Alan MacMasters hoax

In February 2012, a group of British students created a hoax by editing the English Wikipedia article about the electric toaster, inserting the false claim that a man named Alan MacMasters invented it in 1893. One of the students created a separate article about the fictitious Alan MacMasters in February 2013 and embellished it with further details in the following years. The fake article was cited by several newspapers and organisations until the hoax was exposed in July 2022.

The actual development of the pop-up toaster was based on technologies and features invented between 1890 and 1920 by various people and companies.