Episode #57: 1835 Timeline Twist & The Great Moon Hoax of 1835

Lithographs from the Italian newspaper edition of the Great Moon Hoax

2/12/2025: On today’s episode, Valerie’s Timeline Twist includes the Texas Rev(olution), 1835 personal ads, we discuss the marketability of corn milk, the fanciest of fancy meringue cakes, the end of bloodletting and the beginning of double blind trials (were they really trials?), wax statues, and packing the court. Next, Amy Jo presents the fanciful story of the Great Moon Hoax of 1835. The beginning of sensationalism in the press and hints of yellow journalism helped set the stage for a wild, serialized, imaginative set of stories that grew in popularity by the day, kicking off debate in the streets as to their veracity. There’s a cameo by a disgruntled Edgar Allen Poe, oh, and John Herchel is back! Yay!

1. The mitrailleuse, a 19th-century volley gun

2. Badge of the Texas Ranger Division

3. December 16: The Great Fire of New York destroys 17 blocks of businesses in Manhattan, including the New York Stock Exchange.

4. Ad for a wife

5. Article accusing Julia Moore

6. Brunswick Stew

7. Victorian Spanish Windtorte

8. Madame Tussaud at the age of 42

9. Edgar Allen Poe

10. Newsboy showing a copy of the hoax

11. Portrait of a man-bat ("Vespertilio-homo"), from an edition of the Moon series published in Naples

12. Moon Haox scene

13. The Ruby Amphitheatre as Lithograph printed in The Sun

14. By Unknown author - Lithograph that appeared in the New York Sun, Friday, October 16, 1835, Public Domain

15. Moon Hoax print

Sources/Photo Sources

Intro Sources:

https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/timeline/

Timeline Twist Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1835 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_I_of_Austria

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Ranger_Division#High-profile_cases 

https://twonerdyhistorygirls.blogspot.com/2015/03/advertising-for-wife-in-1835.html

https://blog.genealogybank.com/our-ancestors-stories-live-in-old-newspaper-ads-too.html 

https://www.flagandbanner.com/content/brunswick-stew-recipe.asp?srsltid=AfmBOopgb613IsvNmbeet6NbmvnbdLvAfHWea73atGbDrCpmYlbWue4p

https://www.sewhistorically.com/victorian-spanische-windtorte-recipe-historical-food-fortnightly/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1835_in_science 

http://skeptic.org.uk/2023/03/the-nuremberg-salt-test-how-homeopathy-failed-one-of-the-earliest-ever-scientific-trials/

https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/homeopathy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1835_in_art 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/1835

Timeline Twist Photo Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volley_gun#/media/File:Mitrailleuse_front.jpg

https://twonerdyhistorygirls.blogspot.com/2015/03/advertising-for-wife-in-1835.html

https://boomathens.com/brunswick-stew-a-dish-worthy-of-historical-controversy/

https://blog.genealogybank.com/our-ancestors-stories-live-in-old-newspaper-ads-too.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1835#/media/File:GreatFireNY1835.jpg 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Tussaud#/media/File:Madame_Tussaud,_age_42.jpg 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Ranger_Division#/media/File:Badge_of_the_Texas_Ranger_Division.png

The Great Moon Hoax Sources:

https://earthsky.org/human-world/great-moon-hoax-august-25-1835/ 

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=32103797516 

https://hoaxes.org/text/display/the_great_moon_hoax_of_1835_text/P2#google_vignette 

https://earthsky.org/human-world/great-moon-hoax-august-25-1835/ 

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/62779/62779-h/62779-h.htm 

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=32103797516 

https://archive.org/details/moonhoax00Lock/page/n143/mode/2up 

https://daily.jstor.org/how-the-sun-conned-the-world-with-the-moon-hoax/ 

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-great-moon-hoax 

https://daily.jstor.org/how-the-sun-conned-the-world-with-the-moon-hoax/ 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/great-moon-hoax-was-simply-sign-its-time-180955761/ 

https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Herschel

https://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_great_moon_hoax/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unparalleled_Adventure_of_One_Hans_Pfaall#Inspiraton 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_States

 https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Herschel

https://books.google.com/books?id=d79fyolBDgAC&lpg=PA24&vq=penny%20paper%20belonged%20exclusively%20to%20Shepard&pg=PA24#v=snippet&q=penny%20paper%20belonged%20exclusively%20to%20Shepard&f=false 

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/new-york-committee-of-vigilance-founded

https://hoaxes.org/text/display/the_great_moon_hoax_of_1835_text/P2 

https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2014/08/the-great-moon-hoax/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe 

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-great-moon-hoax

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax#:~:text=The%20%22Great%20Moon%20Hoax%22%2C,and%20civilization%20on%20the%20Moon.

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fugitive-slave-acts https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/great-moon-hoax-was-simply-sign-its-time-180955761/

The Great Moon Hoax Photo Sources:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Great_Moon_Hoax_-_Day_4.jpg/350px-Great_Moon_Hoax_-_Day_4.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/1836_the-great-moon-hoax-new-inhabitants-of-the-moon.png/220px-1836_the-great-moon-hoax-new-inhabitants-of-the-moon.png

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Newsboy_from_The_New_York_Sun_hawking_a_copy_containing_The_Great_Moon_Hoax_of_1835._restored.png/160px-Newsboy_from_The_New_York_Sun_hawking_a_copy_containing_The_Great_Moon_Hoax_of_1835._restored.png

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41492121

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/97/Edgar_Allan_Poe%2C_circa_1849%2C_restored%2C_squared_off.jpg/220px-Edgar_Allan_Poe%2C_circa_1849%2C_restored%2C_squared_off.jpg

https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/files/2014/08/MoonHoaxItaly400_35551r-220x300.jpg

https://th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com/x5A8XK9zHajYEFP1F6QcBhNdd-s=/fit-in/1072x0/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer/aa/c3/aac37dbe-34b6-4f3a-9dba-a1a83aeb05e1/3galluzzo2web.jpg