“Kilt Curiosity,” caricature, continental Europe, circa 1815.

Spike Milligan was wearing traditional Scottish garb when a curious onlooker asked, “So, is there anything worn under the kilt?”

“No,” he answered, “it’s all in perfect working order.”

A lady, some time back, on a visit to the British Museum, asked the person in attendance if they had a skull of Oliver Cromwell? Being answered in the negative, ‘Dear me,’ said she, ‘that’s very strange; they have one at Oxford.’

— T. Wallis, The Nic-Nac; or, Oracle of Knowledge, 1823

Several Scholars went to steal Rabbits, and by the Way they warn’d a Novice among them to make no Noise, for fear of scaring the Rabbits away. At last, he espying some, said aloud in Latin, Ecce Cuniculi multi! and with that the Rabbits ran into their Boroughs: Wherewith his Fellows offended, and chiding him for it, he said, Who the Devil would have thought the Rabbits understood Latin!

— The Jester’s Magazine, 1767

The Russian Poet Lomonossow was accustomed to read his plays to a rude young peasant, whom he had taken into his service for that purpose, to judge (in imitation of Moliere) the more certainly of their theatrical effect, by their impression on an uninformed and unprejudiced mind. One evening the little Huron, while holding the light as usual, suddenly began to weep and sob, in a most piteous way, to the delight of the poet, who cried out in a transport, ‘Waste not your tears before the time, my child; the scenes, in which you will most need them, come not till the fifth act.’ — ‘Oh, no,’ replied the boy, ‘it is not for that, but I want to ***.’

— William Oxberry, ed., The Flowers of Literature, 1822

As a teenager, John Kenneth Galbraith was romancing the daughter of a neighboring farmer when a bull entered a nearby corral and began servicing one of the cows.

“That looks like it would be fun,” Galbraith said.

The girl said, “Well … it’s your cow.”

It’s been reported that proud Soviet automakers challenged their American counterparts to a competition at the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958.

A Swiss engineer made an exhaustive comparison of a Soviet and an American car, and he favored the American.

After an awkward pause, the Soviet press reported that “in a recent international auto competition, the Russian car placed second and the American car was next to last.”