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🌟 Editor's Note
Good morning — it’s Sunday, December 14. Today we're diving into the first action of the American Revolution, the birth of Quantum Physics, the first NASCAR race, and much more—quick, thrilling, and packed with clean sources!
Oh, today’s Strange Times digs up the moon-hoax receipts: beaches, beavers, and bat-men (yes, really).
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— Fatih Taskiran, Editor
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🚀 Time Machine
-1287
During St. Lucia's Flood, the Zuiderzee seawall collapsed, killing over 50,000 people, the fifth-largest flood in history.
-1542
Princess Mary Stuart succeeds her father, James V, and becomes Queen Mary I of Scotland at 6 days old.
-1774
First action of the American Revolution, 400 New Hampshire militiamen take Fort William and Mary's gunpowder and weapons.
-1900
German physicist Max Planck publishes his groundbreaking study of radiation's effect on blackbodies, and quantum physics is born.
-1911
Roald Amundsen becomes the first explorer to reach the South Pole, beating Robert Falcon Scott.
-1939
After the Soviet invasion of Finland on November 30, the League of Nations expelled the Soviet Union.
-1947
The first meeting of influential racers and promoters in Daytona Beach, organized by Bill France, led to the creation of NASCAR.
-1993
"Philadelphia," directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, premieres in California.
-1995
Leaders of various governments signed the Dayton Agreement in Paris, ending the Bosnian War in the former Yugoslavia.
-2019
Toni-Ann Singh won Miss World in London, marking the first time black women have won all five major beauty titles.
📸 Snapshot
After Berlin was bombed 363 times by British, American, and Russian aircraft, 1945
🗨️ Final Words
“I'm not afraid any more.”
🤯 Strange Times
Paper Moon — The Great Moon Hoax fooled (and delighted) New York
The New York Sun published a six-part story in August 1835 claiming Sir John Herschel had discovered life on the Moon with a giant telescope in South Africa, depicting beaches, mini-bison, unicorn-like goats, two-legged beavers, and bat-winged humanoids. The papers reprinted it in a frenzy; by week's end, half the city was rubber-necking at lunar bat-people while skeptics cried “hoax.” (The winged folks appear in the August 28 installment.)
"Dr. Andrew Grant" was credited as the author, but historians attribute the writing to Sun reporter Richard Adams Locke; crucially, the Sun didn't retract. Caper worked like a charm: it sold a lot of papers and became a penny-press master class in spectacle over substance —nearly two centuries before we coined “fake news.”