwestern accent; her obvious lack of talent.

"You will always be the girl in the back," Mr. Milton declared. "I'm writing a letter to your mother. I will confide in her that your tuition is a waste of money and that your presence in this school is a waste of time. Now," he added, "please go home."

Utterly humiliated, and believing every word he had said, Diane went home to her mother. She spent the following weeks moping, sulking around the house, and writing lugubrious poetry.

And oh, yes—she changed her name again. She gave up "Diane Belmont" and went back to her real name: Lucille Ball.

Only now, you know the rest of the story.

Twelve-year-old Randy was lying on the kitchen floor, shuddering and flailing, his eyes rolled back in his head. It was supposed to be a case of petit mal epilepsy—Randy had a mild one—but as Mama Ruth gazed down in horror, she realized this was something more.

Nervously, she glanced out the kitchen window. The snowflakes were as big as teacups. The wind was picking up; a blizzard was brewing. And Randy, oblivious in his seizure, kept flailing.

Somewhere, Mama Ruth had heard of a home remedy for such emergencies: a thimbleful of laundry bluing. She spilled the blue liquid into the boy's mouth, but there was no result. She turned to eight-year-old James, clutching him by the shoulders. This was very important; she told him as calmly as she could. He must put on his snowshoes and run to Mr. Fortelka’s store and ask somebody to call the doctor.

James’s eyes wide, he nodded quickly and scrambled for the door, glancing back at Randy. He could see the blue liquid trickling from his lips. A moment later, James was gone, dashing out across the farm fields through knee-deep snow, praying that Randy would be all right. The two had been reared as brothers; no one was closer to James than Randy. And now, for all the little boy knew, he was the only thing that stood between his best friend and death.

It was a mile to Mr. Fortelka’s store. When James got there, he tried to explain that Randy was sick, maybe even dying—that he needed a doctor right away. He tried, but the words would not come out. All that would emerge from James was a straining sound, as though the words were piling up behind a locked door, trying to batter their way out. But they could not.

Mr. Fortelka, bewildered, nonetheless understood the matter. James was a stutterer. He had stuttered ever since the family moved to Michigan; in fact, he had begun to withdraw on account of his impediment and had been all but completely mute for years. At school, the teachers accommodated him, and his classmates, remarkably tolerant, did not even laugh.

But meanwhile, on that snowy evening at Mr. Fortelka’s store, a war was waging inside James himself—a battle between what he knew he must say and whatever it was that prevented him from saying it.

And then, finally, the words won. Painfully, one at a time, they struggled into the light, combining to comprise the all-important message: “R-R-Randy is c-c-alling a d-d-doctor.”

They called the doctor. Randy got the right medicine, and he did recover.

But for James, the stutter stayed. Even after emerging from his cocoon of virtual silence several years later, he continued to speak with great difficulty. And unless he is cautious in his utterances, he stutters to this day—although you would never imagine such a thing. For the child who spent his childhood at a loss for words one day was to earn his living with them.

And thus, did he make the world forget that interminable time when mere talking was all but impossible. For you know the man once tied in tongue as an articulate and precise machine, accompanied by a gold and inimitable voice—a sorcerer conjuring all manner of imagery with immaculate diction. A magnificent instrument which for four decades has brought everything from Shakespeare to Darth Vader to life for its master.

The master of words.

The master, you know, is James Earl Jones.

Only now, you know the rest of the story.

The story begins with a simple whiskey bottle, its belly full of air and a cork shoved down its throat. This airtight vessel was set adrift, bobbing on the currents of the Thames River in old London Town.

Where would such a bottle go ashore? More likely, however, it would be carried out by the current into the Strait of Dover and from there into the chill expanse of the North Sea. We are going to retrace the course of this sturdy glass vessel—a long and lonely voyage that truly took place.

It drifted away from the east coast of England, northbound past the Netherlands. Somewhere midway between Scotland and Denmark, still in the North Sea, June of 1937 passed into July. The sealed bottle, urged ever north northward, was carried by the ocean current between the Shetland Islands and the coast of Norway. The vast expanse of the North Atlantic lay ahead, the Arctic Circle less than four hundred miles away.

The year 1937 bowed gracefully into the next as the lonesome voyage continued. Hundreds of miles of Norwegian coastline were left behind as the int intrepid bottle ventured into the icy Barents Sea, the northern coast of the Soviet Union far below. Years passed in those desolate waters—thaw and freeze and thaw again. The currents lured it gently eastward over Siberia: from the Kara Sea, past the Novaya Zemlya islands, then through the East Siberian Sea. And there, east met west.

The bottle had remained intact and airtight for most of a decade as it finally floated into the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska. It began a southbound journey into the Bering Sea, past the Aleutian Islands, and into the vast North Pacific. Then it traveled along the west coast of the United States.

At long last, this restless voyage of almost twelve years came to an end as the bottle came to rest on a beach in San Francisco. We have now retraced the incredible journey of a buoyant vessel from the mouth of the Thames River in England all the way—twelve thousand miles over a period of twelve years—to San Francisco. This model of its course has been reconstructed by oceanographers, tracing the path it had to have taken after being released.

It was a chilly day, March 16, 1949, when a fellow named Jack Wurm was wandering a deserted San Francisco strand and happened upon the bottle, half-buried in the sand. Jack Wurm was fifty-five, jobless, near penniless, and despondent. His restaurant business was bankrupt, and his life savings were gone.

But Jack discovered this bottle and saw something inside. He broke it on a rock and recovered its contents: a piece of paper upon which was handwritten a message.

“To avoid all confusion, I leave my entire estate to the lucky person who finds this bottle. Signed, Daisy Alexander. June 20, 1937.”

And yes, it did stand up in court. This was the last will and testament of Daisy Alexander, who had died in London in 1939. Daisy Alexander was the eccentric heiress to a large portion of the Singer sewing machine fortune. She had secretly decreed that luck would determine her heir.

And so, Jack Wurm of San Francisco—broke, disheartened, and down on his luck—was to harvest a legacy from a deserted beach, from a whiskey bottle that had begun its relentless journey half a world away.

Six million dollars.

And now you know the rest of the story.

We had to have hemp. We had to have hemp.

Pearl Harbor had been bombed. The country was at war, and we needed hemp for all sorts of things. Fifty years ago, hemp was our principal source of cordage—rope for ships, oakum for caulking. Its oil went into paints, varnishes, soap.

With overseas supplies in jeopardy, we would have to strip the stems for canvas and paper. We had to have hemp.

Stateside, the plant grew best in the Midwest—Indiana, Illinois, Michigan—some of the very best in Indiana. On advice from Washington, Hoosier farmers were directed to plant it: “Hemp for Victory.” The slogan was tantamount to an order. Men who had fought weeds all their lives now plowed under corn and beans and planted what they had long called a weed.

From the government’s point of view, it worked. Midwest farmers converted 300,000 acres to hemp. For generations a ditch weed allowed to grow along the roadsides to hold the soil had suddenly become Indiana’s most important crop. From its stems came the fibers that became products essential in wartime—especially fabrics and cordage no longer available from markets controlled by Japan.

When the war ended, demand collapsed. There were cheaper ways to make paper and canvas, better ways to make paints and varnishes. The government told American farmers it was time to return to food grains.

But many Indiana farmers had invested too much—in time, talent, and technology—to turn back easily. Returning to corn and beans would be prohibitively costly. So, they kept planting hemp. Even under threat of punishment, they kept planting.

And over the years the methods changed. What had begun in open fields moved, in some places, behind closed doors. Lights were timed. Watering was automated. Varieties were selected and bred. In controlled rooms, row upon row rose from cubes of rock wool. The yields increased. The profits did, too.

Government agencies tried to stop them, but they were no match for the monster they—the government—had created. A bushel of corn might sell for two dollars and fifty cents; a bushel of manicured hemp could bring thousands. It was no longer the stems that industry wanted; it was the leaves. The stems, once precious, were nearly worthless. The money was in the foliage.

For what’s made from those leaves of that same plant is… marijuana.

And now you know the rest of the story.

It’s Friday. You can put those words on my tombstone if you want to. That’ll mean I’ve gone to be with my family. It’s Friday today. Those words are good news—they mean the end of the work week, the beginning of Saturday and Sunday, fun days.

But once upon a time, “It’s Friday” was among the least auspicious things you could say. Friday was considered completely unlucky—not only a Friday occurring on the 13th of the month, but any Friday.

Scholars attempting to trace the origin of this superstition have cited a number of examples: the European tradition of executing criminals on Friday, which dates back to the Middle Ages. “Hangman’s Day,” they used to call it. There are a number of biblical examples, as well. Supposedly, Adam and Eve succumbed to temptation on a Friday. Similarly, it is said the Great Flood began, the Tower of Babel fell, and the destruction of Solomon’s Temple all occurred on a Friday.

And while it would seem that Christ’s Friday crucifixion is the most likely origin, anthropologists point out that Friday was once the day of rest for certain primitive tribes, and that those who worked on that day invited the most unfavorable fortune.

The bad-Friday superstition has had no trouble attracting believers throughout the centuries. In various parts of the world, there were those who refused to plant potatoes, go courting, or even cut their fingernails on a Friday. “Turn a bed on a Friday,” it’s been said, “and the night will be sleepless.” Once it was thought that eggs laid on a Friday were the ones that went stale.

Our ancestors warned one another never to begin anything on a Friday—not a birth, or a marriage, or a profession, or especially a journey. Folks used to be quite reluctant to travel on Fridays, sailors in particular.

For hundreds of years, this nonsense was tolerated—until it last tangled with an even more formidable issue: money. And that brings us to the rest of the story.

It made news at the time; even an 1891 issue of Scientific American reported what had happened. The story involved a contemporary English ship owner. Because of the superstition we’ve been discussing, he was rarely able to find a crew who would agree to set sail on a Friday, and it was costing him—and virtually everybody else in the shipping trade—a lot of business.

Then one day, he conceived a way to sabotage Friday-phobia. He was going to add one more ship to his fleet of merchant vessels. He was going to sign every contract concerning her construction on a Friday. He was going to lay her keel on a Friday. He would launch her on a Friday. He would even employ a Captain James Friday for her maiden voyage—and it was to begin on a Friday and terminate in the East Indies on a Friday. And the vessel was to be christened “The Friday”.

After the bravest and the least superstitious seamen in all of England were hand-picked for her crew, The Good Ship Friday sailed toward the horizon. In doing so, she had struck a blow for reality, for rationality, and for reason.

So, it’s Friday again. I say, put those words on my tombstone if you like, because Friday means the work week is over—and “Friday” on a tombstone would mean I’ve gone to be with my family. Those words, either way, spell good news.

We don’t fear Fridays anymore… in spite of what happened a century ago. I was telling you about the merchant vessel named Friday, with a captain named Friday, which set sail on her maiden voyage on a Friday.

She was never heard from again.

And now you know… the rest of the story.

The Arizona hikers had underestimated Monument Canyon. In this, they were neither the first nor the last. But when Jackson Clark, park ranger Russ, and their friends Nan and Joel made the 900-foot descent in October of 1987, they could not have guessed the rest of the story.

It was a warm autumn day, a perfect one chosen for their Monument Canyon excursion to explore the ancient Indian ruins on the canyon floor. Yet for such adventures, an explorer’s greatest enemy is not the weather, but waning daylight. Before they knew it, Jackson, Russ, and the rest were staring up at a violet sky that had been a bright turquoise only minutes before. In a few more minutes, it would be indigo, and they would be engulfed in the searching shadows of the near-thousand-foot canyon walls.

“I don't want to climb that winding trail in the moonlight,” Jackson said.

“There is no moonlight tonight,” Joel replied coldly.

The hikers hurried. Night came, and it did not embrace them; it attacked them. Overhead, the stars shone brightly, but they cast none of their light on the precipitous path. Grim Navajo legends loomed in Jackson's brain as he groped through the blackness. His eyeglasses, which he had fumbled and dropped into the chasm half a mile back, would have been useless anyway. All of the hikers, even the experienced park ranger, were blind and helpless.

All except for their native guide.

This man had hunted in those parts all his life. He knew where the narrow, switchback trail ended and nothingness began. With astonishing confidence, he led the tender-footed group slowly and surely upward. Occasionally, the anxious adventurers would call ahead to him, and he would answer in a reassuring tone, urging them on. When the group made a wrong turn and almost toppled into the abyss, he calmly summoned them back to the right path. When Jackson stumbled approaching a sharp turn, the native guide came back to stem his burgeoning panic with a gentle touch.

For an hour, maybe more, the hikers climbed upward toward the mocking stars, trusting only the local hunter, born and bred in the land of the Navajo. Every step of their arduous journey was guided by his reckoning in the dark—the beckoning call of a native they had never met, whom they had encountered for the first time only an hour before in the blackness, whose face they had never seen.

Nor would they ever see it.

For when the hikers reached the canyon rim at last, the hunter who had led them to safety departed as strictly and silently as he had arrived. They never even got to thank him. But they would never forget him.

For you see, in the lore of the Navajo, certain animals’ figure more prominently than others, and one in particular—one whose very presence is considered a matter of destiny, a matter of life and death.

So, if only for this moment, may you share in the wonder of four hikers who were nearly conquered by Monument Canyon, and yet who were steered from the brink of oblivion by a mysterious stranger, a night hunter. For back in the gloom, with soft cries and the brushing of wings, an unseen savior had kept them on the safe path.

An owl.

And now you know the rest of the story.

The story is that of a very quiet, private wedding. There would be no honeymoon, more for a lack of money and freedom than from any particular taste or preference of the newlyweds. And still, Millie and Al seemed eminently happy.

Two close friends witnessed the ceremony. Afterward, they celebrated at a local restaurant. Finally, the couple retired to their new home: a small apartment nearby.

There they stood at the door. One could hear the ensuing argument a block away, some would say, though the topic, at that distance, was not at all clear. Any friend of Millie’s might have been surprised to hear her voice raised thus, for indeed, Al was the outgoing one. Al was the gregarious talker of the two, while Millie was usually quiet to the point of being withdrawn.

They were opposites in other ways, as well. Al was a model of indecisiveness; his opinions were most often based on his last conversation, without regard to the credentials of the person with whom he had spoken. Millie, on the other hand, always made up her own mind, and quickly. Her likes and dislikes, her opinions on any subject, were emphatic and unvarying.

In school, she had been a model student. But Al? Well, Al had—how shall we say this? —he’d always been a little slow. His mind wandered. He demonstrated no particular inclination or talent. His teachers urged him to quit school. One of them stated flatly to his face that he would never amount to anything. Another even suggested that his presence was a bad influence on the other students.

Anyway, Al did drop out of high school. Later, attempting to further his education, he applied to another school and flunked the entrance exam. He finally took remedial courses for a year, but nothing seemed to help. It seemed he was simply a good-natured muddlehead, just plain lucky to have married a woman who could take care of him.

Oh, by the way, we left the bride and groom outside the door of their new apartment. We don't know exactly what the argument was about, but we can guess at the words. Millie is probably saying something like, “Al, you are utterly helpless and hopeless! Must I think of everything?”

And Al, who often defended himself this way, is probably trying to soften her up by making a joke or a funny face. And slowly, irresistibly, Millie is smiling again. And Millie is in love again.

And if what you’ve just heard is worth remembering, it is less for the insight into this odd couple’s relationship, and more for the perspective it offers when considering the later accomplishments of that high school dropout. For you see, it was only after he had spent years in a dreary, unrelated government job that Al’s unconventional, ill-educated mind gave birth to a brand-new idea about something called relativity.

Oh, yes, I do mean to say: the 20th century’s most brilliant brain betrayed its owner, Albert Einstein, on his own wedding day, by leading him literally to the doorstep of wedded bliss, yet having forgotten the key.

And now you know the rest of the story.

The story begins with a trivial offense, really, and the offender was no more than a youngster. But because the youngster was also an African-American slave, born on a Maryland plantation in 1789, his punishment was governed neither by laws nor by any particular morality. The fate of young Josiah rested solely in the hands of his owner.

And this is what the owner decided: the youth would be flogged—beaten until it seemed he should not be beaten anymore. And considering the licentious disposition of his master, the punishment could easily go on for a very long time.

It did.

Other slaves could hear Josiah screaming from two plantations away. His flesh was shredded quickly under the biting iron points of the overseer’s whip. Then the bones beneath began to splinter and break. By the time the plantation owner was satisfied, his young slave had collapsed in a lake of his own blood, his body contorted, shoulder bones shattered. As long as Josiah lived, both arms would remain crippled by that beating.

But the overseer’s whip never cut deep enough to annihilate the spirit of that young man.

For this is the rest of the story:

Josiah Henson bided his time. He was nearly 30 when he fled to Canada—nearly 30 and completely illiterate. And yet, by 1850, he was world-renowned. In what is now the town of Dresden, Ontario, he opened a sawmill, established a school to educate young people of all races—Black, White, and Indigenous—and in his spare time, he plotted the successful escape of more than a hundred United States slaves, whom he welcomed into Canada to a life of free enterprise.

Josiah’s business grew. He purchased shiploads of fine lumber for his mill, traveling to Boston and even to England to wheel and deal. On a trip to London, he was greeted by every imaginable dignitary. Queen Victoria personally applauded him. The Archbishop of Canterbury was so impressed by his eloquence and depth of knowledge that he asked what university Josiah had attended.

His reply was, “The University of Adversity.”

Until the day he died, Josiah Henson often preached in Methodist churches. “Father Henson,” he was sometimes called. And indeed, his Christian faith lifted him high enough even to pray for the men who had abused him.

But you would never have known him were it not for one business trip to Boston, during which he was a guest in the home of a man named Edward. It was Edward’s sister who was visiting at the same time. You see, Father Henson was there, recounting the true stories that you have just heard, and his host’s sister was moved to tears—and moved even more than that.

It was one autumn, in the parlor of Edward Beecher, that Josiah Henson held a woman spellbound and inspired that woman to honor his goodness in a story about American slavery. The world now recognizes Edward Beecher’s sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, as the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

But if you always thought of Uncle Tom himself as an obsequious sellout, well—you’ll never make that mistake again. For now, you’ve met the real Uncle Tom.

Now you know the rest of the story.