Baron Munchausen

Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Baron von Münchhausen (May 11, 1720 - February 22, 1797) was a German nobleman who served in the Russian army against the Turks, and supposedly told a number of outrageous tall tales about his adventures.

These stories were collected and published, in English, in 1785, by Rudolf Erich Raspe: The Surprising Adventures Of Baron Munchausen. However, much of the humorous material in them is borrowed from other sources. Indeed, the Baron himself was not notable for immodesty within his profession and relative to his accomplishments, and Raspe's publication rather damaged his reputation.

According to the stories, the Baron's astounding abilities included riding cannonballs, travelling to the Moon, and pulling himself from the ocean by his own bootstraps.

In 1943 Raspe's book was adapted into a German language film Münchhausen directed by Josef von Báky. Terry Gilliam adapted the stories into the 1988 film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, filmed in Belchite Spain. Baron Munchhausen's adventures have also been published in Russia, where they are quite commonly known. There is also a multi-player storytelling game "Baron Münchhausen" inspired by the book, in which players take turns topping each others' "tall tales" based upon improbable opening lines given them by the others.

The baron lends his name to the psychological factitious disorder Munchausen syndrome in which a 'patient' will feign illness in order to receive the sympathy and attention of others; and also Munchausen syndrome by proxy in which a 'patient' is someone (usually a child) in the care of the person suffering the disorder. The patient in the later case may suffer abuse at the hands of the sufferer in order for the 'patient' to receive medical attention, whilst the sufferer receives the sympathy of others.