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Ben Franklin Faked a Rival's Death to Promote His Almanac · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for one
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: of the founding fathers of Ridiculous History, our super producer,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Mr Max Williams. That makes no sense, it doesn't. No, No,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: we're not spending too much time on a Max. They
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: called me Max. It's the show is called ridiculous, So
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I think we're allowed to make wild claims with no
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: basis in reality. Well, I mean, Alex was part of
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the founding so I mean, by bye, blood, have you
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: guys ever seen alexan On in in the same room you
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: know what? Now that you mentioned it? Yes, I have,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: But but maybe you're just one very quick person. Uh no,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: will you raise a great point here? Um, I do
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: want to say on the founding fathers thing, it's really
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: just a question of how long we keep our show going,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: because if we do this for like fifty years, then
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: you know, anybody involved before thirty is like a founding member, right,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think would be even more generous than that.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: You know, we probably just include anyone who's ever been
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: involved as founding fathers and mothers and and and and
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: whatever else you want to you want to go by.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: But you know what today's episodes about ben alleged serial
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: killer Benjamin Franklin. I was gonna I was gonna be
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  Speaker 1: silly and say that it was all about the Benjamin's
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: hundred dollar bills, y'all. You know, cash money that rules
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: all the things in my purview, I mean, aka everything, Yeah, exactly,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: cream um cream is it acronym? Is it not? It is?
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Cash rules every thing around me. The song Oh my God,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: what a fool I am? No, I'll tell you he
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: wasn't a fool though. Was was was old Benny Frank's.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: He was kind of a dick, a bit of a womanizer,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: bit of a lotario again, you know, a bit of
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  Speaker 1: a grave robber at times, uh, bit of a thief
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  Speaker 1: of intellectual property, but also creator of a lot of it.
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  Speaker 1: Uh and and and talking about founding fathers, he was
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  Speaker 1: sort of the founding father of our whole idea of
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  Speaker 1: intellectual property in some ways, you could argue. And and
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  Speaker 1: of all the things he did, printing was kind of
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  Speaker 1: the thing that he believed in the most, it would
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  Speaker 1: seem everything else kind of sprang from that he really
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  Speaker 1: believed in the power of the printed word, especially when
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  Speaker 1: it was his printed word. As we'll see, Benjamin Frankling,
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  Speaker 1: a Titan in the days of the early United States,
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  Speaker 1: actually went up against the real life Titan in a
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  Speaker 1: very sneaky, underhanded way. And when we say life Titan,
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  Speaker 1: we mean his almanac rival, a guy named Titan Leads,
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  Speaker 1: which is a very cool name. So like, like we said,
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  Speaker 1: Franklin really loved the printed word, and he wanted to
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  Speaker 1: be known as a publisher, and he didn't have too
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  Speaker 1: much compunction about out of the box pr stunts. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: He used to you know, he did Poor Richard's Almanac.
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  Speaker 1: We all know about that, and yet that was an
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  Speaker 1: alias Ben Franklin used Poor Richard Saunders. And in his Almanac,
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  Speaker 1: Poor Richard Saunders a k a. Benny f claimed that
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  Speaker 1: astrological calculations would prove a guy named Titan Leads would
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  Speaker 1: die in seventeen seventy three, and then a hilarious, uh,
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  Speaker 1: hilarious argument occurred. I think maybe maybe we start though
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  Speaker 1: with the story of titans father, who has a much
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  Speaker 1: more garden variety name, Daniel Leeds. Daniel Leeds is the
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  Speaker 1: guy who made the first almanac in the American colonies.
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  Speaker 1: But you don't hear about him very much, do you. No,
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  Speaker 1: not so much. You don't. You don't hear about really
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  Speaker 1: either of them. And there's a good reason for that.
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  Speaker 1: So by the sevent thirties, his two sons inherited his business,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: and you know, sort of like the the what is it,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: the Dostler brothers, you know, with Audi Das and Puma Um.
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  Speaker 1: They started to compete with each other and eventually split
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  Speaker 1: entirely into two different companies, which also we're competing. And
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  Speaker 1: right around then there were other authors that had jumped
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  Speaker 1: into the whole almanac field. Right, Yeah, absolutely, this was
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  Speaker 1: a great business to be and not just because you
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  Speaker 1: can make some money, but also because you became sort
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  Speaker 1: of the voice of the people. You became the voice
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  Speaker 1: on record, and so everybody wanted to make an almanac.
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  Speaker 1: The market became saturated, sort of like how a few
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: centuries later podcasts would become kind of saturated. Just so
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  Speaker 1: the people's that were were part of the people here
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  Speaker 1: in in podcast then ben an almanac. I mean there
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  Speaker 1: were initially like different kind of more niche almanacs. Right,
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  Speaker 1: there would be like a farmer's almanac, you know, with
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  Speaker 1: different like seasons and all of that stuff, things that
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  Speaker 1: would pertain to a particular industry. Was was the idea
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: to be as inclusive as possible and have these be
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  Speaker 1: kind of as like broadly applicable um as as as
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  Speaker 1: as could be as to like kind of maximize profits. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: the the very first printed almanac comes around in the
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  Speaker 1: mid fifteenth century. So Ben Franklin and daniel Leeds they're
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  Speaker 1: they're taking this original idea and they're just putting their
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  Speaker 1: own spin on it. We have to remember that reading
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  Speaker 1: matter was comparatively scarce. People didn't have a lot of books,
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  Speaker 1: not near as many as the average person might have today.
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  Speaker 1: So you would have this almanac that had this calendar
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  Speaker 1: that helped you in a grariy in economy, understand the
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: passage of the seasons, and had recommended advice about crops
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: and crop rotation. But then they would also have other
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  Speaker 1: like tangents and trivia, entertaining information stories maybe useful tips
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  Speaker 1: on various aspects of daily life, and they got really popular.
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  Speaker 1: You know. We see this kind of popularity again in
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  Speaker 1: the Sears Roebuck Catalog, which became like a reading material
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  Speaker 1: for the everyday person in the US. Remember that one. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it was essentially like an aspirational guide to the American dream. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's well put. I think at this time, as these
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  Speaker 1: almanacs are proliferating throughout these seventeen thirties and and later decades,
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  Speaker 1: the most popular almanac author in the colonies is Titan
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  Speaker 1: leads that one son, and he was beefing, like you said,
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  Speaker 1: with his other brother. Maybe there's nominative determinism. Maybe the
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  Speaker 1: name Titan was just too tight form not to succeed absolutely.
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  Speaker 1: I mean that's gotta go to your head a little bit,
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  Speaker 1: you know, especially with terms like titans of industry being
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  Speaker 1: bandied about. Willie Nilly. So, as we said before, back
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  Speaker 1: to Franklin, like he he really did kind of achieve
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  Speaker 1: a lot of success in multiple disciplines. He we know,
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  Speaker 1: he was a postmaster. You know, he invented things like
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  Speaker 1: the Franklin stove, which he like weirdly didn't patent because
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  Speaker 1: he believed that ideas oftentimes should belong to the people. Um,
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  Speaker 1: which we're gonna get into it that that applied that
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  Speaker 1: kind of was a two way street. That you gotta
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  Speaker 1: give him credit for that, because he definitely lifted some
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  Speaker 1: things from others, but he also allowed his stuff to
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  Speaker 1: be lifted, so it was sort of like, you know,
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  Speaker 1: a fair play kind of situation. Uh. He achieved a
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  Speaker 1: lot of success in fame as an author, as a scientist,
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  Speaker 1: of course a statesman. He was, in fact, never president.
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  Speaker 1: I always remember Andy Daly. I think he is in
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  Speaker 1: an episode of the Office where he plays like a
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  Speaker 1: Ben Franklin impersonator and he's like flirting with Pam and
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  Speaker 1: he goes As it turns out, I actually was never
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  Speaker 1: the president, because I think Michael Scott accused him of
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  Speaker 1: having been the president, to which he retorts. But printer
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  Speaker 1: was what he ultimately listed himself as, like in in
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  Speaker 1: in how he wanted to be remembered when he died,
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  Speaker 1: like in terms of like the record, like he he
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  Speaker 1: was Benjamin Franklin Printer. And with that, the most successful venture, uh,
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  Speaker 1: and the most probably memorable thing that he contributed to
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  Speaker 1: the culture of America would be Poor Richard's Almanac, which
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  Speaker 1: was a smashing success and is forever to this day,
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  Speaker 1: you know, associated with Ben Franklin, even though he didn't
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  Speaker 1: necessarily write everything in it, right, Yeah, And A lot
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  Speaker 1: of what we're pulling here comes from the Pennsylvania Center
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  Speaker 1: for the book an excellent article by Lisa Morgan titled
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  Speaker 1: the Prominent and prodigiously popular Poor Richard. I love a
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  Speaker 1: good I love yeah. So this this is interesting because
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  Speaker 1: is his work as a printer was the inspiration for
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  Speaker 1: the vast majority of his early work as a writer,
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  Speaker 1: and he loved writing the Pennsylvania Gazette and Poor Richards almanacs.
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  Speaker 1: His most famous part of these early publications were the
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  Speaker 1: proverbs of Poor Richard, which he just took from people.
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  Speaker 1: He just said, you know who cares, I'll just take it.
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  Speaker 1: It's for the folks. And he learned to be a writer.
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  Speaker 1: This is kind of inspiring, I think for any budding
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  Speaker 1: writers in the audience today. He learned to be a
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  Speaker 1: writer by taking articles in a publication called The Spectator
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  Speaker 1: and just copying and recopying those articles word by word,
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  Speaker 1: thinking through it. And other writers have done this before,
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  Speaker 1: like just rewriting uh don Quixote, for example, which is
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  Speaker 1: a long thing to rewrite, literally just verbatia, right, Like
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  Speaker 1: he was just duplicating these, So I guess I get
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  Speaker 1: how that would maybe like improve his penmanship. How do
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  Speaker 1: you think that's contributed to like coming up with original
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  Speaker 1: ideas and why the writing is there something kind of
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  Speaker 1: like visceral and almost like some kind of osmosis involved
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  Speaker 1: with putting pen to paper and like writing and committing
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: an idea, you know, down to paper, and then at
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: the same time you're kind of like processing it in
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  Speaker 1: your brain. Yeah, because different areas of your brain are
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: activated right by different modes of learning. So that's why
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: writing something down helps you remember it better than repeating
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  Speaker 1: it to yourself. This probably gave him a really good
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  Speaker 1: firsthand sense of how to structure different things he wanted
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  Speaker 1: to write. He was living through the format, but you
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  Speaker 1: know he he was going gangbusters, like you said, after
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  Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania Gazette, Poor Richard was the most profitable enterprise
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  Speaker 1: that Franklin had as a publisher. It's sold ten thousand
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  Speaker 1: copies a year, which is huge. There are a lot
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  Speaker 1: of books who can't do that in the modern day
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  Speaker 1: and time. You know, like you said, the truth is
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  Speaker 1: out now. In most of the material there was not
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  Speaker 1: actually written by him. It was collected and published by him. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: And let's get to part of this hoax. We'll call
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  Speaker 1: this the hoax. We said he predicted a death. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: poor Richard hits Philadelphia, big splash, even in a crowded market.
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  Speaker 1: And Benjamin Franklin, who is smarter than the average bear, says,
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  Speaker 1: this Titan Leads guy might be eating my lunch. His almanac,
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  Speaker 1: which was called an American Almanac, is by far my
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  Speaker 1: number one competitor. So I am going to take a
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  Speaker 1: lesson from the author of Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift. And
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  Speaker 1: in the preface to the seventeen seventy three edition of
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  Speaker 1: Poor Richard's Almanac, Poor Richard Saunders reports on the death
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  Speaker 1: of Titan Leads. Yeah. I mean it was really kind
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  Speaker 1: of like a very clever publicity stunt. They probably started
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  Speaker 1: out as being like maybe in good fun, but boy,
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  Speaker 1: oh boy, did it snowball? And um, this is a
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  Speaker 1: little more text and we usually read, but this is
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  Speaker 1: an exert from Poor Richard's audition that that that that
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  Speaker 1: put forth this speculation. Um, and I think we should
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  Speaker 1: read the whole thing. Shall we round Robin and Ben
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: or just to take it half these? Uh, let's take
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  Speaker 1: it half these, let's double dragon. Yeah, I love it.
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  Speaker 1: Why don't you lead off my good man, Thank you, sir,
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  Speaker 1: very well. Poor Richard says, indeed, this motive would have
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  Speaker 1: had force enough to have made me publish in Ormanac
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  Speaker 1: many years since, had it not been overpowered by my
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  Speaker 1: regard for my good friend and fellow student, Mr. Titan Leads,
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  Speaker 1: whose interest I was extremely unwilling to hurt. But this obstacle,
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  Speaker 1: I am far from speaking of it with pleasure, is
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  Speaker 1: soon to be removed. Since it trouble Death, who was
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: never known to respect merits, has already prepared the mortal dot.
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  Speaker 1: The fatal Sister has already extended her destroying shears, and
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  Speaker 1: that ingenious fan must soon be taken from us. Hot
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: prose of the fatal Sister has already extended her destroying shears. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: I love to see how he says. Uh, he capitalizes death,
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  Speaker 1: but then he also capitalizes merit and Jesus, yeah, it's fantastic.
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  Speaker 1: I love it. It's so clever. Here we go, he
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  Speaker 1: goes on, and then he dawns. By my calculation made
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  Speaker 1: at his request on October seventeen, seventeen thirty three, three
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  Speaker 1: twenty nine post Meridian, at the very instant of the
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  Speaker 1: conjunction of the Sun and mercury. By his own calculation,
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  Speaker 1: he will so far till the twenty six of the
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: same month. This small difference between us we have disputed
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: whenever we have met these nine years past. But at
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  Speaker 1: length he is inclinable to agree with my judgment which
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: of us is most exact. A little time will now
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  Speaker 1: determine beautiful, beautiful rendition, if I do say so, myself
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: and Max Hoping we have different flavors the same. We're
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: not the same poor Richard. But poor Richard was like
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: not a real thing anyway, So we're just kind of
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: channeling our particular spirits of poor Richard. Yeah, I think
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I went a little more sinister, but you see, you
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  Speaker 1: get the gist. Record scratch please, Max, There's one problem.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Titan Leads is very much alive, and he also reads
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  Speaker 1: almanacs and newspapers. He sure does. Yeah, you know, as
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  Speaker 1: as is probably a smart move for his profession, to
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: keep up to speed with all the competition and all that.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't decay that he was necessarily like
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: immediately enraged, but he certainly was a little bit mystified. Again,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I what do you think, Ben, Like, are we meant
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to read this and interpreted as satire, because it's like
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of satire in Poor Richards. Again,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: the character is is not real. People knew that, right
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: or did they not know that? I think they knew that,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: if there at least those that looked close enough. I
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: think a lot of people were probably split. Many folks
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: who were in the know surely knew that Poor Richard
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: was just another version of of Ben Franklin. But I
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if there were people in the colonies
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: who thought there really was a Poor Richard, you know.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: But I'm certain they're not. Yea, So I guess what
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: I'm getting at those like a lot of those little missives,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: those little what you call them proverbs or whatever, there's
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: some snark and tongue in she can all of that.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: I think there were probably some people maybe saw this
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: and we're like, ha ha ha, that's a funny little
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: jab at that at your you know, competition. Maybe not,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: though maybe it really wasn't meant to be. Taking at
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: face value, I have a hard time taking the temperature
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: of the time where we sit here in the present.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: But what we do know is that Leeds was was
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: understandably irritated, let's just say, and he decided he wanted
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: to clear the air and make sure that everyone knew
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: that he was in fact, very much alive, so he
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: posted or posted yeah, like it's a blog. He responded
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: in his own publication, The American Almanac, with a c K.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: By the way, the year seventeen thirty four. And I
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: don't want to read this one too, band it's pretty good. Yeah,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: why don't you start this one? Awful? All right, kind reader,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Perhaps it's maybe expected that I should say something concerning
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: an almanac printed for the year seventeen thirty three, said
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: to be written by Paul Richard or Richard Saunders, who,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: for want of other matters, was pleased to tell his
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: readers that he had calculated my nativity and from thence
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: predicts my death to be the seventeenth of October seventeen
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: thirty Okay, first, let me stop he real quick. This
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: isn't announcing his death. This is a Now, this is
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: like predicting his death like Nostradamin style. So anyone that
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: didn't think that poor Richard had somehow mastered necromancy or
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: whatever probably should have seen that this was what was
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: he basing it on like he's he's talking about all
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: these mystical things and like the fates and their scissors
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: and all of that. Like, I just don't think anybody
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: that was, you know, intelligent, would have would have thought
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: that this was true. But again a lot of people
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: that we were probably weren't super intelligent. So he goes
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: on to say October seventeen thirty three and twenty two
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: minutes past three o'clock in the afternoon, and that these
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: provinces may not expect to see any more of his
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: himselves performances. And this precise predictor, who predicts to admit its,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: proposes to succeed me in writing of almanacs. But notwithstanding
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: his false prediction, I have, by the mercy of God,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: lived to write a diary for the year seventeen thirty four,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: and to publish the folly and ignorance of his presumptuous author. Nay,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: he adds another gross falsehood. It he said, Almanac viz.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: That by my own calculation, I shall survive until the
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  Speaker 1: twenty six of the said month, which is October, which
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  Speaker 1: is as untrue as the former, for I did not
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  Speaker 1: pretend to that knowledge. Though he has usurped the knowledge
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: of the Almighty herein and manifested himself a fool and
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: a liar. And by the mercy of God, I have
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: lived to survive this conceited scribblers day and minute, whereon
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  Speaker 1: he has predicted my death, And as I have supplied
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: my country with almanacs for three seven years by past
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  Speaker 1: to general satisfaction, so perhaps I live to write when
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: his performances are dead. Thus much from your annual friend,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Titan Leagues, October eighteen, seventeen thirty three, three hours, thirty
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: three minutes pre I live for this beef, I swear
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: to go. Not only do I live for the beef,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I live for the format of this, this this era
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: of discourse. Kind reader, Oh dude, it's so good. I mean,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: it's just like, just say the thing you could mean.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: And I'm joking. I love the dancing around and all that,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: but we've really lost this flowery prose, you know. I mean,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: with Twitter, it's like you're literally limited in the number
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: of characters you can use. But this, all of this
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: giant paragraph to say I am in fact not day right,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: you know, and all of the first ones to say
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: this guy is going to die on this date, but subtext,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: I always think about this Benjamin Franklin, love him or
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: hate him, he would have been an absolute beast on
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Twitter man totally densest tweets ever. Yeah right, because he
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: would have had to learn to pare down and use
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: economy of language. But he would have just made fire
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: like like moon Rock level tweets. In terms of like
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: the density of the meaning. I think you would have
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: just readed on threads. I don't know if he would
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: have done single tweets, but we know I speculate that
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Ben Franklin, clearly this is a pr stunt. Clearly he
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: knows this is going to get back to Titan Leads.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: He's just sort of tweaking his nose a bit and uh. Leads,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: by the way, releases that response the next year, and
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Franklin then responds by saying Leads is too well bred
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: to use any man so indecently and so scuriously. Franklin
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: doubles down, and he basically says, it's not Leads who
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: is writing this, because Titan Leads is a good dude,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: and whoever's talking this trash is an impostor. Yeah. He
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: doubles down and continues to double down for several years.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: He does the thing that any good cult leader worth
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: their salt who predicts like an apocalyptic event does, They
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: just kind of kicked the can down the road and
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: never actually admit that they've made a mistake. That's the key.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: You never say you're sorry. If you never say you're sorry,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: and never like you know, admit that you've you've you've goofed,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: then to enough people you might as well have not
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: goofed to just have the confidence of the strident late,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: wrong lie big. So this is uh. He says that
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: despite the fact that it's clearly a cover up and
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: his friend, his dea friend, Titan Leads, has passed away, Uh,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: he's gonna He's gonna keep going because that's what Titan
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Leads would have wanted for poor Richard's almanac. And when
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: he puts this out, it's like five pence a copy.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: When he's talking this smack. People love it. It sells
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: out in less than a week, and like two days
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: it sells out. Franklin has to make three runs of
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: the almanac. He prints three iterations of it just to
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: keep up with sales. And then the kicker, the like
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: ultimate nail in the coffin, if you will, Leads does
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: eventually die for reals uh in seventeen thirty eight, at
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: which time Benjamin Franklin, as Saunders Princes a letter from
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Leads got saying, actually I did die at precisely the
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: moment and hour that you mentioned, with a variation of
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: five minutes fifty three seconds. Wow, that's hot, sput. I mean,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: that's not super classy, Ben, I have to say. And
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: I'm a fan of Bends. And you know, the American
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Almanac continued and up through its seventeen forty six issue,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: which you can read this online, the ghost of Titan
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Leeds was hovering in the imprint of the issue. And
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: this is because seventeen forty six is supposed to be
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: the final year he had calculated the calendar before actually
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: passing away. So this is slick. This is slick, dangerous
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: satire and and got pretty dirty, especially when someone's actual
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: death was involved. But this was just one of Ben
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Franklin's many hoaxes. He perpetrated several others, especially from an
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: early age. Right, you heard a silence do good? Yeah,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: now not so much, tell us tell us about silence
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: do good? Okay, So there's this thing called the New
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: England Korate, and between April and October seventy two, it
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: starts receiving and printing a series of letters by someone
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: claiming to be a middle aged widow called Silence do Good,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: which very much doesn't sound like a real name, And
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: she's basically writing this onion style send up of life
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: in colonial America, talking about drunk locals, religious hypocrites, how
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: society is terrible to women, how were who petticoats are?
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: All this stuff. This would have been stuff that locals
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: would recognize to like, almost like a gossip rag, you
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, like a gossip column, because this
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: would have been a small community. Also, I love this
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: part the pretensions of Harvard College, right, And these became
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: a smash the silent dude. It's hard to even say.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: It's a real mouthful. Silence do Good letters became quite popular,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: and apparently, uh, she was quite popular with the fellas
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: who were like, shinla, I mean, how do I get
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: a date with this broad? And they got catfish that
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: back then, they got catfish so hard. It turned out
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: that Silence do Good was actually Benjamin Franklin, a sixteen
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: year old teenage Benjamin Franklin, who was working as an
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: apprentice at his brother James's print shop in Boston. So
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: he goes to show that that Franklin came by satire
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: and a love of printing honestly, like from a very
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: early age, like working as an apprentice in his brother's shop, Like,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: he saw the potential, the possibilities of of the written word,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: and he obviously used it to great effect. Um and
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: was also a real jokester initially though apparently he did
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: not tell his brother. You know, he didn't give up
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: the ghost, not not an actual ghost this time, but
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: he didn't tell his brother that it was him, in fact,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: because he was worried that his brother would be cross,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: which in fact he was, because he believed that, um, well,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: a couple of things. He probably believed that you know,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: if it came out of that, you know, this was
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: this was like totally made up, that the people wouldn't
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: he would lose credibility, especially if it was something that
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: was printed as like this is real. But he he
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: also was concerned that all of these compliments, it's kind
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: of weird because a lot of them were sort of
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: like it's sexual in nature, right, they were like men saying,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: how about hubba silence, do good? I want to marry that,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: I want a wife that. Uh. He was worried that
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: it would make Ben young Ben Franklin vain, which, as
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: we know, he did grow up to be quite a
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: vain man. So maybe there was some some truth to
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: that or some sand to those concerns. Yeah, yeah, there
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: was possibly some sand to it. Uh. And this was
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: just one of the many hoaxes that he would he
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: would participate in. And you know, I love culture, Jammy,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I love doing like I put missing Boomerang photos up
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. I just think it's a it's
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: a fun way to kind of get your rascal rascal, Ben,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: your irascible rascal, didn't you. I gotta show you guys
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: this one. I had put them up around the area
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: of our old office right that we have to say
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: old office now, where it was just like missing boomerang.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Just stand here for a minute. I don't know if
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: anybody ever actually stood there. I'm sure not. Someone could
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: have gotten hurt Ben, either physically or at the very
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: least emotional emotions. What happens in that boomerang never comes around.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I know we all learned. How do you trust anyone
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: ever again? Right? Uh? So we know that. All right,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Poor Richard's almanac had other weird things that is especially
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: relevant to your earlier pointnel about how any classic would
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: be profit. We'll just sort of move the goalpost of
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: their predictions. Uh he Yeah, in seventeen thirty sevent he's
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: been making this almanac for five years now. He includes
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: what he calls enigmatical prophecies in the almanac, and uh,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: they're pretty wild. They sure are. Let's see. Uh. He
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: predicted a great storm would flood all of the major
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: cities of North America, causing them to be completely underwater. Yeah.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: He also said a great number of vessels fully latent,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: will be taken out of the ports by a power
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: with which we are now at war. Also that an
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: army of thirty thousand musketeers will land and sorely annoy
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the inhabitants lightly. Yeah, a year passes. None of this
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: appears to come true, at least the way that the
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: reader's interpret it. People are about to label Benjamin Franklin
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: a you know, a flam flam artist, but then he
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: pops back in and says, actually, all three of these
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: prophecies have come to pass. M hmmm. Yeah. Apparently rainstorms
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: had placed every city underwater, get it under Also that
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the power of wind, as in the you know, the
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: blowy the blowy bits, had taken fully laiden vessels out
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: of ports, you know, through filling their sales and propelling
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: them in a forward movement. Uh yeah, And what about
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: the musketeers, he said, Well, more than thirty thou musketeers
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: or mosquitoes have definitely annoyed the inhabitants of the colonies grown.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: But is he is he implying that musketeers and musquiteers
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: are like it was like a pronunciation joke. Maybe he
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: musket muskets. I think it might be muskets muskets. We
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: got well done, Ben, you got us so totally. There
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: isn't there isn't a second e at the end. Yeah,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: that's how that's how he gets us. It's because he's
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: not spelling it right. By the way, speaking of of
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: of hilarious uh and and maybe often overlooked misspellings, I
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: went to a hair metal concerts yesterday for a work
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: related thing at the Brave Stadium. It was it was
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Poison Motley Crue, Joan Jet and the Black Carts and
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: death Leopard. But can either of you, without looking online,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: tell me how deaf Leopard is spelled uh d E
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: f l e P p r D r D. I
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: think there's just one P, but I I always would
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: ever I've written it, I've just spelled it d e
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: A f l e O p A r D. It
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: is two piece. It is too bees. You guys win
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: absolutely nothing but my undying adoration. But I don't know
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: the sound cues going on right now. Stay we want
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: a lot. Definitely, you definitely did. But my question is like,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: what's being accomplished here, Like is this meant to be
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: like we're crazy, we spell words weird. Um, it's a
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: similar sensibility to what what you know. I mean, it's
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: all about the malleability of the of the English word,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: and you can do fun things with spelling and interject
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: little puns and kind of create your own ways of
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: spelling things. But I digress. I think what Franklin did
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: was both genius and like he was kind of one
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: of the original trolls, you know, such a troll, such
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: a troll up. There was swift for sure. I think
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: we should do an episode on on Swift uh trolling
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: because he took it to a new level, Jonathan Swift.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: So let us know what other historical trolls you would
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: like to hear about. Get the two, the Facebook's or
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: the twitters and find us on Ridiculous History. Find us
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: on Ridiculous Historians. We do love to hear from everyone
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: on there. Also, you can find us not just as
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: a show, but as individuals. Yeah, we're people, We exist
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: outside of this show. Yeah that's fair. What do you
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: always say, Ben, You're a thing that happens to people?
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Kind of Yeah, I like it. I like it when
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: you happen to me, and I think that the Ridiculous
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Historians would agree. They also like it. Like being caught
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: up in your wake. But you can find me if
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: you want to get caught up in my Internet wake,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: exclusively on Instagram at how Now Noel Brown? How about yourself?
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Ben Well, you can get a preview of all the
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: strange things I'm working on, both for Ridiculous History and
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: many other podcasts that I touch over on Instagram where
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I'm at Ben Bowling bo w l I N or
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: over on Twitter where I'm at Ben Bowland h s
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: W and while you're on Twitter, be sure to swing
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: by and give a good ridiculous historian hello to our
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: own Mr Max Williams. Yeah, come check me out. I
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: will be on there, I don't know, maybe tagging Jonathan
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Strickland and Ben's posts, because why not? Why not bring
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: more of him into our lives? Do what thou wilst?
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: But yeah, you can find me on Twitter at at
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: l underscore Max Williams, and that's where all that fun
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: and excitement will be Thanks as always, Max, Thanks to
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: our composer Alex Williams. Thinks, of course, to another founding
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: member of the show casey Pegram, who I was delighted
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: to see in person quite recently. Spoiler alert folks, he
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: may be returning for a guest spot pretty soon. Thanks
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: also to our very own favorite troll, Mr Jonathan Strickland
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: a k. The Quister. We'll see you next time, folks.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows.