Correction: the Great Wall hoax did not cause the Boxer Rebellion

1939

In 1939 the Denver songwriter Harry Lee Wilber claimed in the North American Review that the 1899 fake story had been reprinted in China and provoked the Boxer Rebellion. This is a hoax about a hoax. Boxer activity had already intensified in March 1899, before the article was written, and no Chinese source connects the two. The embellishment is still widely repeated as fact.