Did you know...

...that nowhere in the nursery rhyme does it say that Humpty Dumpty is an egg? Indeed, although the rhyme goes back to at least the late 18th century, it is only from about 1900 that Humpty Dumpty has been portrayed as an anthropomorphic egg.  The earliest recorded written version is in fact slightly different and does not so easily suggest an egg -

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

Four-score men and four-score more

Could not make Humpty Dumpty where he was before

(1797)

Of course, most of us know Humpty Dumpty from "Through the Looking Glass" - the follow-up to "Alice in Wonderland" where he is very definitely drawn as an egg. There have been many suggestions as to the origin of the rhyme - from the idea that it was originally a riddle (what is it that, if it were to fall off a wall, would break and could not be restored to its original state?  Answer - an egg) to the suggestion that it was based on a real event concerning a large cannon in the Civil War which, as a result of enemy bombardment, toppled off the wall it was on, and was so heavy that it could not be lifted back up there.  Oh come on - let's just enjoy it as a nursery rhyme, eh?