This post is by Rebecca Newland, the 2013-2015 Library of Congress Teacher in Residence.
April’s Fool’s Day pranks are usually fairly short term: An entire class simultaneously falls asleep or a teacher assigns a forty-page essay due the next day, and everyone laughs once the trick is revealed. Hoaxes, on the other hand, have a different intent, as they are engineered to deceive over the long term, and often on a large scale. Invite your students to consider the difference as they analyze primary sources connected to the Great Moon Hoax of 1835.
In August of 1835, the New York newspaper The Sun published a six-part series about life found on the moon, written by Dr. Andrew Grant, a protégé of Sir John