Every weekend booktv offers programming focused on nonfiction authors and books. Keep watching for more here on cspan2, and watch any of our past programs online at booktv. Org. Michael farquhar, former writer and editor at the washington post, provides his thoughts on the most disastrous or outrageous events in history that happened on each day of the year. Thats next on booktv. Were pleased to have with us historian and author michael farquhar. His new book, bad days in the history a gleefully grim chronicle of misfortune, mayhem and misery for every day of the year. Its a carefully curated calendar of human kinds most entertaining catastrophes. With his signature tongueincheek humor, farquhar leads readers on a 365day tour of historys worst happenings gleaned from recent and distant eras, events well known and secure, locations near and is far and near and far and people famous, infamous and forgotten. Farquhar explains in his introduction there are literally billions of miserable episodes throughout Human History from which to choose. Here he has collected the most amusing examples that will offer even the miserable readers excellent company. After the reading therell be time for questions. Afterwards the book signing. When that time comes, we would like everyone to form a line going out that way. And now, ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm powells welcome for author michael farquhar. [applause] i dont want to create a bad day for powells, but its farquhar. Thank you all for being here. That was a nice introduction, and it does neatly encapsulate what this book is all about. Its 365 of the more miserable and unpleasant days in history, one for every day of year. But one of the things that was important to us is that we did not do ubermiserable. Were not covering atrocities. Were not covering natural disasters. Were trying to focus more on the quirky, disturbing but not hideous aspects of human nature. So you wont be reading about the holocaust or anything like that, although i will say that there is a bad day for nazi propagandist againings when he wrote in his diary about his sore feet and everybody thinks hes gay and he has no friends, so boohoo to him. Thats about as far as we get. But the other thing thats important i want to talk about in this book is were not were trying not to focus on the obvious. So when the titanic sunk, for example, that was an obvious bad day. But worst day for the manager of the titanic was landing, having been rescued and landing back on safe ground and becoming a notorious coward instantly by the press for having survived. Or when lincoln was shot, the bad day came for several days later for several expresident s who failed to show enough mourning and were attacked by mobs, fillmore and franklin pearce. World war i, is, you know, a tragic event in history, but and its often associated with Kaiser Wilhelm prussia. But for Kaiser Wilhelm, there was probably a worst day for him when he was at a party, and there was rumors swirling around that he was part of a gay underground which in 1908 prussia was not cool and not okay. The problem was his trend was dancing in a tutu and dropped dead. [laughter] so they had a lot of problems, because of rigor mortis, trying to get the guy out of the tutu, and the police are on the way. So were trying to [laughter] as i said, trying to get miserable days in unexpected ways. One of my favorites, which i will read to you, has to do with one of the great works of literature. Its called this happened on march 6th, 1835. A friendship tested by fire. The english philosopher john Stewart Mills faced an excruciating task on the evening of march 6, 1835. He had devastating news to deliver to a friend. An admission of personal fault so greaves that only the most grievous that only the most magnanimous of men might, just might, be able to forgive it. Clumping the charred e clutching the charred remains of the only cope of the magisterial evolution Thomas Carlyle had entrusted to him, he had arrived at the authors home looking as pale as a ghost. Trembling and in despair, mill explained that the manuscript had accidentally been burned as kindling by a maid. Yet while the loss represented countless hours of agonizing labor for carlyle, it was left to him to comfort his friend long into the night. Mill, poor fellow, is terribly cut up, carlyle said to his wife after the shamed philosopher finally left. We must endeavor to hide from him how very serious this business is for us. Sure enough, the next day carlyle sent mill a most gracious note. You left me last night with a look which i shall not soon forget, he wrote. Is there anything that i could do or suffer or say to alleviate you . For i feel that your sorrow must be far sharper than mine. Courage, my friend. A note from mill offering generous compensation for the lost labor crossed carlyles. And though the historian gratefully accepted, this still remained the unimaginable task of rewriting. The author was convinced he couldnt do it. I remember and can still remember less of it than anything i ever wrote with sump toil, he wrote with such toil, he wrote. It is gone, and so were his notes which he had already destroyed. Nevertheless, he forged through. Surely the most leaden, discouraging, all but inuntil rabble task i ever to do as he related to his brother. And his inspiration eventually came direct and flamingly from the heart, Thomas Carlyle completed one of the greatest works in english literature. As might be expected, john stewart mill gave it a glowing review. [laughter] today is july 15th, and im wondering if anybody has any important dates, birthdays this week, anniversaries . Because theres a bad day for whatever day [laughter] you may choose. And i will say this, whatever if you are having a bad day, and i hope nobody is, there is something that will be far worse in this collection. So its, were covering, were covering history, were covering politics, science, every aspect of human endeavor from ancient times up to 2014, actually. Entertainment. One of my favorite from the entertainment stories is about oprah, the mighty oprah. Poor thing. I dont remember if you all remember, she came out with a movie several years ago called beloved which bombed. She had made such a production of this movie. This was an adaptation from a Toni Morrison novel, and she just made it all about oprah, as she is sometimes wont to do. And shes on television, im having my baby [laughter] and shes speaking to a group, an audience and among them is rosa parks, civil rights icon rosa parks. This beloved is for you, she says to rosa parks who, im sure, just needed that extra boost from oprah. [laughter] the bad news is oprah gets beloved gets released, and it is beaten handily that day by the movie bride of chucky. Poor oprah related later in a goodnatured way that she ate three pounds of macaroni and cheese to get over the shame and horror of it. But thats the, thats the stretch of topics that are covered. So were every day is a different year, so we could go from june 5th, 1383, to june 4th or 6th, 1998. Its all topics all throughout history, and as i said, nothing too heavy. Hopefully entertaining. And i really dont want to stand up here and bore you all and make you really turn into a bad day, so id like to open this up to discussion if anybody has any thoughts or questions about the book or about the process, id be happy to entertain them. World war i and the beginning of it but nobody knows the story so thats why i was trying to establish a lesserknown measurable story and the material is endless. You are looking up one thing and theres other things that pop up. The challenge was to be able to win 365. Yes, the lady in black. In your research which of the stories shocked you the most that you are so stunned by. That is a very good question. There are so many of them that stands out. They entertain me. Hopefully the best ones are in this collection. There is one story about a guy who is on a business trip. They dropped and survived it. He makes his way home and hes sitting in his office and the boss is telling him what has happened and another bomb goes off and hes back at home. So hes either the worlds luckiest guy or unlucky. He lived to be 90. So that was one of those. Hispanic there are certain parts of the calendar and then there are gaps in other parts of the calendar. That is a good question. I have a number of instances where i cheated. This is one bad day except for about five days or if there were 30 things that happened so i kind of creative one day in march and this day and intolerance where every other year theres something there is something really bad happening on that day and i did that on this and several days like that. There were a lot of occasions where too many things were acting on one day and then you were on the scramble of their days. It is overlapping one day, apply it to another situation. Are there any good days that come out of that . [laughter] im sorry. What was the best of the worst. Its always easy to find something bad and im teasing you a little bit because at the last talk i gave this advice off the right of the right a book about the good days. Thats upbeat and optimistic and i dont think anybody would buy it. What is the hardest day to find a bad thing . The affair could be 25 volumes on the holocaust a allowed. There theres another example in genocide there is the rwanda genocide. Everybody knows about it but what i found amazing is the state department spoke trying to doublespeak around the word genocide because the u. S. Government wasnt prepared to use that word yet from what was happening in rwanda so there was a whole dialogue with this spokeswoman and a reporter. She is referring to what was happening as acts of genocide and the reporter isnt letting her get away with it. How many acts of genocide does it take to make a genocide coming and it goes on for about 15 minutes and they try to tried to wiggle their way out of this because she cannot get off the message and it is a continuous act. Hes calling her out and she became kind of infamous. I forget her name at the moment. But its in there and thats where this kind of a struggle if there was something really bad in history come in behind the and define the lighter side of things and another one was she had this great comrade in arms and he kind of retired and went on to become a child that was one of the darker episodes and a kind of amused me in the sixth sense because the other thing is she got a reprieve found not guilty so a little late on that. But again, it is a matter of knowing a little bit about history. Im not a historian im a reporter discovering all of these as im looking at one thing if you are reading a biography theres 400 things that pop up and you say much better than the obvious. And yes, there are some good days in history. This gentleman over here. You mentioned not a nagasaki. Yes, of course there were a few. The only one that is coming to mind right now is the instance of those found not guilty in the legal reputation. There are a few and again, i wasnt necessarily looking for Silver Linings in each of the stories but the complexity of history is that its always going to be nuanced so when you reach through these they will be recorded in diaries. That is a silver lining. There was another question over here. Are most of the people that are featured in this famous . There are a few that are not well known now. They were infamous at the time trying to create a new species by braiding hmb enzi and human. The russian government was behind it. The soviet government was behind it and he achieved a lot of notoriety at the time but nobody remembers him right now and i cant remember his name either. Theres a lot of stories of science. And the ones that are well known are the struggles that they had like the New York Times eviscerated the rocket concept. How naive and foolish he was in 50 or 60 years later the New York Times print a retraction and apology. So another silver lining. Yes both of them most of the people in these events even if you are a superficial history some residents but there are some obscure people. Yes. The are there any countries that tend to have more bad days than other countries . That is a good question. I think that it boils down to my knowledge that we try to cover every country or at least every content. But in reviewing it, there is a lot of american bad days and a lot of european theres a fair amount of russian and chinese and japanese. So no i cant sit there and say that there is more that have endured over history in the terrible sufferings. India would be a candidate particularly who when the women were not appreciated they really were not appreciated over there and their duty for centuries was when there has been divided with her spouse died was to jump on the funeral fire and lead themselves and this one particular story who yielded all sorts of cover until the husband died and she was forced into the ritual. This is the same guy that goes for tosha hall. He took this early form of viagra with lifechanging results for india. He wouldnt be able to go for this perpetual state that he was in and his sons took advantage of that and started a war and they destroyed each other and millions died and ended up in prison until he was able to join the. So yes those are the kind of tales. And it was interesting when youre introducing jimmy carter next week, great humanitarian but he had a snake bit presidency in terms of an heiress embarrassment. He had a really bad translator in poland and he was trying to say im glad to be here and the translator the way that he said to the people whose i i desire. He didnt deserve it but there was just one thing after another. It never ended. So probably every u. S. President has a story. A lot of kings