False Rumors Research Articles

Rumors Denials as Persuasive Messages: Effects of Personal Relevance, Source, and Message Characteristics1

Denial is a commonly used strategy to rebut a false rumor. However, there is a dearth of empirical research on the effectiveness of denials in combating rumors. Treating denials as persuasive messages, we conducted 3 laboratory-based simulation studies testing the overall effectiveness of denials in reducing belief and anxiety associated with an e-mail virus rumor. Under the framework of the elaboration likelihood model, we also tested the effects of denial message quality and source credibility, and the moderating effects of personal relevance. Overall, the results provided some support for the effectiveness of denials with strong arguments and an anxiety-alleviating tone in reducing rumor-related belief and anxiety. The effects of denial wording and source credibility were visible for participants who perceived high personal relevance of the topic. Limitations of the current research and future research directions are discussed.

Can we capitalize on the virtues of vaccines? Insights from the polio eradication initiative.

Twenty-five years after the eradication of smallpox, the ongoing effort to eradicate poliomyelitis has grown into the largest international health initiative ever undertaken. By 2004, however, the polio eradication effort was threatened by a challenge regularly faced by public health policymakers everywhere-misperception about the benefits and risks of vaccines. The propagation of false rumors about oral poliovirus vaccine safety led to the reinfection of 13 previously polio-free countries and the largest polio epidemic in Africa in recent years. With deft management of such challenges by local, national, and international health authorities, poliomyelitis, a disease that threatened children everywhere just 2 generations ago, could soon be relegated to history like smallpox before it.

Droits de l'homme, paroles de femmes

On October 5th 1789, having invaded Versailles, did revolting Parisian women compel Louis XVIth to accept the Declaration of the Rights of Man ? By reconstructing this rumour, the author analyses the political and cultural conditions of its emergence, examines the networks which diffused it, questions the imagination which gave rise to it and asks how a false rumour came to be part of true history.

Rumors and the Financial Marketplace

In the contemporary financial marketplace, the consequences of speculation and decision making based on unfounded assertions and false rumors can be especially potent and undeniably dangerous. With the emergence of the Internet and other new communication technologies that facilitate the spread of misinformation, it has become essential for managers, investors, and other stakeholders to acquire a better understanding of the forces that give rise to rumors and the most effective strategies for dealing with them. This paper describes how the uncertainties and anxieties generated by ambiguous situations, coupled with a strong desire for information, can frequently lead to the generation and spreading of rumors in business environments. Although relatively little research attention has been paid to the particularities of financial rumors, the author identifies some key characteristics that appear to distinguish financial rumors from rumors about other aspects of business operations, such as greater conciseness, a shorter life cycle, and the potential for significant economic consequences. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for future research and for actions that can be taken to minimize the potentially harmful effects of financial rumors.

When I Was a Teenage E.R.A. Activist

This political memoir describes author's 1979 summer job, at age eighteen, going door-to-door for Equal Rights Amendment (E.R.A.). Critical attention is paid to difficulties experienced in the field—fundraising expectations, canvassing assignments in remote or right-wing suburbs, and often hostile responses from householders unexpectedly presented with feminist petitions on their own doorsteps. How did false rumors about E.R.A. create a backlash among Americans? Wry nostalgia aside, are historians and students of feminism in danger of forgetting this unique period of political activism?

Assessing the Conservation Needs of the Taj Mahal

The conservation of the Taj Mahal in India has been a matter of great concern to the entire world. This anxiety has related particularly to the establishment of the nearby Mathura Oil Refinery, which it was feared would have a serious effect on the white marble of the Taj. Over time, the marble has acquired a yellowish appearance and cracks have appeared at several places in the marble slabs. In addition, black spots have also been seen on these slabs, together with damage to the edges, destruction of the joints, and pitting of the surface. Alarmed by these observations and by false rumours that the Taj Mahal would soon tumble down, the government of India appointed a Scientific Expert Committee to study the situation and submit its report. The author, as Director of the Scientific Committee, studied these problems in detail and gave his recommendations. This group came to the conclusion that atmospheric pollution plays a very minimal role and that there were several other factors attributing to changes in the appearance of the monument. This paper presents the results of these studies and makes recommendations for future action.

Andrew Keller. 22 August 1925 – 7 February 1999

Born in Budapest in 1925, Andrs Keller was the only child of Jewish parents. He entered the University of Budapest in 1943 on a Jewish quota to study natural philosophy. Studies became increasingly difficult because of the activity of fascists in the university as Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany and was expected to be seen to pursue an anti–Semitic policy. Perhaps inevitably, he had to join a Jewish labour battalion, which is where Jewish men of military service age were sent instead of into the armed forces. After several days at a drafting centre in a Budapest brickworks, he was taken east to Ruthenia, which was in Slovakia and is now in the Ukraine, and was put to work building airfields. His battalion was moved around and it is difficult to know exactly where he was sent and when. However, one possible fixed point is that he remembers his train alongside a train of German troops who were celebrating the assassination of Hitler (as they thought), which would indicate a date very soon after the 6 July 1944 plot; false rumours of its success had been circulated initially to aid in the hunt for those involved. The food was poor and they were overworked, so they supplemented their diet by cooking mushrooms on shovels. The Russians were advancing and almost completely encircled Ruthenia, leaving just one narrowing corridor towards the west. As the work battalion was being marched towards it, Keller and a friend jumped the column into nearby undergrowth and hid. For several days they lived off the land and then separated as Keller wanted to wait until the Russian front had passed by. He hid behind hay in the roof space of an abandoned barn and was nearly found when the barn was searched; however, the soldiers did not look behind the hay, they just prodded it and departed. Keller watched the Russian troops occupy the village led by a mounted cavalry officer followed by an ox cart. He heard later that only one of his group survived the winter of 1944/45. He tried to work his way westwards behind the front, but was soon picked up by the Russians near to Szatmr (now known by its Rumanian name of Satu–Mare), who sent him to a displaced persons' camp in Bessarabia in Rumania. Although the Russians were tolerant, they left the day–to–day running of the camp to the senior German prisoners, who made life particularly hard for a young Jew. Keller noted batches of prisoners being taken away in trains, and he suspected, correctly, that they were being taken deep into Soviet territory. He decided to escape, and on the next moonless night he managed to crawl under three rolls of barbed wire where they had been stretched across a depression in the ground, and then over a wooden palisade that collapsed under him and alerted the guards. However, the guards did nothing, Keller surmising that they had orders to stop escapers they could see, but no orders that told them what to do if the fence fell over. He ran into the night, unhurt, and started once again to trek back to Budapest. Initially he reached Bucharest, where he was helped by a Jewish resident called Goldfarb, and finally back to Budapest, which he reached in February 1945, shortly after the city's liberation by the Red Army. Most of the surviving remnant of Hungarian Jews was in Budapest, the majority of the prewar Jewish population of 600 000 having been deported to death camps during the spring of 1944. These included Keller's father, uncle and aunt, who were all sent to Buchenwald and never seen again. At that time his young cousin had been sent across Budapest to his mother, with the family gold hidden in the head of her doll, and together they survived the holocaust, as did his paternal grandparents.

Through a glass, darkly

In 1978, a student taking an Afro-American literature class asked us if there were any black science-fiction writers. We did not know, though we suspected that the author of Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection, Nova, and Dhalgren might fit the bill. An old Ace books version of The Jewels of Aptor indicated that Samuel R. Delany was "born April Fool's Day, 1942," and "grew up in New York City's Harlem."2 And a well-known anthologizer, Judith Merril, wrote, cryptically, that Delany was "multi-mediumed, transcultural, inter-racial."3 As practicing academics, however, we turned to the prestigious National Union Catalog, which informed us that Samuel R. Delany was an English author.4 For a time we were satisfied .... But the contradictory information bothered us, so we determined to write Delany himself, even though it was rumored that he never granted interviews, hardly ever answered his mail, and rarely looked with favor upon academics. The false rumor (the first of many we were to encounter) was laid to rest within a week, when we got back our first letter from Delany. It was a kindly, informative letter, and it urged us to continue writing. The contradiction over his ethnic heritage was as quickly resolved when he said that, yes, he was indeed black-and had not a trace of English blood in his veins. (Later he would suggest in the most polite manner possible that if we had had any contact with the sf community, we would not have had to ask whether he was black; though often emotional and given to wearing strange clothes, the sf community is well informed about its heroes.) Since that first exchange of letters six years ago, we have corresponded regularly with the author and amassed two large cardboard boxes of Delanyana-juvenilia and gradeschool reports on his terrible behavior; unfinished and heavily edited manuscripts; first drafts of critical essays; copies of old comic-book, radio, and movie scripts; recipes; and so forth. And that, with Delany's encouragement, has led us to make our own humble contributions to Delany scholarship. Indeed, the author has been kind enough to read our several drafts and mark them up, often copiously, with his own corrections and suggestions. At first we set about learning the bare facts of his life and career: that he began writing at fourteen and wrote his first published novel, The Jewels of Aptor, when he was nineteen; that he went on to publish, with Ace Books, The

'I'm in and you're out . . . '

This paper reports on a qualitative investigation of explanations for teenage girls' indirect aggression (e.g., spreading false rumours, excluding peers from the group) which is part of a larger study on the nature of teenage girls' indirect aggression. Focus groups were conducted with fifty-four 15-16-year-old girls. These focus group data were supplemented with interviews with six pairs of girls and a focus group discussion with a pilot group of eight 16-year-olds and separate individual interviews with ten key teachers. The overall aim of this part of the study was to explore why girls are indirectly aggressive to their peers. The key explanations proposed by the girls and their teachers were a desire to create excitement in girls' lives together with a range of friendship and group processes, centred around having close intimate relationships and belonging to the peer group. This study enriches our understanding of girls' indirect aggression and adds to earlier research conducted mainly using quantita...

The Victim of Prejudice by Mary Hays

ESC 25, 1999 characters reveal themselves through their letter writing, and from these letters the reader learns not only of the intimate re­ lationships between them but also of the evil that lurks in the ‘real’ world beyond the protective castle walls. Fenwick’s novel is so full o f tension and suspense that it was difficult to put down, and its formal, ornate, and extremely poetic language adds greatly to the melodrama of her heartbreaking tale. Grundy’s helpful explanatory notes, inserted at the bot­ tom of almost every page, further enhance Secrecy’s readability. W ithin each volume of this three-volume text, Grundy has in­ serted definitions for uncommon words or phrases; highlighted literary, theoretical, mythological, historical, and biblical allu­ sions; and explained any ‘fashionable’ traditions, customs, or beliefs of which a reader might not be otherwise aware. It is pleasing to see a novel such as Secrecy surface in the late twentieth century, a time when the imagination of many human beings has been buried beneath an overabundance of electronic images and ideas. As a creative work of intrigue and passionate love, Fenwick’s novel might be just what the readers of today need to help them rediscover their imaginative capabilities. JANICE A. ISAAC / Carleton University Mary Hays, The Victim of Prejudice. Ed. Eleanor Ty (Peter­ borough: Broadview Press, 1998). 240. $15.95 paper. Historians and feminists alike will applaud the second Broad­ view edition of Mary Hays’s The Victim of Prejudice, edited by Eleanor Ty. Hays, one of England’s early feminist writers, wrote the novel in 1799. The harsh realities and prejudices of the pre-Romantic era are explored in the tragic story of a young woman who is raped and refuses to marry her attacker. Pro­ tagonist Mary Raymond is ostracized by a conservative English society after the details of her birth to a promiscuous mother, as well as her own deflowering, are disclosed by her unrelenting persecutor Sir Peter Osborne. In an intriguing and factually comprehensive introduction to the text, Ty outlines several themes within the novel that in­ 116 R E VIE W S volve male-dominated institutions. Ty says that Hays uses the story of Mary Raymond to demonstrate “how ‘having no hand in forming [the laws],’ women become the ‘sufferers’ ” (xxi). Ac­ cording to the editor, Hays blames society for Mary Raymond’s destruction. Clear class distinctions and the literal connection between the disastrous destinies of both Mary and her mother are also pointed out as thematic devices. Finally, Ty aligns the novel’s messages with the personal obstacles that Hays faced as a writer and feminist thinker. After displaying emotion to a male friend, says Ty, Hays was marginalized by her sex when 1990s standards are applied. An erroneous story surfaced within English literary circles that Hays was amorously involved with her male friend, which Ty recognizes as an interesting link between fact and fiction. “Despite her spirit and intelligence, the false rumour brought Hays down to the level of the sensual and sexual, much like her own heroine” (xxx). Ty takes the two-volume edition of Victim that was first published by Joseph Johnson in 1799 as her copy-text and re­ tains Hays’s notes at the bottom o f the appropriate pages. Ex­ planatory notes, for which there are fifty-three entries, appear after the main text and provide in-depth explanations of every­ thing from allusions to Hays’s first novel, Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796), to the metaphor o f a magic circle “suggesting] the confinement of women by custom or patriarchal society” (190). The most notable change in this follow-up to T y’s first edition of Victim, published in 1994, is an updated bibliogra­ phy and appendices. While the first edition contains a sparse, two-page selected bibliography, the second edition has four ap­ pendices and a larger select bibliography that includes books by Hays, other works, periodical publications, letters, and bi­ ographical and critical studies. The appendices in the second edition contain the entire text of “The Female Seducers” from Edward M oore’s Fables for the Female Sex because Ty says that it is “an important intertext...

Le cas du Niger : les touareg du passé au futur

The objective is to put into light certain historical and cultural aspects of the Targuie civilization and to establish a detailed point of view regarding a certain number of problems that the young Nigerian democracy is confronted with. He points out that many false rumors concerning the Tuareg are diffused in the West. After a short historical brief on the Tuareg (Targui origin and population on Nigerian territory), the author describes the Tuaregis socio-political structures and the Targuieis economy. He wonders what future awaits the Sahel people. According to him, interrelations between stockbreeders and farmers constitute a system adapted to the social, economic and cultural situation of the Sahel people which favours the exploitation of natural ressources without putting the equilibrum of the sub-regionis ecosystem in danger. Therefore, Nigerians should get together in order to mould their destiny and hence apply the principles of human rights based on equality, justice and union of different ethnic groups.

Socio-Cultural Constraints to Family Planning in Swaziland

In order for family planning (FP) policies and programs in Swaziland to be effective there must be recognition of the sociocultural constraints to fertility reduction. Infant and child mortality exerts a tremendous pressure on parents to have large families. The child mortality declines in Swaziland have not been sufficient to affect desired family size. Infant mortality is 99/1000 in Swaziland while in countries such as Zimbabwe and Botswana where fertility has declined the infant mortality rate is 70/1000. Womanhood is directly tied to motherhood and stigma and inferior status are attached to childless women. Contraception carries the fear of childlessness or sterility. The practice of bride price is understood to mean a womans obligation to bear many children. Swazi culture encourages large families. It also disapproves strongly of closely-spaced children. Old age support is only available from children. Male children are valued for carrying on the family name while female children may bring wealth from the bride price. The extended family pressures families to have a particular number of children. Husbands may disapprove of FP but women have shown some independence in decision-making. For instance many women strongly disapprove of condoms or conversely hide their contraceptive use from husbands by favoring concealed methods such as the IUD and injectables. False rumors about the side effects of contraceptives and ignorance about contraception are other obstacles to FP acceptance. High transportation costs are an impediment to obtaining services. Overcrowding and understaffing of FP centers at hospitals and industry clinics result in FP having a low priority and a poor quality of care. The program has been successful in increasing awareness and knowledge of FP methods but more effort must be directed to the sociocultural barriers and establishment of an explicit national population policy.

Worlds in Conflict: Patriarchal Authority, Discipline and the Russian School, 1861–1914

Grigorii Soroka was a serf, one of millions in prereform Russia. He was not particularly set apart by his artistic talent, for many peasants revealed their individual expressive gifts in carved decoration, ceramics, toy making, and other crafts. Soroka was unusual, however, in that he received instruction from Aleksei Venetsianov, a retired bureaucrat, small-property owner, and renowned painter. Soroka, despite his refined talents, remained a serf, for his owner, N. P. Miliukov, unheeding of Venetsianov’s pleas, refused to manumit his “serf artist.” When the Emancipation came, then, Soroka led his villagers in drawing up a petition protesting the terms that Miliukov sought to impose. The petition, addressed to the tsar, was returned to the provincial office for peasant affairs and shown to Miliukov who, enraged, then drew up his own complaint against the peasants. Soroka was summoned to the volost offices, arrested, held for three days, and then sentenced to a flogging for “obstreperous behavior and for spreading false rumors.” On 10 April 1864 Grigorii Soroka was seen wandering distractedly about the village, and the next day his wife found his body hanging from the rafters in a cold storage building.

Premeditation in the Palestine disturbances of August 1929?

Trouble was brewing in Jerusalem over the Western Wall during the summer of 1929, but neither the Mandatory Government nor the Jewish leaders anticipated the scale of the disturbances which erupted. The High Commissioner, Sir John Chancellor, was in London and the Commandant of Police, Arthur Mavrogordato, was on leave. The available security forces were scanty in the extreme. The Palestine Zionist Executive, headed by Colonel F.H. Kisch, had gone to Zurich for the Sixteenth Zionist Congress, which was followed by the first meeting of the new Council of the enlarged Jewish Agency. Kisch, a former British Army officer, was sensitive to security questions. In early August he flew to London to warn the Colonial Office of reports from the committee which had been left in charge of his office in Jerusalem.' The warning apparently had little effect.2 However, Harry Luke, Chief Secretary and head of the Palestine Government in the absence of the High Commissioner, became increasingly alarmed at the growing menace of the situation. He telegraphed the Colonial Office on the eve of the explosion, warning of the risk in the inadequate security forces available.3 At midday on Friday, August 23 murderous assaults on Jews commenced as mobs of excited Moslems swarmed from the Haram area after prayers and rampaged through the Jaffa and Damascus Gates of the Old City. Inflamed by false rumours of what had happened in Jerusalem, the next morning a large-scale massacre of Jews erupted in Hebron. Attacks on Jewish settlements and Jewish urban areas continued in other parts of the country, but order was gradually restored over the next few days with the arrival of troops and battleships, which sent out landing parties equivalent in strength to a battalion. Nevertheless in the late afternoon of Thursday, August 29 another massacre of Jews occurred in Safed while troops were on their way to the town. In all, 133 Jews were murdered and 339 were wounded. Most of the Arab casualties were caused by the actions of the police and military. These were estimated to be 116 killed and 232 wounded, the latter figure referring only to those treated in hospital.4 After nearly a decade of calm, the ferocity of the outburst came as a great shock. Why had it happened? Who was to blame? Was there premeditation? In London the minority Labour Government had been in office since June. It was to fall in August 1931, torn by dissension over the problem of unemployment. Yet most of its foreign and imperial policies, its handling of Palestine being one of the exceptions, received a considerable measure of support from the opposition parties.5 The first stage in its policy towards Palestine was the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry into the disturbances under the chairmanship of Sir Walter Shaw. The report of the Shaw Commission, published at

The Response of the South Manchester Accident Rescue Team (SMART) to the Armenian Earthquake and Lockerbie Air Disaster: A Report to the Prime Minister's Office

SummaryThe delay in receiving authorisation for the despatch of SMART significantly reduced our overall effectiveness. The majority of injured survivors were extracted during this time and our special expertise could have saved a significant number of lives.The episode has provided SMART with unique experience for a British medical team and this knowledge should not be wasted.In contrast to other major western countries the British response was fragmented. We have no central stockpile of equipment and no official response team. The British who responded were independent of each other even when from the same service.The quality of the individual British teams was as good as any and often better. However, the ability of other nations to coordinate their response centrally and draw from a pool of workers already used to working together, improved both their efficiency and effectiveness.There are great difficulties in communication during any disaster and these increase with the scale of the disaster. Incoming rescue workers were given false or misleading information and rumour was widespread.Even when few people were found alive rescue workers expressed a strong need for a medical presence in case they discovered an injured person or they them selves became ill or injured. We were told repeatedly by experienced rescuers that we were the first team of British senior doctors they had met at the front line of a disaster and they were extremely pleased to see us.Transport was a major problem both in terms of vehicles and local knowledge.It was not thought to be within the remit of a medical team to make provision for food and shelter and this was confirmed in Moscow prior to departure for Yerevan. In retrospect this was a mistake and reduced the time we could stay at the front line. If we had not equipped ourselves with special clothing we could not have gone to the front line.A medical team must be part of larger team of rescue workers. Within this unit there will be provision for food, shelter, transport and communication as well as medical and surgical equipment.

Contraceptive needs of women over 35

Traditionally, development, production, and distribution of contraceptives have defined the contraceptive needs of women, instead of their needs defining development, production, and distribution of contraceptives. As long as the family planning community and contraceptive producers remain unsuccessful in meeting real contraceptive needs of women, women will continue to view contraception with suspicion. For example, a false rumor about family planning in Botswana is that contraceptives cause venereal disease. A variety of contraceptive options must be available to women because needs vary greatly among different groups of women since they have different reproductive, health, and behavioral needs. Family planning programs in developing countries should emphasize the health needs of older women (35 years old) as well as consider the cultural significance that a woman's reproductive potential may have. For instance, having a large family is a very important objective in life because children often support their parents in old age, so these women begin having children early and continue to do so often into their 40s. In developed countries, women are postponing childbearing until they are well into their 30s. In addition, women are increasingly ambivalent about the completeness of their families, thereby establishing a need for medically safe, reversible methods of contraception throughout women's final fertile years. The health risks of pregnancy and childbearing are very much lower for women 35 years old in developed countries than those in developing countries. Health concerns in the developed countries have focused on the immediate health risks of contraceptive use rather than pregnancy and childbearing.

What's New in the Ol' Grand?

A ccording to an old Indian legend, it's really a testament to love. Long ago, great chief of all Utes lived with his beloved wife. When she died, he mourned day and night, and his sorrow was spread throughout all his people. Seeing such grief, Ta-vwoats, a god, appeared before chief, and tried to comfort him. But chief's sorrow did not diminish. Finally Ta-vwoats offered to take chief to blessed world of dead. The chief could visit his wife and see that she was truly happy if he promised to return to earth and end his mourning. Then Ta-vwoats rolled an immense ball of fire across plain, creating a chasm that led to home of dead, and two descended in search of chief's wife. Upon their return, Ta-vwoats placed a raging river into bottom of canyon so that no one else could attempt to visit afterworld. The first white man to see Grand Canyon didn't worry about origin of huge abyss and tiny river at bottom; he was more preoccupied with how to get around it. In 1540, Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, a Spanish conquistador in search of mythical golden cities, came unexpectedly upon canyon. After spending several days trying to descend, he decided that golden cities, if they did exist, were probably not worth effort. Three centuries later, Major John Wesley Powell, a one-armed adventurer and geologist, led first recorded boat expedition down Colorado River in 1869. When Powell embarked on his monumental journey with nine other men packed into four small boats, Grand Canyon was a vast uncharted stretch that Powell called the great unknown. On best maps of northern Arizona, a conspicuous 200-mile-long blank spot was only indication that canyon existed. The publicity that surrounded expedition and false rumors of Powell's demise helped ingrain an awesome image of canyon into minds of American public. But Powell was also one of first to recognize scientific treasures that lay in canyon. Here, Colorado River has provided researchers an unparalleled opportunity to study more than 2 billion years of geology, spanning half planet's history. For more than a century, geologists have flocked to canyon, using it as a textbook and deriving fundamental concepts within its sheer walls. But textbook is by no means closed; scientists are still studying its lessons, and many pages lie yet unturned. While floating down Colorado on a recent field trip into Grand Canyon, researchers from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) discussed some of new work being done in that old canyon.

Neurosis in the workplace.

In the history of medicine new diseases have appeared recurrently, frequently in epidemic form. "New" medical and surgical treatments become fashionable and "diagnosis" becomes a reinterpretation of ambiguous phenomena in accordance with prevailing concerns, often promoted by vested interests. Such an epidemic can be understood in its social context against its background of shared beliefs, social stresses and group demands. False rumours and other exacerbating factors can be identified and eliminated, and measures taken to control them. The management of such epidemics is a public health problem which demands community and institutional support as well as cooperation by the media.

Communicating an English Revolution to the Colonies, 1688–1689

TheAmericaof Boston, bound from its home port to London in December of 1688, began taking soundings that were political as well as nautical as it approached England. Two weeks before an English port was reached, the first news was heard from a shipmaster returning from Barbados, who shared what he had heard earlier from an English vessel out of Galloway. The passengers of theAmericawere told that William of Orange had landed at Torbay early in November, that the prince had taken England, and that King James was dead. The truth, the guess, and the false rumor all came aboard with equal credibility. They were only four days from port before they learned that the king was not dead, though the source was a five-week-old report from the Canary Islands. The occupants of theAmericacould still be buffeted by strange and disturbing tales when they were only one day from Dover. The master of a pink that was two weeks out of Liverpool gave the date of the prince's landing as three weeks later than the event, gave William's force as an astounding 50,000 men and 600 ships, and told the apprehensive colonials that the drowned bodies of Englishmen were being found tied back-to-back and that French men-of-war were cruising with commissions from King James II. All this worrisome “news” proved erroneous but accompanied an account that would prove correct, that the king was not dead but had fled to France.

The False Rumor of Tuesday: Arkansas's Internment of Japanese-Americans

The False Rumor of Tuesday: Arkansas's Internment of Japanese-Americans