this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 65 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

There was an infamous conman in my country by the name SΓΌlΓΌn Osman. He has managed to con people by claiming to sell the Galata Bridge itself. After he was caught, his defense was "As long as there exists idiots that believe I can sell the bridge, I will keep selling this bridge."

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 97 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (7 children)

The oldest recorded words from any woman living in (what is today) Scotland are someone telling the empress of Rome, to her face, that they fuck better than her

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

In 1938, Orson Welles adapted H.G. Wells's "The War of the Worlds" for the radio, apparently causing mass hysteria and a major part of the continental United States to believe that a martian invasion had occurred.

"A few policemen trickled in, then a few more. Soon, the room was full of policemen and a massive struggle was going on between the police, page boys, and CBS executives, who were trying to prevent the cops from busting in and stopping the show. It was a show to witness."[26]

During the sign-off theme, the phone began ringing. Houseman picked it up and the furious caller announced he was mayor of a Midwestern town, where mobs were in the streets. Houseman hung up quickly, "[f]or we were off the air now and the studio door had burst open."[4]:β€Š404β€Š

How many deaths had we heard of? (Implying they knew of thousands.) What did we know of the fatal stampede in a Jersey hall? (Implying it was one of many.) What traffic deaths? (The ditches must be choked with corpses.) The suicides? (Haven't you heard about the one on Riverside Drive?)

This was a year after he adapted Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to be set in Nazi Germany.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Wasn't that just one newspaper reporting it which was more or less just an advert for the play?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

No. In fact, I quoted the first-hand accounts of the people in charge of the broadcast.

Yes, there may have been less of a panic than as advertised, but it wasn't a gross (or intentional) distortion. The drama was also only broadcast once.

The offices of the city of Trenton, New Jersey, a location within the dramatization, had its communications paralyzed for 3 hours due to the calls made to ask the city well.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

San Francisco had an emperor.

(He even "decreed" the construction of a bridge or tunnel between San Francisco and Oakland on the other side of the bay, predicting the existence of the Bay Bridge and Transbay Tube!)

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The US newspaper billionaire William Randolph Hearst owned enough of congress that he started a war with Spain.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Rasputin having such a massive cock that Boney M had to made a song about it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

But the ladies begged, "Don't you try to do it, please!"

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Probably the one about tin cans and can openers. IIRC, can opener was invented decades after the tin

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago (1 children)
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