Franklin's Mock Titan Leeds Obituary

In 1733, Benjamin Franklin, writing under the persona of Poor Richard, publicly "predicted" that his almanac rival Titan Leeds would die on October 17 of that year. When Leeds inconveniently stayed alive, Franklin published a mock obituary anyway and treated the prediction as fulfilled. Leeds angrily protested that he was very much alive, but Franklin doubled down and claimed that any complaints came from an impostor using the dead man’s name. Franklin kept up the joke in print until Leeds actually died years later, insisting the real Titan had long since passed.

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