Trickster's Timeline
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Though pranks and their brethren have existed throughout history (remember
the trojan horse?), they really came into their own with the advent of
the popular press in the 18th century. The emergence of the mass media
in this century and the rise of the internet in this decade have only accelerated the pace. |
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1708: Isaac Bickerstaff (a.k.a. Jonathan Swift) reports that his published prediction of a rival astrologer's death has come true, to the day and hour...... Despite, the man's protestations to the contrary, newspapers respond with obituaries.
1725: Three German teenagers unearth a trove of petrified oddities including mating frogs, spiders on their webs, and miniature comets. Am eminent doctor pens a treatise comparing theories of their origin: " It's a hoax" is not one of them.
1762: Newly discovered volume of poetry by higherto unknown 3rd-century Gaelic bard Ossian, becaomes wildly successful in europe. Real author: higherto unknown 18th century poet-forger, James MacPherson.
1835: New York Sun reports that prominent British astronomer Sir John Herschel has discovered life on the moon. Our lunar neighbors are furry and winged, resembling bats.
1842: P.T. Barnum presents a mermaid (from "fee-jee"). 3-feet long, all dried up, and 100 % fake.
1844: Young, destitute Edgar Allan Poe, writing in the New York Sun, reports the first crossing of the Atlantic by a hot air balloon. He forgets to mention the balloon didn't make it.
1869: Prehistoric Cardiff Giant - mineralized corpse or ancient sculpture? --- is discovered in upstate New York, only days after pranksters buried it there.
1913: Houghton Mifflin publishes the memoirs of the Chinese diplomat Li Hung Chang. Too bad they were penned by journalist William Francis Mannix while serving a one-year term in a Honolulu hoosegow.
1917: Scientists discover "Piltdown Man" ---- antique-looking skull fragments and teeth-- in an English gravel pit."Fossils later prove to be a mix of modern human and orangutan bones. Responsibility for the hoax is never resolved.
1920: Charles Ponzi clears nearly $10 million after inventing his eponymous scheme/investment swindle. Seventy-odd years later, a similar scheme nearly bankrupts Albania.
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1926: BBC reports that a mob led by the National Movement for Abolishing Theater Queues has run riot in London, toppling Big Ben and making London Bridge fall down. |
1927: New York Times reports alligator sightings in the sewers of Manhattan, providing yet another reason to avoid the innards of the Big Apple.
1930: After replacing bricks of $20 bills with bundles of wastpaper, James Landis becomes the first person ( not counting members of Congress) to rob the U.S. Mint.
1934: London gynecologist snaps first photo of Nessie, the Loch Ness monster. His own son later claims it's a fake.
1935: Surely you've heard of the Kreisler's Four Seasons? Viennese violin virtuoso Fritz Kreisler publishes his own compositions, claiming they're newly discovered scores by Vivaldi, Couperin and others.
1937: Band of wily seniors at Iowa State University persuade three professors - in botany, chemistry, and psychology- to grant A's to ficticious undergrad Cuthbert Gleep.
1938: "War of the World's" radio show is broadcast, landing Orson Welles in dutch with New Jersey, but launching his career nationwide.
1947: Aliens crash outside Roswell, New Mexico; the feds cover it up; someone misplaces the autopsy footage; and 49 years later the nation is bombarded by the "X-Files", "Independence Day", and "Dark Skies".
1956: With an assist from the show's producers, photogenic, Charles Van Doren, unseats Herbert Stempel as champion on the quiz show "Twenty One".
1962: In what many consider the first computer hack, Ivan Sutherland connects a television to a huge computer so he can use it as a design tool.
1969: Millions of phonograph needles sacrifice their lives as Beatles fans search the White Album ( among others), for clues that Paul is dead.
1978: Huge crop circles begin appearing in remote wheat fields all over England. Thirteen years later artists Doug Bower and Dave Chorley claim responsibility.
1981: "Washington Post", reporter Janet Cooke wins Pulitzer Prize for her gripping story of Jimmy, an 8-year old heroin addict. Cooke later admits Jimmy is a "composite" and promptly loses Pulitzer.
1983: German magazine "Stern" publishes excerpts from the "scoop of the post-WWII period"..... Hitler's secret diaries. Two weeks later, experts confirm the diaries are forgeries.
1984: Spinal Tap's American tour ends unexpectedly when yet another of its drummers detonates.
1988: Robert Tappan Morris writes a program that replicates itself across the internet, crashing one-tenth of the servers on the net.
1989: Prank or shabby science??? .... Scientists in Utah announce that they've achieved cold fusion in the lab, ushering in an era of absurdly cheap energy. Uh-Oh........nobody else can repeat the experiment.
1990: Milli Vanilli wins Grammy for Best New Artist. They're exposed when an insider reveals the vocals aren't theirs.
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1993: According to CBS, evidence of Noah's Ark has been found high on Turkey's Mt. Ararat. The report is wrong. |
1996: "Esquire" magazine devotes its cover to rising starlet Allegra Coleman. She doesn't exist.
"Might" magazine reports on its cover that 1970's child star Adam Rich is dead. He's not.
A group of anonymous hackers break into Department of Justice's Web page.
Nicholas Ryan pleads guilty to charges he wrote a program called "AOL4FREE" , which allowed hundreds of people to use the online service illegally.
1997: Visitors browsing "www.sexygirls.com", discover hundreds of dollars in inexplicable charges on their next phone bills. Turns out the site has surreptitiously rereouted their modems to a number in the country of Moldova.
2001: A man tries to land on the torch of the statue of liberty in New York...
Sept 11, 2001: A Terrorist Attack takes out both World Trade Centers in New York and some of the pentagon and a empty field in PA