📚 Novel Tragedy

A suicide is blamed on novel reading, other reports suggest ‘beheading’ was a an exaggeration, but why let that get in the way of a good headline? When bad things happen, people want to blame something and often new things are the easiest to blame.

📞 Anti-Landline Landlord

In 1927 this landlord treated telephones like indoor smoking or pets. Tenants sought legal advice about what to do, the big question? “Has a landlord the right to prevent his tenants from having telephones?”

🧙📻 Indistinguishable from Black Magic

After a lonely teacher bought a radio to keep him company, villagers began hearing strange noises when they knew he was alone. Their conclusion? He was a witch. He was swiftly killed. Villagers “Smashed the 'devil’s engine’” and “averted complete disaster by torturing the devil from the soul of a witch, who was disguised as a school teacher”

After putting a call out for polish speakers to confirm the story, one follower found something that suggests this could have been the case of chinese whispers or tabloid sensationalism.

Łukasz Borchmann @LukaszBorchmann

@PessimistsArc I was able to find two other news where it stands they were farmers who believed radio causes rain. Both differ in terms of village location and in these stories, Sawicki was not killed. It is mentioned as an example of villagers' illiteracy (here from Nowy Dziennik, 1927).

2:58 PM ∙ Apr 3, 2021

💉 Side Effects

A report from 1894 mimics some recent coverage of COVID-19 vaccines: over zealous reactions to health events in a small number of recipients. The New York Post recently published a report on an unrelated death of someone who took the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, for example.

It is worth remembering that the modern anti-vaxx movement was bolstered by similar reporting on unrelated autism cases in the 90s (made credible by Lancet), many reputable outlets reported on the possible link without much skepticism.

💨 Hot Air

Early concerns about automobiles and aeroplanes revolved around their speed preventing people exhaling carbon dioxide from their lungs properly, it wasn’t true for the same reason you don’t move backwards if you jump in a plane.

📚 Top Tweet

146 years ago a writer in The New York Times could not believe anti-vaxxers were still a thing. Little did he know…

Pessimists Archive @PessimistsArc

Guy in 1875 can't believe there are still anti-vaxxers. EIGHTEEN SEVENTY FIVE!

5:12 PM ∙ Apr 15, 2021

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🗞 The New York Times (1875)

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