Fake news isn’t new. It was probably invented two minutes after the printing press. The problem is, it won’t go away.
In 1835, a newspaper called the New York Sun ran a series of six articles claiming the moon was inhabited by unicorns and “batmen.” The stories caught on and were reprinted worldwide. The author of the bogus stories used the name of a famous astronomer and a bogus but fancy-sounding telescope to back up the lies. A telescope so powerful it allowed the astronomer to see topless bat-babes flying around a moon also inhabited by “highly intelligent beavers.”
