January 7, 2009 | 9:17 pm

What Would Jesus Tweet?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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I spend a lot of time these days on Twitter. It’s a great place to blend my professional life with my personal one, to share interesting news links and new blog posts and to ask important questions like “Why do dogs chase their tails?”

I follow the tweets of a few famous people—Barack Obama, John “PC” Hodgman, God—but the historical significance of most Twitter users, except for maybe Obama, can’t compete with this riff:

Historical Tweets features snappy micro-blogs showing the thoughts of famous people at key moments in the past, as opposed to the standard Twitter fare of trivia from web users’ humdrum lives.

The joke site copies the distinctive design of the popular short-form blogging service which allows users to post 140 character updates on what they are doing.

A few days before Martin Luther King’s inspiring speech in Washington, DC in 1963, the US civil rights leader Tweets: “Bought a sleep journal. I keep having dreams but forget to write them down.”

Neil Armstrong’s supposed message plays on claims that the 1969 moon landing was faked by the US government, and that the famous footage was filmed in a studio.

In a Tweet to fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin, he jokes: “Headed to the set… I mean moon. LOL. You been practicing slow motion “no gravity” walk?”

Historical Tweets also imitates the blithe self-deception exhibited by some real-life Twitter users to comic effect.

Ahead of his disastrous defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 General Custer messages native Indian leader Sitting Bull: “I warn in advance, this battle will make me famous”.

That’s actually not a good representation of the Historical Tweets roster. OGs include Edison, Franklin, Ghandi, Gehrig, Jesus, Joan of Arc, Jordan, Kennedy, Lincoln and Saddam. Here’s a gem from Hitler, dated Jan. 17, 1923:

“Psychic looked into crystal ball and said I would be a big douchebag with bad facial hair. Growing mustache to prove her wrong.”

You can follow Historical Tweets on current Twitter. You can also follow me by clicking here.