Ahatmose Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>. I only wanted to check on April
> the 1st because The Smithsonian claimed it was an
> April Fool's joke. Now that you have been kind
> enough to get the proof that the paper was indeed
> published on April Fool's Day the argument of The
> Smithsonian rings totally false as the story of
> the caves should have been in The April 1st's
> paper if it was supposed to be a joke and
> the article was published on Monday April
> 5th and there are many confirmations that
> it was indeed in that paper. And one last reminder
> that I wrote to The Smithsonian and they confirmed
> they knew about the article.
>
> Thanks for the leg work. So obviously not an April
> Fool's Joke as suggested by The Smithsonian.

Apparently, newspapers in the USA started to carry April Fool stories on April 1st from about the middle of the 19th century. One famous example was The Great Moon Hoax of 1835.

I didn't investigate other years of the Arizona Gazette: the library staff had limited time at their disposal - so don't know whether other April Fool stories were carried in that newspaper in those times.

However, this article describes how a rogue salesman by the name of Joe Mulhattan was accused of filing the story.

And this is the Jason Colavito archive article (I can't remember if it was linked earlier or not).

Hermione
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