Events

In August 1835, a New York newspaper called The Sun published the first in a series of articles claiming that astronomer Sir John Herschel had discovered life on the Moon using a revolutionary new telescope in South Africa. The life included bison, tail-less beavers, unicorns, and bat-winged humanoids who built temples. The articles were attributed to a fictitious companion of Herschel's. The Sun's circulation tripled. Herschel, in Cape Town doing actual astronomy, was amused and then annoyed when people kept asking him about the bat people. The series ended when the telescope supposedly burned down. The author was never publicly identified in the Sun's lifetime. The hoax is still studied in journalism schools.

Captain Matthew Webb, a 27-year-old merchant navy officer, waded into the English Channel at Dover on August 24, 1875, and stroked toward France using breaststroke, the only viable technique for long-distance swimming at the time. Jellyfish stung him repeatedly. Strong tides pushed him off course, extending the straight-line distance of 21 miles to roughly 39 miles of actual swimming. He emerged at Calais 21 hours and 45 minutes later, the first person to swim the English Channel. Webb became an instant celebrity, endorsing products and giving swimming exhibitions. He died in 1883 attempting to swim the rapids below Niagara Falls, a stunt described by the local newspaper as "a mad and useless tempting of fate."