# Awesome Correction(s) by a News Organization **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 23, 2017, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-correction-s-by-a-news-organization/799651 "2017-10-23T18:23:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-correction-s-by-a-news-organization/799651/1 "2017-10-23T18:23:18Z")
[Rangers investigating death at Harpers Ferry national park](https://wtop.com/maryland/2017/10/rangers-investigating-death-at-harpers-ferry-national-park/) I do not mean to trivialize someone’s passing. A short article says nothing can be released yet until relatives are notified. “Authorities are investigating an accidental death inside Harpers Ferry National Historical Park…” Nothing really newsworthy. But it is followed by a historical note, followed by an **awesome** correction to said historical note: > [@](#): > > Harpers Ferry is where abolitionist John Brown seized a federal armory in 1859 before being captured and hanged. > > * * * > > This story has been corrected to show that John Brown, not James Brown, led the raid on Harpers Ferry. Now _that’s_ a correction! edit: for reference: [John Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist))[James Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Brown) Looks like the WTOP article was sourced from an AP wire article…not sure if the error and correction are AP issues or local. Feel free to add other funny or mind-boggling corrections you run across. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-correction-s-by-a-news-organization/799651/2 "2017-10-23T18:37:02Z")
Not a news organization, but I love this edit to a Wikipedia caption. [Who would have believed the perfect Wikipedia caption could be improved on?](http://www.deadlinenews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/WIKIPEDIA_CAPTION_DN02.gif) ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-correction-s-by-a-news-organization/799651/3 "2017-10-23T18:42:01Z")
> **[Corrections: December 30 (Published 2011)](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/pageoneplus/corrections-december-30.html)** > > Corrections appearing in print on December 30, 2011. “An article on Monday about Jack Robison and Kirsten Lindsmith, two college students with Asperger syndrome who are navigating the perils of an intimate relationship, misidentified the character from the animated children’s TV show “My Little Pony” that Ms. Lindsmith said she visualized to cheer herself up. It is Twilight Sparkle, the nerdy intellectual, not Fluttershy, the kind animal lover.” ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-correction-s-by-a-news-organization/799651/4 "2017-10-23T18:47:27Z")
For what it’s worth, if you go to the wax museum at Harper’s Ferry, the figure in of John Brown in some exhibits does tend to make him look African-American. It’s a very strange feeling to think, “I thought I knew American history pretty well… but nobody ever told me that John Brown was black! And I learned this from a wax museum that gets maybe 40 visitors a day, tops!” ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-correction-s-by-a-news-organization/799651/5 "2017-10-23T18:54:01Z")
The most truly awesome correction ever was the Patriot-News’s [retraction](http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2013/11/a_patriot-news_editorial_retraction_the_gettysburg_address.html) of its original 1863 editorial about the Gettysburg Address. > [@](#): > > We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them, and that they shall be no more repeated or thought of. The Independent also posted a good list of [12 very funny ones](https://www.indy100.com/article/12-of-the-very-best-newspaper-corrections--xJlA10Vtnx). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-correction-s-by-a-news-organization/799651/6 "2017-10-23T19:48:04Z")
No joke – this is the real July 17, 1969 retraction, from _The New York Times_. > [@](#): > > On Jan. 13, 1920, Topics of The Times, an editorial-page feature of The New York Times, dismissed the notion that a rocket could function in a vacuum and commented on the ideas of Robert H. Goddard, the rocket pioneer, as follows. 'That Professor Goddard, with his ‘chair’ in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react – to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th century and it is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error. > **[New York Times Retracts 1920 Article Saying Spaceflight is Impossible - RF Cafe](http://www.rfcafe.com/miscellany/factoids/ny-times-admits-moon-flight-possible.htm)** > > "The Gray Lady" been exhibiting signs of dementia for decades. On January 13, 1920, it famously ran an article proclaiming I guess they thought it appropriate to issue this retraction, seeing as Apollo 11 had just taken off for the Moon the previous day. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-correction-s-by-a-news-organization/799651/7 "2017-10-23T21:33:46Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I guess they thought it appropriate to issue this retraction, seeing as Apollo 11 had just taken off for the Moon the previous day. But Apollo 11, like other space rockets, had the _aether_ to push against, doncha know? ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-correction-s-by-a-news-organization/799651/8 "2017-10-25T19:52:45Z")
There is this advertisement that made the rounds some years ago put in the paper to thank a man for arranging a holiday shopping trip: > **[Group thanks man for 'pleasing 15 women for an entire day' in unintentionally...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2178757/George-Brownridge-thanked-pleasing-15-women-entire-day-hilarious-newspaper-ad.html)** > > When a women's group he had entertained placed this notice of thanks in their local paper they had no idea it would go viral. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-correction-s-by-a-news-organization/799651/9 "2017-10-25T22:34:01Z")
> [@Sigene](#): > > There is this advertisement that made the rounds some years ago put in the paper to thank a man for arranging a holiday shopping trip: > > [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2178757/George-Brownridge-thanked-pleasing-15-women-entire-day-hilarious-newspaper-ad.html](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2178757/George-Brownridge-thanked-pleasing-15-women-entire-day-hilarious-newspaper-ad.html) > [@](#): > > It hasn’t emerged who the legendary Mr Brownridge is, or which newspaper published the notice. Yeah… I’m calling fake on this one. ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/awesome-correction-s-by-a-news-organization/799651/10 "2017-10-25T23:00:44Z")
Probably a good call