This is a true story about Mary Tofts. She was married and lived in a small town located southwest of London with her three children. She was considered both poor and illiterate. It was hard to make ends meet for her family.

Mary and her rabbits

One day in 1726, Mary was working in the fields and happened to see a rabbit hopping along near her. At the time, she was pregnant with her fourth child. She attempted to catch the rabbit but failed. The rabbit would have helped feed her family. Interestingly, several weeks later, she developed an appetite for having rabbits for dinner.

However, Mary went into labor. When she gave birth, it wasn’t a baby. Mary gave birth to eleven rabbits. John Howard was her midwife who assisted her during delivery.

Mary gave birth to her bunnies.

Howard assisted Mary in delivering her baby bunnies. Nevertheless, most medical professionals seriously doubted him. However, King George I heard the story and dispatched Nathaniel St. André, his anatomist and physician, to conduct an inquiry into Mary’s bunny story. He got Mary as she delivered her fifteenth bunny. Since the bunnies died soon after birth, Howard pickled all the bunnies into jars.

St. André took Mary and several jars of pickled bunnies back to King George I, and he promised Mary that she would be given a royal pension. Once they got to London, one of the local doctors witnessed her during her convulsions and contractions, which lasted for a couple of hours. Then Mary stopped, and he wasn’t able to detect any pulse. Miraculously, Mary merely fell into a deep sleep.

The local doctor wasn’t sure about what was happening with poor Mary. He wanted to perform exploratory surgery to determine definitely Mary’s situation. It was then that Mary confessed about giving birth to fifteen or more bunnies. After lying about the bunny babies, many people realized that they had been the subject of a hoax.

Mary’s big lie occurred three centuries ago. It took some time before the medical community in England accepted Mary’s fibbing about the truth. We have in America the 21st version of Mary and her big lie.

This guy said, “Honestly, I won the election, but they stole the election from me. Why don’t you believe me?”

What, me lie?

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