They don’t teach you about farting in school. Which is kind of surprising.

After all, you’re forced to study things like ancient Egypt and the periodic table. But when’s the last time you pooted a pyramid? Has anyone ever stunk up a room with helium or argon gas?

Yet the body function that we perform every day, more often than eating or drinking, doesn’t have a curriculum of its own.

How unfair!

Fart literature has been around since the ancient Greeks. The greatest American president told fart jokes. Royalty, religions, and music have been influenced by farts. There’s a real movie award for Best Fart.

Fossils fart. Inhaling farts was a cure for the Great Plague. Moths kill by farting, yet kangaroo farts could save the planet.

So put aside that school book. Turn off that science show. Peel open these pages and raise your Fart IQ, in the fascinating and funny world of intestinal gas.

Kids Jailed for Farting

In the American town of Meridian, Mississippi, kids went to prison for farting in class!

The Meridian school district wanted to finally put a stop to student misbehavior. Such crimes included wearing the wrong color socks to class, using bad language, or worst of all, the felony of flatulence.

Instead of sending guilty farters to the principal, teachers were told to call the police. Students were hauled away in handcuffs just for ripping a stinker in class.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the US Department of Justice finally sued the school district over such cruel and unusual punishment. The school district lost.

Thanks to this case, farting is now protected by law. Next time someone complains about your gas, explain that you are merely exercising your Constitutional right to fart.

Fart Bird

Partridges don’t live in pear trees (they are ground dwellers). But they are named after farts.

The word partridge is based on the ancient Greek word, perdesthai, which means “to fart”. It seems that some ancient Greek bird watcher heard a bird flapping its wings in the bushes, thought it sounded like a fart, and named it the Fart Bird.

Then shouldn’t it be called fart-ridge instead?

Nurse Farts

An Australian nurse worried that her farts in the operating room might cause infections in her patients. When she mentioned this to the doctor, he decided to find out.

He had people fart into petri dishes, both with and without their pants pulled down.

The dishes from the naked farts grew bacteria. But these were the kinds of germs found on most people’s skin, and which are no more harmful than the bacteria used to make yogurt.

The farts from people with pants on came out clean.

In other words, the germs were not from the farts themselves, but were blown from the skin around people’s butts. With clothes on, these microbes were filtered out by the fabric.

The doctor reported: “Our final conclusion? Don’t fart naked near food. All right, it’s not rocket science. But then again, maybe it is?”

Fart at the French

In 2014 Britain declared war on France with a fart across the English Channel. Or at least one British man did.

Inventor Colin Furze (whose last name, incidentally, means “fart” in German) decided to take a shot at England’s ancient enemy across the Channel. He created a gigantic mechanical farting butt, which he placed on the cliffs of Dover, and aimed it directly at France.

On July 25, 2014, Furze’s fartillery blasted a massive bowel burner!

Did it work?

The inventor claims that two French people on the other side of the water reported hearing the titanic toot, though they didn’t smell a thing.

Every war inspires patriotic songs, and this stinker of a battle is no exception. A song called “Fart at the French” was recorded and, appropriately, plopped off the bottom of the pop charts.

Arabian Night Farts

The Arabian Nights, or Tales of 1001 Nights, gave us Aladdin, Sindbad the Sailor, and flying carpets. But one story genuinely reeks.

The Tale of Abu Hassan

Abu Hassan married the lovely daughter of Baghdad’s highest official. After an elaborate wedding and feast, Abu Hassan prepared to join his bride in the palace bed chamber. But he’d eaten and drunk so much that as he sat up, he released a loud and thundering fart that echoed from wall to wall and silenced every voice in the room.

Abu Hassan was so ashamed that he sneaked out of the palace, leaped on a horse to the coast and boarded a ship for India. There he served as guard to a rajah. But ten years later, he badly missed home. He returned to Baghdad, hoping that after such a long time his foul deed had been forgotten.

Just before entering the city gates, he overheard a woman putting her child to sleep.

The child asked, “Mama, when was I born?”

“That’s easy, my dear,” Mama said. “It was the year that Abu Hassan farted.”

Abu Hassan fled the land and was never seen again.