Abraham Lincoln applied for a patent on a newspaper-like version of Facebook in 1845? If someone told you that in a bar, you’d laugh. But if they wrapped it in a tall tale, wrote it on a blog, and attached a Photoshopped front page, it seems they can garner national press attention.
Entrepreneur and sometime blogger Nate St. Pierre published such a fable on his website Tuesday. He claimed to have visited a cemetery for circus folk in Delavan, Wisconsin (such a place does exist) and seen a gravestone that referenced P.T. Barnum and Abraham Lincoln
That led him on a journey to the Lincoln museum in Springfield, Ill., where a librarian supposedly helped St. Pierre dig up a failed patent application for the “Springfield Gazette,” replete with status updates, a profile photo and pithy quotes. “After we read it, we both sat there quiet for a long time,” St. Pierre wrote. “It was so obvious what this was, guys. A patent request for Facebook, filed by Abraham Lincoln in 1845.”
Most tall tales have red flags in them for the alert reader. This one was like a Beijing Olympics of red flags. Read More
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