Berners Street Hoax | The Greatest Prank of the 1800s!

Things I Learned Last Night

Space Tim Media

Comedy, Education, History

4.6 • 673 Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Berners Street Hoax happened in 1810 in London. It all started as a bet between two friends. One claimed he could make everyone in the city talk about one house on Berners Street. To win, he sent out fake invitations and requests to dozens of people. On the set day, chaos took over Berners Street. Tradespeople arrived with deliveries no one had ordered. Doctors and priests came for emergencies that didn’t exist. Thousands of curious onlookers clogged the narrow street, making moving impossible. This hoax disrupted the neighborhood and became a story told for generations. Even today, the Berners Street Hoax is remembered as one of history’s most elaborate pranks. Things I Learned Last Night is an educational comedy podcast where best friends Jaron Myers and Tim Stone talk about random topics and have fun all along the way. If you like learning, and laughing a whole lot while you do, then you’ll love TILLN. Watch or listen to this episode today! Become a Patron and Get Early Access to Ad-Free Episodes: https://tilln.com/support Episode link: https://tilln.com/berners Support TILLN & Join The Mailing List: https://linktr.ee/tillnpodcast Watch Richmond TV Vigilante: https://youtu.be/cJFKycjW0Fw?si=FOtj2B09le0Rc7HX Text TILLN to 66866 to become a patron and gain access to ad-free episodes, the exclusive discord, and earn discounts on TILLN Merch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, so two friends make a bet that they can make one house the talk of the town in the 1800s.
0:06.4	Yeah, it was 1810 and a dude told his friend, he said, hey, I bet you $100.
0:09.8	I can get everyone in the city of London talking about this one house.
0:12.4	The way that he did it makes us talk about it literally 200 years later.
0:16.9	So it worked.
0:17.7	I think he won the bet.
0:19.1	And I think he invested that $100.
0:21.7	It would have been worth a lot more now. Yeah. And a bonus story of the time that a
0:27.6	cartoon network promo shut down the city of Boston. Yeah, it was three booms.
0:36.2	Boom. I hate that more than anything in the world.
0:40.9	If you're just finding our show, it doesn't get better.
0:44.1	It's a comedy show where we learn different stuff each week.
0:47.0	This is Things I Learned last night.
0:48.2	Thanks for joining us.
0:51.8	Hey, man.
0:53.2	What's up?
0:53.9	Hey, have you ever heard of the burner street hoax?
0:56.7	The burner street hoax?
0:58.2	Yeah, but it's not that kind of burner.
0:59.8	It's B-E-R-N.
1:01.5	Okay.
1:01.6	Burner. Burner's street hoax.
	...

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