#TL;DR: Click Here to Check It Out

What's Happening

We agreed to assist the admins in piloting a new program which would allow users to get their hands on community themed swag. We've provided AskHistorians swag as prizes for year-end awards for many years now, as well as offered swag as part of fundraising efforts for our digital conference (less than two weeks away!!), so we were in a good position to help with this endeavor, both having a fair bit of experience with designing such things and knowing that there is interest within the community for AskHistorians swag.

Where Do I Get the Stuff?

The trial program is being done through the site Teepublic. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE STOREFRONT

What Can I Get?

T-shirts, stickers, mugs, totes, buttons, notebooks, and hoodies are what there is. Each is available in the five Historical Snoo designs that we are using for this project.

Why Did You Choose Those Snoos For This?

We have twenty different 'New' styled Snoos in our collection, not to mention over thirty in the 'old' style! But for the pilot program, we're limited to five designs. If the feedback on this is positive and we're happy with the results and the program expands and continues, we'd like to be able to offer all of the Snoos, since we know everyone has their favorites. But for now, we chose five Snoos intended to a decent variety of places and interests, although it of course pretty hard to have anything close to broad coverage with that number (and also, Snoopata is my favorite, so....).

If you want to learn more about the Snoos currently featured, check out the Snoographies we wrote up when debuting them!

• Emiliano Snoopata
• Jane Snoosten
• Frederick Snoouglass
• Señor de Snoopán
• Empress Snooditu

So... the Money...?

Much as we wish we could offer them as such, we can't hand them out for free. The point of sale is all handled by Teepublic, and the profits generated go through reddit. From there, the funds are made available to the mod team to distribute specifically in ways to support the community. We aren't the only subreddit piloting this, so I don't know how other communities intend to use those funds, but as in past years, we'd be using funds raised for prizes to send to the winners of the year end awards, send "Thank You" gifts to AMA and Podcast guests and fund promotion of the subreddit (We had a super cool plan in the beginning of 2019 to promote participation in AskHistorians at history conferences which.... yeah. That didn't happen. But we hope to be able to restart that in 2022! Stay tuned!)

Hey, What About the Conference Fundrazr?

The astute among you will remember we already have been offering swag through the 2021 Conference Fundrazr, but don't worry, these aren't in direct conflict with each other. Aside from the fact that the Fundrazr has some supercool, exclusive things you can't get here, between the turnout so far, and the sponsorship that we have secured for the Conference, we feel confident at hitting our funding goals there, so by choosing this swag instead of that swag, you aren't bleeding the conference of funding (Related: Wondering where your conference swag is? Pins are supposed to arrive this week, and then we'll start shipping!)

OMG, I Can't Believe You Sold Out Like This!!!!

We really do value your feedback on this as a community! The pilot runs for one month, after which our continued participation (assuming they expand the program) is entirely up in the air, and very dependent on what you, the AskHistorians community, would want to see! Based on past years when we've done fundraisers, or simply shared some of the swag we send out for awards, its been pretty clear that many folks would be interested in AskHistorians swag, so we're giving this a try.

If you think this is super cool and want us to expand it, let us know. If you think this is stupid as hell and we never should have participated in the first place, let us know. We take all of that feedback seriously, and as this is very much a project for the community, the response of the community - you folks - is super important for us in evaluating its success or failure. We'll be providing feedback to reddit at the end of this, and what you all have to say about it will be front and center is whatever we end up reporting.

THESEARE THE PICTURES

While in Mexico this man, two months before the assassination of JFK, phoned Soviet official named Kostikov while in the Soviet embassy in Mexico. Valeriy Kostikov was well-known to the CIA and FBI as a KGB agent operating out of the Embassy under official cover. But, far more ominously, the FBI's "Tumbleweed" informant had previously tipped off the U.S. that Kostikov was a member of the KGB's "Department 13," involved in sabotage and assassinations.

The local CIA station in Mexico informed headquarters about it and requested information on him. But headquarters lied to its station, saying that no information on Oswald had been received by headquarters since his return to the United States 18 months earlier (PBS).

Documents show, however, that most of the half-dozen agency employees who participated in the drafting and dissemination of this false reply had signed for and read various FBI reports received on Oswald during those months, especially during the two weeks before this deception was invented.

So the local CIA station took these pictures of this man, who identified himself as Lee Harvey Oswald, placed calls to top KGB officials and according to the WC made threats towards JFK during this trip. Two months later (after the assassination), when these pictures and the describtion was sent to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, alongside it he got this memo:

"The CIA advised that on October 1, 1963, an extremely sensitive source had reported that an individual identified himself as Lee Oswald, who contacted the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City inquiring as to any messages. Special Agents of this Bureau, who have conversed with Oswald in Dallas, Texas, have observed photographs of the individual referred to above, and have listened to a recording of his voice. These special agents are of the opinion that the above-referred-to individual was not Lee Harvey Oswald."

The day after the assassination Hoover briefed newly inaugurated LBJ about the "the tape and the photograph" of a man who claimed to be Oswald visiting the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City less than two months before the murder (Hoover did not mention how CIA headquarters lied about their surveillance of Oswald). Hoover goes on (WaPo)

"That's one angle that's very confusing. That picture and the tape do not correspond to this man's {Oswald's} voice, nor to his appearance. In other words, it appears that there is a second person who was at the Soviet Embassy down there."

The CIA station wiretapped the impostor's calls. When after the assassination CIA agents who knew Oswald went through these tapes they concluded that this man's voice was very different from Oswald's, on top of his Russian being too broken to resemble Oswald.

So question is, have we ever identified the impostor? And why did he pose as Oswald?

Previous weeks!

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I'm a script writer (on a hobby level but non the less). I found this YouTube video by the popular "Sam O'nella Academy" channel who does videos on strange and disturbing facts and peoples about the "dumbest rags to riches story" of Lord Timothy Dexter, a self made American business man who sold coal to Newcastle and other ridiculous business ventures always earning a profit: https://youtu.be/ChSUvdU_Sbk

This links to some articles in non scholarly historical journals and a Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Dexter

This repeats most of the statements of the Youtube video, also linking to some mainly unscholarly sources.

If even half of these tales are true this man would be the most perfect subject for a comedy play there ever was and I'm determined to write it. However, many seem too good to be true. Basically as the video and Wikipedia article will explain in more detail, Dexter was a fool who married rich and always fell for the bad advice of other businessmen to "ship coals to Newcastle", heating pans to the Carribbean and collected worthless continental dollars and whale bones, always to end up making a profit through a ridiculous contrivance.

This sounds like tall tales to me.

Now Dexter was a real life eccentric and his ridiculously misspelled book "a pickle for the knowing ones" was real, that much I've understood. And even if much of it is unproven I'll still likely move ahead with a draft of the play. Still, I'd like to know where I stand as far as evidence goes. Therefore I ask for your help to find if there are any concrete proofs anywhere for these crazy business ventures.

Thank you.