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Month: September 2013

The Great Moon Hoax or Was It — The Joke’s on Who?

Moon Hoax illustration of aerial ship descending
Descent of the missionaries aeronautical ship carrying lunar specimens.

On August 31, 1835, what came to be known as The Great Moon Hoax took its final bow in the Sun newspaper. During the following weeks, the story would be largely revealed as a hoax, but was still running wild as a story just the same. Other than discovering animal life and man-bats on the Moon, the other truly odd part of the hoax was that it was no hoax at all, but rather a satire that very few figured out. 

Libraries Co-Hosts Discussion with Author Dane Kennedy

The Victoria Falls, Zambesi River: sketched on the spot Thomas Baines 1820-1875
The Victoria Falls, Zambesi River: sketched on the spot
Thomas Baines 1820-1875

For a British Empire that stretched across much of the globe at the beginning of the 19th century, the interiors of Africa and Australia remained intriguing mysteries. The challenge of opening these continents to imperial influence fell to a proto-professional coterie of determined explorers. They sought knowledge, adventure and fame, but often experienced confusion, fear and failure. “The Last Blank Spaces: Exploring Africa and Australia” (Harvard University Press, 2013) follows the arc of these explorations, from idea to practice, from intention to outcome, from myth to reality.