Stop the Presses! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Dewey Defeats Truman

Of course, this type of thing can happen when a newspaper wants to be the first to hit the streets with the hottest news story. I really love the picture of a triumphant President-elect Truman holding up the newspaper comically announcing his defeat with a huge smile on his face. Take a look for yourself at: http://mcgonnigle.wordpress.com/2008/10/ (You'll need to scroll about halfway down the page to see the famous picture).

Answer: Titanic Hits Iceberg but was Saved

All of these news stories did appear, but only the one about the Titanic was off the mark. There were actually quite a few papers that reported incorrectly that the Titanic had survived its run-in with the iceberg. Though there were survivors of this wreck, many did lose their lives and the supposedly unsinkable ship itself sank on her maiden voyage.

The Norwegian Dream was a cruise liner whose captain didn't notice a small container ship called the Ever Decent that was near it as larger ship came into port. Luckily, the Ever Decent did not carry passengers, and in the fire that was caused by the collision, no lives were lost.

The actual "New York Times" headline about the sinking of the Lusitania shows how much journalism has changed since that time. It took up a full four long lines of newsprint and was anything but concise: "Lusitania Sunk by a Submarine, Probably 1260 Dead; Twice Torpedoed off Irish Coast; Sinks in 15 Minutes; Captain Turner Saved, Frohman and Vanderbilt Missing; Washington Believes that a Grave Crisis is at Hand." After reading all of that, why read the story? See it for yourself at http://mcgonnigle.wordpress.com/2008/10/.

The incident with the huge wave hitting the Queen Mary and almost sinking the stately ship actually did occur. Supposedly, if the liner had inclined a further 20 cm (about 8"), it would have capsized. This was the inspiration for the disaster movie "The Poseidon Adventure".

Answer: Elvis Presley

In all of the cases mentioned here, the person who was supposedly dead later made an official announcement in the media to prove that he was still alive. Bob Hope even joked that rumors of his death had been greatly exaggerated. Of those listed, only Fidel Castro was still alive in 2009.

Though some believe that Elvis is still alive, which would make his death a false report, Elvis himself did not appear in public in the days following the reports of his death to refute the story. On the contrary, there was a funeral that was attended by many, including Elvis' own family. That alone would make it different from the instances where an obituary has appeared in the news before the actual death due to a reporter's failure to check his or her facts.

If you want to read more on the view that Elvis is still alive, please go to: http://www.webspawner.com/users/elviselvis/.

Answer: False

The newspaper actually reported that Charles Evan Hughes, a former Supreme Court Justice who ran against Woodrow Wilson, had won the election. Hughes actually lost, and Wilson's victory was probably due to his status as incumbent and his great campaign slogan, "He Kept Us Out of War."

Charles Evan Hughes was no relation to Howard Hughes, whose father's name was Howard Hughes, Sr. On a comical note, I got the idea of using the eccentric billionaire in this question from an article on wrong headlines that claimed that Howard Hughes had been reported to be the winner of that election in a wrong headline. So, the article on wrong headlines didn't check its facts and realize that Hughes was only 11 years old when this election was held. To see the funny mistake, please go to: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-some-famous-wrong-headlines.htm.

Hughes himself was later the victim of a hoax when Clifford Irving tried to publish diaries and correspondence purportedly by Hughes, amazingly, while Hughes was still alive to refute the matter. Perhaps Irving thought that since no one had heard from the recluse in public since 1958, his acts would go undetected. Not so! In the end, Irving was still allowed to make a buck off his scheme with the book, "Hoax!".

Answer: The Diary of Anne Frank

Anne Frank's diary represents the point of view of a young girl forced into hiding during the Second World War, who eventually died in a concentration camp. The diary shows her resilience and unshakable optimism, despite the horrors she faced. Though some have tried to claim that parts of Anne Frank's diary were actually written by her father, the only family member who survived the death camps, the events recounted therein substantiated by the facts and most of the writings were written by the young girl. The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation and the Dutch Ministry of Justice carried out thorough forensic examinations of the manuscript in 1986 and found nothing to suggest fraud.

Adolf Hitler's supposed Diaries were published in part by the German magazine "Stern" amid a fanfare. The magazine even hired experts to analyze their authenticity, providing carefully selected excerpts and other questionable documents for comparison. The truth did come out in the end, and the magazine was forced to recant. The editors of the many newspapers that had announced the diaries as genuine were also left with egg on their faces. For more information, please see: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vinland/fakes.html#hitl

Mussolini's diaries were probably the most amazing of the hoaxes mentioned here, and they fooled even his own son at first. There were over 80 volumes and they almost got published when they were finally discovered to be the fabrication of an Italian woman names Amalia Panvini. For more information, please see: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vinland/fakes.html#muss

The diary of Jack the Ripper suffered a similar fate. Amazingly, the publishers decided to go ahead and publish it anyway, noting only in small print on the dust cover that it was a fake. I guess there's a market for everything! For more on this case, please see: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vinland/fakes.html#ripp

Answer: Abraham Lincoln's

It is amazing that the horribly written letters were ever published at all. Anyone who has read the eloquent prose of Lincoln's Gettysberg Address would know in a second that these love letters were a hoax.

The letters, supposedly to Lincoln's alleged secret lover, Ann Rutledge, contain errors like the following, "Beloved Ann, "if you git [sic] me the dictshinery [sic] ...I no [sic] I can do both speeking [sic] and riting [sic] better...my hart [sic] runs over with hapynes [sic] when I think yore [sic] name..." These sound more like L'il Abner than Honest Abe.

Incredibly, the "Atlantic Monthly" published a series of articles based on them anyway, under the title "Lincoln the Lover: The Courtship" in January 1929. Lincoln experts, including biographer Carl Sandburg, immediately proved the letters to be fakes. For more on this matter, please go to: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vinland/fakes.html

The other three presidents listed all had lovers at different points in their presidential careers, but no love letters have surfaced as evidence of these liaisons.

Answer: True

Twelve men actually died in that incident, and it served to change legislation that will hopefully institute safety measures to prevent such tragedies in the future. To read more about this tragedy, where they should have stopped the presses to avoid creating false hope on the part of relatives of those affected in the accident (instead of printing things like, "We've Got 12 Alive!"), please go to: http://www.laborradio.org/node/5535.

Answer: In a small local newspaper, then in larger national and international papers as well as on Internet blogs.

This started as an inquiry in a small local paper to prove a rumor false. The paper, "Die Volksblad", asked family members of any of the supposed victims in this case to come forward and confirm it. No one did. Then, a bigger South African paper, "The Cape Times", picked up the story and reported it as a legitimate news item instead of an inquiry into a hoax. It gained steam from there, and many respectable outlets rushed to put it in print. At the same time, it took a life of its own on the Internet.

For the full details of this story that ballooned way out of control, please see: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/cleaner.asp

Answer: Interrogators at Guantanamo allegedly flushed the Koran down the toilet to intimidate detainees before questioning them.

"Newsweek" did initially report that the Koran had been flushed down the toilet by interrogators in an attempt to intimidate detainees at Guantanamo. When this was shown to be false and the magazine published a retraction a week later, but many other news sources had already reported it as fact. This led many readers to refuse to believe anything to the contrary. To read more about this phenomenon, please see: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-05/aps-msi051705.php

Woody Allen did in fact have a relationship with his step daughter and Mia Farrow's adopted daughter, Sun Yi Previn, when she was 18 years old. The much older Allen eventually married Previn, and they have 2 children together. Allen no longer sees his two adopted children with Farrow, nor the son that he and Farrow had.

Although Colin Powell claimed to have concrete evidence of the weapons of mass destruction when he spoke to the UN, no such evidence was ever presented, probably because it didn't exist. Many feel that this lapse in judgment caused the Secretary of State to tarnish what had been a very illustrious career up to that point.

The television show "Mythbusters" addressed the persistent rumors that the moon landing was a hoax, but no reputable newspaper has ever reported it as fact. On the show, investigators proved that the landing was credible and probably did happen as claimed.

Answer: In China and Malawi.

The first confirmed report was of a 92-year-old Chinese woman who had been told that her fetus was dead many years earlier. When she didn't have a miscarriage, she did nothing to remove the mass from her womb. The calcified corpse was later delivered in what called a 58-year pregnancy by the media. To see more information on this bizarre case, please go to: http://current.com/items/90442351_chinese-woman-gives-birth-to-stone-baby-after-58-year-pregnancy.htm

The second case was reported in Malawi in July of 2009. Though the original reports claimed witchcraft, it seems that the woman in question has had many miscarriages in the past and this is in all likelihood another one, in which the fetus had became calcified. If you want to read more, please go to: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/07/sorcery-or-trickery-woman-gives-birth-to-stone-in-malawi.htm