The story goes on to say, "scientific research indicates that Europe will soon become a tropical zone. A few years later the entire world will be a sweltering inferno, unfit for life." But worse than being able to grow bananas in the North Atlantic is that man's machinery was detrimental to our existence. No, not just in warming the climate but because scientists saw man's technology as actually pulling the earth into the sun.
Imagine such lunacy. It was a sort of craziness of that period that would never be thought sane today, or would it? The alarm and subsequent fear that was supposedly being trumpeted at the time was something not unheard of among fearmongers who seen calamity everywhere. Of course, there are those who see great opportunities in making money from such hoaxes. The people were told that they should have been concerned over man's use of machinery because it will grow the earth's temperature rapidly if not addressed.
Sounds familiar?
It should, it is a hoax that is making people extremely wealthy today. Concerns for Global Warming, what Global Warming advocates had to re-label as Climate Change, are everywhere simply because so many people today have bought into the scam, the widespread fraud, the lie designed to bilk millions from people while devastating American industry. The scam of Global Warming and a scientist's unsuccessful effort to stop it might sound like something out of today's headlines, but it isn't.
This story first appeared in newspapers in 1874. Yes, the Global Warming Hoax of 1874 took place over one hundred years ago.
How did it happen? How did the scam take place?
Like today, back in 1874, the Global Warming "theory" was presented to people as a "factual" account of events. But in reality, it was entirely fiction. It was a 19th Century Global Warming hoax that was almost a trial balloon for what's taking place today.
While it failed back then, and unlike today's Global Warming con-game, it was a way to bilk money and position from those gullible enough to believe it. By gaining positions of authority and prominence in our educational system, the proponents would get rich in the long run.
The Transatlantic Telegraph Cable and the End of the World
The scam first surfaced in early February 1874, when the Kansas City Times newspaper printed the text of a letter it claimed received from a man by the name of J.B. Legendre.
Legendre signed the letter and reportedly stated that he had been sent the letter by an unnamed "American man of science" living in Florence, Italy. The correspondent detailed a supposed discovery of a magnitude that would unite the world to a common goal of saving the planet. It would "create" a cause that every government would be able to use to control their population. It would be a cause more uniting than that of war and national emergency. As it was worded in the scam, it was a cause "of great and even agonizing importance to the human race."
This unnamed "American man of science" supposedly learned of "Global Warming" from other scientists in Italy. Yes, supposedly, but never confirmed. And as I said before, from what I can tell, no one really knows if Mr. Donati was connected to the hoax being played on the world. We only know that his name came up in a newspaper article.
The story becomes too elaborate.
The supposed discovery of man's demise due to "Global Warming" was attributed to the Italian astronomer Giovanni Donati, who for many years was said to be making daily measurements of the distance from the earth to the sun by means of an invention of his own design. Of course, we have to understand that none of it was true.
But, supposedly in the course of making these measurements, Giovanni Donati noted that when the first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid in 1858 -- that the earth began to warm because it began moving closer to the sun. Imagine that, supposedly the earth was moving toward the sun because of that telegraph cable!
According to the hoax, "initially the shift in orbit was quite gradual, but it quickly grew larger. And when another cable was subsequently laid connecting France to Massachusetts, the movement of the earth toward the sun accelerated rapidly."
That "A-Ha Moment" in the scam!
Supposedly, according to the con game, for Donati that "aha moment," that supposed moment of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension, was realized to his terror and disbelief. Yes, according to the scam, Donati surmised, "through scientific research," that the transatlantic cables were acting like enormous electromagnets and were actually pulling the earth into the sun.
The scam's elaborate story said that Donati calculated that if the earth's current trajectory continued unchecked, Europe would become tropical in 12 years, and the entire earth would be uninhabitable soon after. Man's technology, in that case, the transatlantic cables, was the supposed cause of the planet plunging into the sun. Man's technology was the cause of Global Warming.
Below is the text of the 1874 Global Warming Hoax as it appeared in the newspapers of the time:
A SCIENTIFIC SENSATION
To the Editor of the Kansas City Times:
A friend of mine residing in Florence, an American man of science traveling for the sake of his health, lately wrote to me as follows:
"I have attended the meetings of one of the numerous scientific coteries with which Italy is blessed. In one of them a subject was broached which if generally known would startle the whole civilized world. One of the members, a man whose name is known in both hemispheres, asserted that the celebrated Donati (who lately died, much regretted by scientific men) had been a victim, not to disease or to time, although he was in a "green old age," but to nervous excitement or fright, caused by a discovery which he had made of great and even agonizing importance to the human race. Donati had for many years been employing his unbounded energy in exploring some of the "hidden things in astronomy." of these investigations he kept a strict record of solar phenomena especially. He constructed an instrument by which he could calculate the earth's exact place in the great ellipse that it travels around the sun, and also, in his own estimation, its distance from the sun, although in this latter point he was not universally credited by his scientific colleagues. He never failed to make minute daily records of the result of his observation, and to this custom he owed his fresh discovery. On the very day that the cable was laid, his instruments showed him that the earth, like some vast ship towed by invisible hands, was drawing nearer to the sun. Every month after that epoch its distance was perceptibly lessened, as shown by his instruments, much more delicate than telescopes or the human eye. When the French cable was laid there was an acceleration very marked in this attraction to the sun. Donati thought that this movement was increasing in a geometrical ratio. He explained this alarming fact by certain reasonings based on the connection between gravitation and magnetism, which I suspect my friend was hardly able to follow.
His conclusion was this: That in twelve years the climate of Europe would become tropical, if not unfit for human existence, and that in a few more years this globe, which, with all its faults we love so well, would be precipitated into the sun. It seems that Donati had in vain tried to bring this matter before the Italian government — hoping through it to reach the nations most interested in oceanic telegraphs — but the war politics had prevented any notice being taken of his representations. He thought that if America and England could be induced to examine his data and proofs they, seeing the tremendous consequences of man's tampering too far with the machinery of nature, would speedily cause these cable to be things of the past. His failure induced him to think of private enterprise, and several wealthy Italians, amateurs of science, combined together, chartered a brig and expensive machinery, and by their patriotic (although patriotism is too petty a name) efforts produced the first break in Field's cable, laid by the Great Eastern. Donati's instruments quickly showed that the earth was nearing its normal ellipse. But the break was quickly repaired, and once more the earth commenced its infinite spiral journal to the flames. Donati's health gave way. Age and disappointment hastened his dissolution. A few days before his death he carefully sealed up all his manuscripts, with directions that they should not be opened for five years."
So much for my correspondent, Mr. Editor. Make of him such use as seems best to you. I am yours respectfully,
J.B. Legendre
The gloomy prediction and warning about the unforeseen danger of mankind's technology immediately attracted attention. Within weeks, the entire text of the letter had been reprinted by papers throughout the United States, appearing under the headline, "A Scientific Sensation."
However, although many papers reprinted the letter, there's no evidence any of them took it seriously. In fact, given the magnitude of the threat detailed, the attitude of papers toward it was strangely casual. Instead of giving it top-of-the-page billing, they typically placed it further down the page, sandwiching it between items about congressional proceedings and the price of silver. When the New York Daily Tribune reported about the story on the 24th of February, it dismissed the idea as "absurd."
By April, interest in the end-of-the-world prediction had begun to fade. Some papers continued to report the rumor that the great astronomer Donati had died "from excitement consequent upon discovering that the earth is approaching the sun so rapidly that in ten years it will be drawn into the sun and shriveled up." But they accompanied this disclosure with the joking remark that, "This will be discouraging news to the insurance companies."
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| Columbia Daily Phoenix, April 19, 1874 |
According to that article, supposedly Donati warned the governments of the world -- but the politicians were preoccupied with plans for war to pay attention to him. But that didn't stop Donati who supposedly convinced several of his colleagues to join him in chartering a boat to go out and destroy one of the cables. According to the tale, the break was soon repaired and the earth's descent into the sun continued.
Seeing there was no hope, and that the world was doomed, supposedly Donati's health gave way as he fell into depression. One version of the hoax says that Giovanni Donati killed himself, while another report says that the Italian scientist turned to booze, lost his family, and he died of despair in December 1873. Yes, big-time drama! Too bad none of that was true at the time -- just as it is not true now.
Actually, respected Italian scientist Giovanni Donati died after contracting cholera while attending a scientific conference on comets in Vienna in 1873. That's the real story of his death.
The Global Warming Hoax of 1874 is said to have been a minor media hoax in comparison to others.
The fact is the "Global Warming Hoax of 1874" is one of the earliest fictional uses of scams that use the myth that "Global Warming triggered by mankind's technology" is going to kill us all in 12 years. While that was back in 1874, the same con game is going on. In fact, Democrat Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said in 2019 that "the world will end in 12 years" because of Climate Change which is the new term for Global Warming.
Although back in 1874, the cause of Global Warming was identified as the undersea transatlantic cables instead of carbon emissions as the cause of the warming, it was the prelude to the 1896 scam when a scientist named Svante Arrhenius had first tried to blame "Global Warming" on "human-produced carbon emissions."
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| Giovanni Donati |
So what was true?
Well, it should be noted that the perpetrators of the Global Warming Hoax of 1874 were simply using Mr. Donati's good name to legitimize their hoax.
He did not come up with such foolishness, nor did he have anything to do with the short-lived hoax.
Yes, believe it or not, there really was an Italian astronomer named Giovanni Battista Donati.
Mr. Donati pioneered spectroscopy of comets to determine their physical composition, in particular with the comet
1864b, which spectrum he found containing three emitting lines which would four years later be identified by William Huggins to be
carbon.
He discovered that the spectrum changed when a comet approached the Sun, and that heating caused it to emit its own light rather than reflected sunlight: he concluded that the composition of comets is, at least in part, gaseous.
Mr. Donati was also a pioneer in the spectroscopic study of the stars and the sun.
Mr. Donati died from cholera, which he had contracted while attending a scientific convention in Vienna. So no, not December and not by despair. Instead his death was a result of cholera in September of 1873.
As for the Transatlantic Telegraph Cables, they were very real and well-known.
The transatlantic telegraph cable is an undersea cable running under the Atlantic Ocean used for telegraph communications. The first was laid across the floor of the Atlantic from Telegraph Field, Foilhommerum Bay, Valentia Island in western Ireland to Heart's Content in eastern-Newfoundland.
The first communications occurred on August 16, 1858, reducing the communication time between North America and Europe from ten days -- which was the time it took to deliver a message by ship -- to a matter of minutes.
And by the way, it was never broken in the 1870s. The transatlantic telegraph cables have been replaced by transatlantic telecommunications cables.
The rest of the Global Warming story is all a scam, just pure fiction.
So did the supposed warnings about the unforeseen danger of mankind's technology attract attention and alarm the populace? Well, no it didn't. Fact is, within weeks the entire text of the letter had been reprinted by papers throughout the United States, appearing under the headline, "A Scientific Sensation" -- but "the threat," which was extensively detailed, was received with a sort of casual attitude by newspapers, who demonstrated their disinterest by burying the story in their back pages. Instead of giving it front page billing, newspapers typically placed it between items about the price of baloney and garbage collection.
When the New York Daily Tribune reported the story on February 24th, 1874, the scam was dismissed as "absurd."
In fact, by April, interest in the "end-of-the-world" prediction had faded so much that some papers continued to report the rumor that the great astronomer Donati had died "from excitement consequent upon discovering that the earth is approaching the sun so rapidly that in ten years it will be drawn into the sun and shriveled up."
But they accompanied this disclosure with the joking remark that, "This will be discouraging news to the insurance companies."
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| Columbia Daily Phoenix, April 19, 1874 |
By May of 1874, the Global Warming report of mankind's imminent fiery demise had been entirely forgotten.
All of the Science-themed Hoaxes of the 19th Century are the predecessors of today's Science Fiction.
In the early 20th Century, pulp magazines sprang up to give science fiction stories a home -- and helped to establish the genre on a firm footing.
But during the 1870s up to the 1890s, there was no place for writers to publish such fanciful stories except in newspapers. And yes, they often published them there as hoaxes.
Remember that even today the Global Warming story is all a scam, all just pure fiction, but people still want to believe it.
So why are people today more gullible considering we're supposedly more advanced?
Well, to answer that, we have to understand that people back then were simply not as dumb as some today would like to believe.
It was not surprising that the J.B. Legendre letter didn't generate more excitement because hoaxes appeared American newspapers all the time in the late-19th Century. Newspaper editors and their readers were used to them.
Yes, no matter if the writer was a known con artist and the subject was a proven fraud, there are those who will always believe them.
And frankly, unlike the easy to convince people around today, to people at that time, this particular hoax evidently wasn't very convincing to anyone -- probably because it was so far-fetched.
Besides it being too far fetched, people back then knew that science-themed hoaxes were a particular favorite theme for bored reporters to write about.
Like the Liberal writers today who see our world as a bleak place to live, reporters at the time regularly tried to scam readers with stories about little green men, man-eating spiders, Amazon women on Mars, and dire predictions of every sort.
The New York Tribune, in the same paragraph where it declared the Global Warming Hoax of 1874 to be absurd, complained about how many science hoaxes were appearing in papers around the country.
And it's true, there were many elaborate hoaxes originating in this country. In fact, there were so many coming from supposed "scientific experts," aka "men of science," that America gained an unenviable reputation of producing science that was simply unbelievably. .
Today's Global Warming Scam is a hoax that has been proven a fraud and lie created by con artist including those linked to the United Nations.
Global Warming is promoted by none other than President Obama as the biggest threat which mankind faces, even bigger than Radical Muslims taking over the Middle-East and the real threat of Muslims obtaining nuclear weapons in Iran.
And in the meanwhile, men like Barrack Obama, George Soros, and Al Gore are making millions of dollars in sales of "carbon credits" and getting millions of dollars in contributions to fund the fraud.
Global Warming is being used today simply as a scam to generate fear and panic to gain control on the population while devastating American manufacturing with senseless regulation that our competitors overseas laugh at.
The Global Warming hysteria promoted in schools and Hollywood is devastating the American economy and energy exploration here. All while making millions of dollars in the process for pro-Global Warming organizations. Yes, unlike today's Global Warming Scam, no one made any money when they perpetrated the Global Warming Hoax of 1874.
And for good reason really, back in 1874 it was just another writer's hoax.
While many papers reprinted the letter at the time -- since there wasn't any real "honest" evidence that anything of the such was really taking place -- it wasn't taken seriously.
That ability to discern the truth from a lie tells me that while the folks back then might not have had the "advanced technology" that we have today, they apparently had a lot more perception and good old fashion Common Sense.
And yes, that's just the way I see it.
Tom Correa
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