For more than a decade, a prankster spun a web of deception about the inventor of the electric toaster. His lies fooled newspapers, teachers and officials. Then a teenager flagged up something that everyone else had missed.

Huh! Next you'll be telling us that Jimmy Wales didn't invent Wikipedia! 😃

#interesting #funny #amusing #Wikipedia #hoaxes

bbc.co.uk/news/the-reporters-6…

Alan MacMasters: How the great toaster hoax was exposed

How a 15-year-old schoolboy exposed a much-repeated "fact" as a Wikipedia hoax.

^{By Marco Silva (BBC News)}