Thus, with one startlingly brilliant burst of intuitive insight, all of the anomalies of history fall neatly into place. Archeologists had long debated the meaning of cave paintings that depicted people holding a dark bubbly substance to their lips. Could it have been crude oil? Molten lava? Greasy kid stuff? Now, we know.
In Erik van Danskin's forthcoming book and fashion video, Soft Drinks of the Gods? , the entire question is given a cosmic sheen (what anthropologists and woodworkers refer to as the #3 finish). Before the dawn of recorded history, even before the ape sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the earth was visited by extraterrestrial soda merchants looking for a new market. After an indeterminate amount of time, they must have realized that barely evolved apes were more interested in survival than interstellar trade in carbonated beverages, and they left, leaving behind a nasty puzzle for future historians.
(Some Creationists, never at a loss for their own rationalizations, now argue that it was, in fact, knowledge of an ancient form of Pepsi Cola that drove Adam and Eve out of Eden. From their original state of bliss, knowledge of marketing is said to have been the poison that caused their fall from grace. This is referred to in modern theology as "Original Sip."
Further evidence can be found in the tombs of ancient Egyptian Pharoahs, particularly Taintmisbehavin and Tuttifrutti, in the form of unexplained devices. Long bamboo rods, obviously meant to be blown into, could be fitted to the rims of ancient mugs and cocktail glasses. We can now see that this must have been a crude method of carbonization.
Moving right along, we come to the Crusades, that mad romp that began as a gleam in the eye of Pope Silvester II (upon whom the cartoon character Sylvester the cat is reportedly based) and really got rolling when Pope Gregory VII and German Emperor Henry IV joined forces. The Crusades, thought by most historians to have been either an effort to free Palestine or an ancient land grab, was really designed to capture the formula for Infidel Cola from the Turks. The Popes believed that such a perfect drink would prove the existence of god, while the knights who fought hoped that revenue from it would make up for years of poor crop harvests.
In a recently discovered original draft of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (undoubtedly not written by Bacon), the lines "To the Senate/Without recourse to a soft'ned drink" are uttered by Caesar before he leaves to meet his final fate. Could he have been considering developing a new soft drink to appease the Senate and consolidate his control of the Roman Empire? We may never know; for no adequately explained reason, Shakespeare removed the line from the play as we have come to know it, and, of course, Caesar died before revealing his plans.
Carbonated beverages may have been at the root of the development of western democratic philosophy. When Marie Antoinette added: "...and let them drink water!" to her infamous dictum, she was further expressing contempt for the common people. The French Revolution was begun and sustained by people who refused to accept a monarchy which hoarded the best soft drinks for itself.
The American Revolution began as a protest against the exorbitant taxes charged by the Biritish on coca leaves, a major ingredient in the early soft drinks of the colony. The Boston Cola Party is celebrated as the first expression of America's independent spirit. The Constitution of the United States was originally intended to give every citizen of the country equal opportunity to consume beverages, but it was, through debate, expanded to offer the rights we now associate it with.
Ironically, the Russian Revolution shared much the same beginnings, although the end was quite different. Marx had a vision of a society where the means of soda production were controlled by a central government in order to benefit all citizens. Lenin put these theories into practice by proclaiming his "colateriat of the masses."
It is said that Einstein put his incomparable intelligence to the task of perfecting those first, crude soft drinks. Unable to come up with innovations in that field, he must have decided to perfect the universe instead.
The murder of Franz Ferdinand, which started World War I, was actually a mistake. Two rival soft drink bottlers were arguing over a formula both claimed to own. Shots were exchanged, and the world was plunged into war.
The effects of soft drinks on World War II are far too numerous to mention in this brief overview, and, in any case, have been dealt with at length elsewhere. For those interested in the subject, I strongly recommend When Johnny Comes Slurping Home: The Obscure Part Soda Pop Played in World War II, by Weismuller, and The Cola, The Nation, by Kreigher.
Senator McCarthy's notorious contributions to the House Un-American Activities Committee was a direct result of his 122 cola a day habit, which was slowly destroying his nervous system. Neil Armstrong's first words from the moon were actually based on an ad lib in the NASA commissary before the mission: "That's one small soda for a man, one giant soft drink for mankind."
Our present understanding of biology might be able to give us new insights on the subject. Mankind's present massive consumption of soft drinks might actually be genetically inherited, and researchers at facilities around the world are looking for the part of the DNA spiral that controls our thirst. On another front, some therapists theorize that dark bubbling liquids are part of mankind's racial memory, returning us to the primordial ooze from which all life originally developed.
Better history through chemicals?
