The largest mass mailing in American history was the Understanding AIDS is a pamphlet in 1988. 126 million pamphlets were sent out hoping to reach every household in the USA. It contained information to avoid AIDS and encouraged the reader not to fear day-to-day contact with people with AIDS. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Und…
A poor 19th century Chinese man failed the civil service exam, fell ill, reread a Christian pamphlet he had earlier ignored, & hallucinated that he was Jesus' brother. He led a cult/rebellion that conquered much of southern China, crowning himself as king. This civil war killed over 10 million. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai…
March Fong Eu, served 19 years as California Secretary of State, introduced absentee ballots on demand, put candidate information in the state ballot pamphlet for the first time, and was the first Asian American woman to hold a constitutional office in any US state. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar…
Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense, the pamphlet that helped gain support for American Independence, was one of the first people to publicly doubt Jesus Christ existed. Prior Christian skeptics simply believed Christ wasn't the son of God. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chr…
Today I learned of the White Rose which was a non-violent Nazi resistance group made of college students and a professor. It started by releasing pamphlets against the Nazi Party and ended with the execution of 6 students and the professor. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whi…
During the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran, pamphlets were dropped telling people not to resist, because they were being liberated. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ang…
Today I learned of Alexis Benoît Soyer (born 1810) who was one of the first “celebrity” chefs. In addition to creating recipes, he invented a stove for soldiers to use during the Crimean war, wrote books and pamphlets on cooking, and did a lot to help the suffering in Ireland during the potato famine. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ale…
Ida Craddock, a 19th century sex educator, wrote pamphlets that advised couples on the importance of foreplay, complications of having too big of a penis, and how to properly rupture the hymen. She later committed suicide after being sentenced to prison for breaking obscenity laws. idacraddock.com/
On today's date, July 31st in 1703, Daniel Defoe was put up on a pillory for public humiliation for writing a satirical pamphlet. Instead of getting hit by fruit, he was pelted by flowers. historytoday.com/archive/…
Today I learned of the White Rose which was a non-violent Nazi resistance group made of college students and a professor. It started by releasing pamphlets against the Nazi Party and ended with the execution of 6 students and the professor. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whi…
Supporters of William Gladstone in the 1890 general election published a pamphlet about his opponent entitled "Political Achievements of the Earl of Dalkeith". Every one of its pages was blank. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol…
In shortly before women earned the right to vote, the "National Association OPPOSED to Woman Suffrage" published a pamphlet listing reasons why women shouldn't be allowed to vote, including "You do not need a ballot to clean out your sink spout." theatlantic.com/sexes/arc…
In Common Sense, a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine advocating independence from Great Britain for the 13 Colonies, when listing the defense resources they have, says there is so much Hemp flourishing in the colonies "even to [the point of] rankness" ushistory.org/paine/commo…
Beer namesake Samuel Adams was a paranoid recluse who published sensationalist pamphlets claiming the British were planning to literally enslave the entire population of the American Colonies, which may have been responsible for the riot that ended in the Boston Massacre npr.org/2019/03/08/701523…
Hernando Colón, the son of Christopher Columbus, started a universal library in Seville, Spain. He really did try to collect everything, and catalogued books, manuscripts, pamphlets and tavern posters, from weighty tomes to throwaway ephemera. cam.ac.uk/research/featur…
The Colorado River Toad can secrete a hallucinogenic toxin. Albert Most founded the "Church of the Toad of Light" and published a pamphlet detailing how to "milk" the toad and smoke it's venom. evolveandascend.com/2016/…
Thomas Payne argued in a 1797 pamphlet for an estate tax to fund elderly pensions and a one-time payment when a person reached 21 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agr…
Today I learned of a woman by the name of Mary Calderone, and a bestselling 1968 pamphlet which targeted SIECUS (an organization which she had initiated) calling Calderone the "SIECUS Sexpot", and claiming that she wanted to undermine Christian morality and corrupt children. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar…
At the beginning of World War II, a government pamphlet led to a massive cull of British pets. As many as 750,000 British pets were killed in just one week. bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-2…
Today I learned that the 12th century play Pamphilus de amore was copied and distributed so much it became the eponym for the word pamphlet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pam…
Henry Ford, pioneer in the automobile industry, wrote a series of pamphlets for his newspaper entitled "The International Jew" that blamed Jews for all the problems in the world. It would later inspire Hitler. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The…
The crime rate in 1970s New York City was so high that a 'Council for Public Safety' (mostly made up of NYPD and FDNY members) distributed a scaremongering pamphlet titled "Welcome to Fear City: A Survival Guide for Visitors to the City of New York." gawker.com/fear-city-the-…
Percy Bysshe Shelley, famous romantic poet and husband of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, was expelled from Oxford in 1811 due to his publication and distribution of the pamphlet called "The Necessity of Atheism". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per…
Beate Uhse was a stuntwoman and Luftwaffe pilot in WWII, ferrying around planes and jet fighters. After the war she started a mail order business sending out pamphlets teaching young girls about the rhythm method, which became the world's first sex shop and later a €280 million business. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bea…
During the first Gulf War, the Iraqi military would dispense propaganda pamphlets and radio spots aimed at US soldiers that said that while they were in Iraq fighting "their wives were in bed with Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis, and Bart Simpson" back at home... psywarrior.com/HerbDStorm…
In 1968, in response to the new phenomenon of "media politicians", JG Ballard penned a pamphlet entitled, Why I want to Fuck Ronald Reagan, who was then the Governor of California and candidate for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why…
Jonathan Swift wrote a pamphlet explaining why the rich and wealthy population should eat impoverished Irish babies to put an end to the Irish population issue, as well as feed the hungry. cambridge.org/core/journa…
The first left/right ideological debate in American media history is considered to be a pamphlet war in the 1790's between Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke over the topic of the then ongoing French Revolution spectator.co.uk/2014/02/t…
In 2009, the UK Government joined the Netherlands and other European nations in encouraging teens to masturbate at least daily. An orgasm was defined as a right in its health pamphlet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mas…
70 years ago today Sophie Scholl was guillotined For treason. She led a heroic, though doomed, nonviolent resistance movement against the Nazis.The allies later dropped millions of copies of pamphlets she had written over Germany by plane. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sop…
Select theatres who screened the 1981 film “Caveman” starring Ringo Star, issued English translation pamphlet’s to the audiences, for 30 "caveman words" used in the film. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cav…
Leading up to WWII the Roosevelt adminstration, worried about racial and ethnic divisions hurting the war effort, used radio and pamphlets to try to change public sentiment toward ethnic groups collections.ushmm.org/sea…
In 1910 Dr. George Levick witnessed Penguins engaging in necrophilia during an Antarctic expedition; he was so ashamed about his discovery, the pamphlet in which he recorded his findings was hidden for over 100 years. nydailynews.com/news/worl…
According to the 'Copyright Act 1911' The British Library must receive a copy of every item published or distributed in the United Kingdom (including pamphlets, magazines, newspapers, sheet music and maps) in a practice know as 'legal deposit', which can be traced back to at least 1610. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bri…
Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant Reformation, was a notorious anti-semite. In a pamphlet called "The Jews & Their Lies", he encourages Christians to destroy Jewish neighborhoods. jewishvirtuallibrary.org/…
In 1984, the Soviet Union distributed forged KKK pamphlets threatening the lives of non-white athletes in an effort to keep them from participating in the Summer Games en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cou…
In 2007 São Paulo, one of the largest urban areas in the world, passed the 'Clean City Law' banning all kinds of outdoor advertisements, from billboards to pamphlets - the mayor said it "came from a necessity to combat pollution . . . of water, sound, air, and the visual." weburbanist.com/2010/03/0…
British pets were killed en masse at the beginning of WWII in response to a government pamphlet. As many as 750,000 pets were killed in just one week. bbc.com/news/magazine-244…
The first anti-smoking pamphlet was written by King James I of England in 1604, where he described it as "A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs" laits.utexas.edu/poltheor…
Joseph Goebbels once distributed pamphlets of a baby named Hessy Levinsons Taft to portray the "ideal Aryan baby" in Nazi Germany. Goebbels did not know Taft was Jewish. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hes…
In 1939, over 750,000 pets across Britain were killed by their owners after the government created the NARPAC (National Air Raid Precautions Animal Committee) and released a pamphlet called 'Advice To Animal Owners'. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bri…
The Library of Congress is a "legal deposit library," which means that it is entitled to request a free copy of every book, pamphlet, map, print, photograph and piece of music published in the US. loc.gov/wiseguide/jan04/d…
A pamphlet given to a Chinese teacher by Protestant missionaries sparked the deadliest conflict in human history (by some estimates)--the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864), resulting in 20,000,000-100,000,000 deaths. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai…
Henry Ford donated $40,000 to Hitler to reprint anti-Jewish pamphlets, and was later awarded the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle. clarkstonnews.com/Article…
The first known attempt to scientifically explain the shapes of snowflakes was a 1611 pamphlet, A New Year's Gift of Hexagonal Snow, written by the astronomer Johannes Kepler en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joh…
The first volume of the Adventures of Tintin was commissioned by a conservative Belgian newspaper as anti-communist propaganda for its weekly children's supplement. Herge's research on the USSR consisted of reading a single anti-communist pamphlet which contained numerous factual errors. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin…
During WWII, Dr. Seuss wrote and illustrated pamphlets warning soldiers about Malaria. They featured drawings of "Ann," a blood thirsty mosquito who's "dying to meet you." npr.org/blogs/health/2012…
Please note that this site uses cookies to personalise content and adverts, to provide social media features, and to analyse web traffic. Click here for more information.
