The Myth of the War of the Worlds Panic

> Here is where President Kennedy announced, Ich bin ein Berliner, and thereby amused the city's populace because in the local parlance a Berliner is a doughnut.

and

> What they did not know, but could easily have found out, was that such citizens never refer to themselves as 'Berliners.'

In Berlin itself, a Berliner is actually called "Pfannkuchen", so while it might have amused other Germans, that wouldn't apply to citizens of Berlin themselves, which do in fact call themselves "Berliner".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_(doughnut)

> While called Berliner (Ballen) in Northern and Western Germany as well as in Switzerland, the Berliners themselves and residents of Brandenburg, Western Pomerania, Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony know them as Pfannkuchen, which in the rest of Germany generally means pancakes; pancakes are known there as Eierkuchen ("egg cakes").

In the context it's presented, I think it would have to actually mean jelly donut, not be a nickname. And such a thing is in fact false.

>>"Ich bin ein Berliner" was not only correct, but the only way to express what the President wanted to say.

The problem with this article, which isn't completely the fault of the authors, is that it's unsatisfying. They're saying, "Hey, we have a strong case here that it wasn't anything like a million people," but then they don't go lay it on the line and make a firm case for it having panicked X people. And that's probably the best they can do, given the lack of historical data, but it's not enough to deliver the kind of hard-hitting, conclusive punchline that's frequently necessary to kill off widespread myths. (Assuming, of course, that they really are myths. Some historical facts derided as myths have come back to haunt their doubters.)