Natalie's Historical Highlights - Liars
Welcome, one and all, to another spectacular edition of Historical Highlights! In today’s edition, we are going to be looking at some of the most notorious liars in history - and the outrageous lies they got away with. You may be thinking that you yourself could be on this list. Not a single lie exists that you can’t get away with. Well, let me tell you, after reading this, you might start second-guessing your own abilities.
Richard Nixon
Many of you must’ve heard of the infamous 37th president of the United States, who was the first US president to resign from office. During his time in office, Nixon committed many crimes: one very notorious scandal being the Watergate scandal. On the morning of June 17th, 1972, five men were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building. Nixon publicly denied that he had anything to do with the breaking - and even said, “I am not a crook,” in a nationally televised press conference. Well, it turns out that Nixon was a crook. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, two journalists from the Washington Post, took it upon themselves to find the truth in this scandal. They uncovered a lot of evidence against Nixon, including wiretaps, secret documents, and hush money. Needless to say he was caught. This scandal led to his forthcoming impeachment. Because of this, he resigned from office during his second term, on August 9th, 1794.
Benjamin Franklin
Ok, so I know what a lot of you may be thinking. “What? Ben Franklin? No way he was a famous professional scientist. He wouldn’t lie!”
Well, while ol’ Benny Franklin is a very famous scientist, who invented many things, including the lightning rod and bifocals, he was also quite the liar.
One of his most famous lies - is that he experiments on lightning - with the use of only; a kite and a key. It has been proven by scientists that this is not at all possible, and really - it didn’t need to be proven because it is clear that it could never happen, or at least not successfully. However, that is not all Franklin lied about. He loved spreading fake news and went to great lengths to spread it. In 1792, Franklin used his homemade printing press and created a fake newspaper. He ran a story about teenage scalps on the frontier (yeah, I don’t know what that means either). The story was picked up by an actual newspaper, which I’m sure left Franklin filled with delight.
Anna Anderson
In 1918 Russia, during the Russian revolution, Bolshevik revolutionaries executed the current ruler, tsar Nicholas II, and his family, which included his wife and five children. Nevertheless, the body of their youngest daughter: Anastasia, was never found or identified. This event engendered some people to hope that she was still alive. Many people took advantage of this and tried and failed to pretend that they were the long-lost grand duchess in order to receive the inheritance Anastasia was entitled to get. Yet, no one got quite as close as Anna Anderson. Amazingly, Anderson resembled what Anastasia would’ve looked like at that age. She ultimately used this tactic to try and impersonate her. Anderson filed a suit in 1938 - to prove that she was Anastasia. In the end, her efforts were futile. Anderson later died in 1984. After her death, medics conducted a DNA test. It was discovered that everything was just an act. She was not the long-lost grand duchess. Anderson turned out to be a polish factory worker named Franziska Schanzkowska.
Phew, good thing she didn't win the suit. I don’t know about you, but I would not be happy if I died and someone impersonated me so they could make a quick buck.
Charles Ponzi
I’ll bet you’ve heard of a Ponzi scheme, before right? Well, the history behind the naming of this scheme goes back to 1919, when Charles Ponzi created a pyramid scheme around international postal reply coupons. He cunningly made $250,000 a day through this scheme, which in today’s currency would equal 3 million dollars. He did this by tricking investors into funding millions of dollars with him and promising outrageously large returns. Afterward, he would pay one investor with the money he got from an earlier one, and so on. However successful this scam was in the beginning, in August 1920, Ponzi was caught and was charged with 86 accounts of mail fraud. You’d think that after a crazy scam like that, people would learn that this is a very bad idea and will blow up in your face, but nope. Ponzi has had quite a few copycats since his day, one of them being Bernie Madoff, who was arrested for cheating investors out of billions. Out of all the poor investors he tricked, one of them was Stephen Spielberg.
Han van Meering
In the early 20th century, there was a lot of arguing going on among scholars whether the great Vermeer (a famous 17th-century Dutch artist) had painted a series of works portraying biblical scenes. Upon hearing about these disputes, Han van Meering thought to try and give forgery a try and carefully created forgeries of “The Disciples of Emmaus,” which was the topic of the quarreling. He paid special attention to detail, even going as far as adding fake cracks and hardness to sell the authenticity. In the end, van Meering turned out to be successful and experts stated that the paintings were authentic. You can imagine van Meering’s delights upon hearing this, and he then took advantage of the situation. He continued to produce and sell his forged creations. However, during his forging career, van Meering made one big mistake. He ended up selling one of his paintings to a leading member of the Nazi party in Germany, and after WW2, the Allies were skeptical of him being a conspirator for selling “national treasure” to the enemy. Van Meering then had to prove that his paintings were not a national treasure and forged another while the authorities watched. He then got a one-year prison sentence but died of a heart attack 2 months after his trial.
The Black Sox
In 1919, some members of the Chicago White Sox baseball team accepted a bribe of $100,000, which would be $1.4 million today. In exchange for the money, Meering and the American baseball team were to purposefully lose to Cincinnati Reds - in the 1919 World Series. I guess they weren’t that great at pretending to win because people became suspicious of the aberrantly sloppy pitching in the first game by the White Sox - who were expected to win the game. Despite the intentional loss, the 1919 World Series went unexamined until the following year, where it was discovered that gamblers had rigged a regular game between the Cubs and the Phillies. This also brought attention to the 1919 World Series. Needless to say, the eight players who were a part of the scandal - were charged with nine counts of conspiracy and were banned from the games for life. This scandal shocked the nation to its core, leaving numerous baseball fans feeling angry and betrayed and is forever known as ‘The Black Sox Scandal.’
P.T Barnum
I’m sure a lot of you have probably seen The Greatest Showman at one point in your life. You may have even been inspired by Hugh Jackman’s portrayal of the real-life Phineas Taylor Barnum. Regardless of the odds stacked against him, Barnum set up a successful circus with nothing but hard work and friendship. Unfortunately, I have to tell you that it was all a facade. You see, the real P.T Barnum didn’t create his circus with the intent of showing everyone that it doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like - because we are all special and unique in our own way. No, instead - all he did was exploit his audience. In his first show - in 1835, Barnum convinced people that a woman named Joice Heth used to be George Washington’s 161-year-old nursemaid. Later, when she died, it was revealed that she was only 80 years old. Many others joined Barnum’s circus of “natural and national curiosities of the world,” - and he continued to feed white lies and embellishments to the public even up to his death in 1891.
Lance Armstrong
Lance Armstrong was well known as the only cyclist to ever win the Tour de France a whopping seven times. His story of how he overcame cancer and then went on to win his first Tour de France race in 1999 - only 3 years after he was diagnosed inspired people around the world. However, in 2012, after years of denying accusations, people discovered that he was using performance-enhancing drugs throughout most of his cycling career. Armstrong also confessed in an interview with Oprah that doping aided him in all seven of his Tour de France wins. Needless to say, Armstrong was soon stripped of all his titles, including all Tour de France wins, and was permanently banned from professional cycling.
Charles Dawson and Arthur Smith Woodward
In 1912, Charles Dawson, a fossil enthusiast, and his collaborator, a geologist at the British Natural History Museum - Arthur Smith Woodward, announced to the world that they had discovered human-like skull fragments; and an apelike jawbone from a gravel pit near Piltman, England. At first, this was treated as a world-renowned discovery, as it had been considered the “missing link” in connecting apes to humans. However, Dawson and Smith Woodward’s success didn’t last, as by the 1950’s tests showed that the skull was only 600 years old and the jaw came from the skeleton of an orangutan. It was discovered that someone had strategically tampered with these fragments, including filing down and staining the teeth. It is unknown who exactly is to blame for this lie but of course, Dawson and Smith Woodward are high on the list of suspects.
Comments
Post a Comment