"History is not the past, but a map of the past drawn from a particular point of view to be useful to the modern traveler." - Henry Glassie
This Week in History presents summaries of a few selected historical events for each calendar week of the year.
August 25 - The Great Moon Hoax (1835)
Orson Welles' radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds in 1938 is to this day the most sensational hoax ever perpetrated on the public. The popular new technology of radio, which provided an audience of millions, made its success possible. Over a hundred years earlier, another new technology, the steam-powered printing press, allowed the New York Sun to pull off a similar stunt that spread like wildfire through the United States to Europe and beyond.
A short teaser appeared in the newspaper on Friday, August 21, promising astonishing revelations recorded by the eminent astronomer, John Herschel, by means of his wondrous new telescope in South Africa. Fortunately for the Sun, South Africa is very far away and communications took a month or more, so readers had no way to find out that the upcoming stories were pure bunkum.
Lithograph from the Great Moon Hoax series
On Tuesday, August 25, the
first of a six-part series was published. Readers were amazed to learn that Herschel had discovered life on the moon, described in great detail as seen through the powerful new telescope. Day by day, incredible new findings were published about the lush lunar vegetation, spectacular beaches and oceans, and even animal life in the form of grazing herds similar to bison, complete with Herschel's artistic renderings of the scenes.
The third day stirred up a storm of interest as readers discovered that the moon had primitive intelligent life, a bipedal beaver-like being. But that was nothing compared to what was coming the following day: advanced intelligent life. Herschel had seen and recorded notes and drawings of winged man-like creatures which he christened Vespertilio-homo ("bat-man"); immediately almost everyone in New York was talking about the lunar "man-bats."
The articles told of telescopic eyewitness observations of the man-bats' society and works, including a fabulous "ruby amphitheater" and a "sapphire temple." If that wasn't enough to keep the rubes reading and gossiping, the editors threw in some salacious details about the creatures' public mating habits.
The series closed with the sad news that the remarkable new telescope had been damaged and that further observations would be impossible for a while. But enough material had already been published to keep the public obsessed for weeks to come.
Not everyone was a true believer, of course. Some of the Sun's competitors were skeptical if not outright certain that it was a fraud. But it didn't stop them from republishing the articles anyway, lest their own readers desert to their rival. The tales gained traction around the nation in many newspapers and spread to other countries around the world.
Ultimately, the Sun fessed up in September. Nobody stormed the editorial offices with pitchforks and torches; apparently people had enjoyed the wild fantasy ride and didn't begrudge the authors the harmless prank. Herschel was reportedly amused when he eventually learned of the incredible claims concocted by the writers and attributed to him.
Keep reading below the orange historical marker about more events during the last week of August.
August 27 - Krakatoa erupts (1883)
Krakatoa is an Indonesian island sited between Java and Sumatra. It has been known as an active volcano since time immemorial. But nobody expected it to do what it did on the 27th of August, 1883.
On the previous day, it had belched forth smoke and ash in a flurry of explosions throughout the day and night. Inhabitants of nearby islands enjoyed the display of natural pyrotechnics, unknowing that the following day would culminate in eruptions that doomed them.
Lithograph of the Krakatoa eruption
When
Krakatoa finally blew itself to bits in a series of four explosions on the 27th, it produced the loudest sound ever in recorded history, rupturing the eardrums of sailors on ships 40 miles away; it was heard as far away as 3000 miles (the distance between Boston and Dublin, Ireland). The force of the eruption is estimated as the equivalent of 200
megatons of TNT; for comparison, the atomic bomb which destroyed Hiroshima was only 20
kilotons.
As is so often the case with volcanos and earthquakes situated in oceans, Krakatoa unleashed devastating tsunamis felt as far away as South Africa. Between the killer waves and the toxic gases and ash released by the volcano, more than 30,000 died.
The sulfur dioxide and other gases plumed at least 6 miles up into the atmosphere, darkening skies for days in the surrounding area. They spread across the globe and for more than a year created spectacular sunsets worldwide. Global temperatures dropped an average of 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit for the next 5 years.
Krakatoa was obliterated but it didn't die. Continued volcanic activity has caused the island to regrow, with a new volcanic dome surfacing above the ocean in 1927. It is already over a mile in area and more than a thousand feet high and still rising. No one knows how long this new Krakatoa may endure.
August 28 - Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech (1963)
Martin Luther King, Jr. realized that his keynote address on this day in 1963 to the March on Washington crowd might be the most important speech of his life. With a quarter million people in attendance, plus the focus of the media and its worldwide reach, Dr. King was so determined to get it right that he stayed up until 3:30 AM to finish composing it.
Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Lincoln Memorial
And get it right, he did. Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, delivered during the course of war to rid the nation of the evil of black slavery, is the best known and most beloved speech in American history. Dr. King's oratory, which alludes to Lincoln's speech, is rightfully judged the second most famous and esteemed and it complements Lincoln's by envisioning an end to the scourge of racism in the United States.
The soaring rhetoric and impassioned delivery ensured that this speech would echo from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to the living rooms of millions and live on in history. President Kennedy, who watched on TV and afterward met with Dr. King and other organizers, felt confident that it would enhance his chances of getting a civil rights bill passed.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!
Both MLK and JFK were tragically cut down before they could see their shared dream come true. More than 50 years later, we are still waiting for the day
... when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
August 29 - The Russians get the bomb (1949)
When the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb, it sent a shock wave around the world. It was not a physical wave like the explosion of Krakatoa but a psychic shock of fear ... and the Cold War began in earnest.
With its atomic superiority unchallenged, America was wary of the Soviet Union but had the assurance that the Russians would never risk an aggressive confrontation that might end in their nuclear annihilation. After “First Lightning” successfully exploded on this day in 1949, that confidence melted away: the two superpowers were now atomic equals.
The American government confirmed that the Soviets were a nuclear power a few days later, in early September, when a U.S. spy plane picked up traces of radioactivity. Later that month, President Truman informed the American people that the Russians had the bomb too.
Although research on the more powerful hydrogen bomb was already underway, the Soviet test pushed the U.S. government to accelerate the program as a critical component of the new, but soon to be familiar, arms race. Truman called for efforts to build up both conventional and atomic arsenals to keep ahead of the Soviets and serve as a deterrent to any aggression.
Years later, in his final televised address to the American public, President Eisenhower warned the country that
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex.
But for the time being, the arms race was on and Americans would soon learn to "duck and cover" and worry about a world without a future.
And that's the news for this week in history. Goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow.