Chinese Wikipedia Cites Dr. Toast

posted January 14, 2011

Way back near the beginning of my illustrious career, I posted on this blog my original research on the history of the toaster.

(Briefly: it was accidentally invented in 1491 by an obscure French alchemist named Gerard Depardieu, who was actually trying to turn bread into gold. He also had to invent plastic and electricity.)

In 2008, the Chinese version of the Wikipedia article on toast cited this research as fact. It remained on Wikipedia for over two years before it was finally removed by overzealous "truthists."

Here's how it looked in 2010: (apparently there is no Chinese character for "Gerard Depardieu")

And, Google Translated into English: ("citation needed")