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Baron Münchhausen
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Baron Munchausen, in a blue coat and feathered hat, rides a cannonball through the air, surprising two uniformed artillerymen standing by cannons, with a fortress in the background. The baron recovering his silver casket, which had bounced up to the Moon, illustration from a 19th-century edition of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolf Erich Raspe.
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Baron Munchausen, in a blue coat and feathered hat, rides a cannonball through the air, surprising two uniformed artillerymen standing by cannons, with a fortress in the background.
Illustration of Baron Munchausen The baron surprising artillerymen by arriving mounted on a cannonball, illustration from a 19th-century edition of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolf Erich Raspe.

Baron Münchhausen

Hanoverian storyteller
Also known as: Baron Münchausen, Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Freiherr von Münchhausen(Show More)
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History

Baron Münchhausen (born May 11, 1720, Bodenwerder, Hanover [Germany]—died February 22, 1797, Bodenwerder) was a Hanoverian storyteller, some of whose tales were the basis for the collection The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Münchhausen served with the Russian army against the Turks and retired to his estates as a country gentleman in 1760. He became famous throughout Hanover as a raconteur of extraordinary tales about his life as a soldier, hunter, and sportsman. A collection of...

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