A "convincing imposter" from a 1736 Almanac?

We think of the Mandela Effect as being a recent phenomenon. This is not only for the obvious connection with the Mandela name, but also it's rise in awareness coinciding with the global growth of the internet. 

There's been growing speculation regarding the effect being much older, however. For example, there's a famous documented example from the early 1980's concerning The Stopped Clock of Bologna, along with many other early instances covered in The Origin of the Mandela Effect.

Recently, an almanac from Titan Leeds from his "good friend", the famous Benjamin Franklin, has caused quite a stir in the Mandela Effect community. It describes a story with some eerie parallels to the ones experienced today - and he published it in 1736. He predicted, in print, the date of Leeds death, and when that date passed without incident, claimed Leeds had been replaced by "a very convincing" imposter.

Poor Richard's Almanac

Benjamin Franklin is one of the founding fathers of the United States. A prolific author and inventor, heis known for, amongst other things, bifocals and the lightning rod. He was already a successful newspaper publisher at the age of 23, when he began publishing "Poor Richard's Almanac" under the pseudonym "Richard Saunders".

It is in this Almanac that a curious incident has caught the attention of the Mandela Effect crowd. Recall - they believe Nelson Mandela didn't die in 2013 but did so in prison in the 1980's, and those who remember it as so are from the alternate timeline where this actually happened.

The Mandela Effect is notorious for being blamed for many celebrity deaths, where either people alive today were thought to be dead , and vice versa.

In the Almanac, Ben Franklin predicted a rival Almanac publisher's death.

Titan Leeds will die on "Oct. 17, 1733, 3:29 P.M., at the very instant of the conjunction of the Sun and Mercury."

When he didn't die, Franklin tried to persuade everyone he had done so, but someone else has taken his place - a similar scenario as what's being called the Mandela Effect today.

When "Leeds" actually died later, Franklin said the double was "a very good imposter".

In a bizarre twist, it's been suggested this whole story is based on an earlier hoax from 1708 with a very similar plot, perpetuated by Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels.