The word conspiracy is now linked to crazy people. But if a group of people conspire, a conspiracy is born. The definition of a conspiracy is a secret plan by a group of people plotting something illegal or immoral. There are countless examples from of historical conspiracies that turned out to be true. They’re not ll about population control or the destruction of Mars – you’ll find most aren’t too unlikely. Powerful people always conspire, It’s what we would all do in their position. Here are 10 historical conspiracies that turned out to be absolutely true. Maybe some of the current conspiracy theories that sound crazy right now will eventually feature on a list similar to this.
CIA Cocaine Trafficking
For many decades, people have made allegations that the CIA has a history of selling hard drugs to the black community in California. This was just considered to be a mental myth, until officials started coming forward claiming it was all true. In 2004, the journalist investigating the allegations was found dead by suicide, as were several of the officials who came forward. I have no idea if that’s connected to the Cocaine scandal. But at this point it’s pretty clear that the CIA allowed crack cocaine to be trafficked into LA during the 1980s. That’s at the very least. Many more officials have been coming forward in recent years claiming the CIA was actively involved in flooding the city with Cocaine. The drug sales helped fund the CIA’s foreign operation. There is an awful lot of evidence to support these claims.
Watergate Scandal
Every scandal is now given a name ending with “gate” because of how notorious the Watergate scandal was. The scandal showed that many US government administrations pushed for further war in Vietnam, instead of peace which they had claimed to have pushed for. This was a big deal, so the government conspired to suppress information relating to this. President Nixon allowed officials to place bugs at the Watergate building, and to steal information from it. That was the Democratic headquarters building. Nixon denied any connection to the break in. Nixon had a habit of recording all of his phone calls, and the public demanded he release the recordings. But he refused to, until 1974 when the Supreme court ordered him to. The tapes proved that president Nixon was involved with the cover up. Nixon was forced to step down in the first ever resignation of an American president. Many high-ranking officials were charged for their crimes soon after the scandal erupted.
CBS News Tried To Invade Haiti
This one is going to sound ridiculous but it really did happen. In the 1960s, the weak Haitian government was struggling against the threat of militant rebel groups. CBS news was bored of never getting any good coverage of anything. So they agreed to fund rebels so that they could overthrow the government and gain power for themselves. CBS gave them 200 thousand dollars in return for exclusive rights to film the resulting conflict. This genuinely almost happened but the American government arrested rebel leaders to prevent it. I guess it was just a different era, where news media plotted to invade sovereign nations.
Dreyfus affair
This was a conspiracy to falsely accuse a man of treason. The man was Alfred Dreyfus, a French military officer. A group of people got together and made up the lie that Dreyfus had leaked important information to the Germans. This was when France and Germany really hated each other, so Dreyfus was sent to a brutal prison island in South-America. He was kept at the prison island for 5 years. But it soon came to light that the information had been leaked by a different military officer. But that officer was cleared of charges, and Dreyfus was charged with even more crimes that he clearly didn’t commit. By this time, the French public had worked out what was going on and demanded a retrial. He was taken back to France for another trial. This time he was found guilty again. But the establishment gave him a full pardon and he was set free. It was a blatant conspiracy to hide someone else’s treason. They picked Dreyfus because he was Jewish, making him an easy target. This was during the 1890s. You’d be surprised by how many historical conspiracies took place in France.
Markovic Affair
The Markovic affair was another bizarre plot from France. It was back in the 1960s, and the French secret police really didn’t like the new President of France. Stevan Marković was the film star Alain Delon’s bodyguard. He was murdered in a still unsolved case. His brother’s friend was the French president. Not long after, someone leaked photographs of the presidents wife in revealing circumstance. That was a big deal back in the 1960s. The whole thing was done by a group who wanted to force the president into resigning. They really wanted Charles de Gaulle to continue as president, who was succeeded by the current president at the time. De Gauelle was a leader of the French resistance, and his supporters didn’t want anyone else to take his place as president. The photographs didn’t actually show the presidents wife, but a prostitute disguised as her.
Gulf Of Tonkin Incident
The gulf of Tonkin is a body of water near to Vietnam. In 1964 it was reported that the American navy were attacked by three Vietnamese boats in the gulf. This was used by the American government to justify the expansion of the Vietnam war. The American public and congress considered retaliation acceptable because of this, which essentially marked the beginning of the Vietnam war. It was later revealed that literally half of the incident never happened. It was just made up by officials. If not for the made up part, the American public may not have been okay with retaliation. The Gulf of Tonkin incident is one of the main reasons why no one trusts the government any more.
Magnate Conspiracy
This one occurred back in the 17th century. The Habsburg Monarchy was an unofficial empire controlled by the Habsburg family. They were a power rival to the Ottoman empire in Eastern-Europe. A peace treaty was signed between the two empires in 1664. The hated treaty put Croatia and Hungary under Habsburg control. So a conspiracy was formed in order to free Hungary. The conspirators held secret meetings with foreign powers in Europe. But none agreed to support them. They were desperate enough to ask the Ottomans for help. They promised that Hungary would submit to the Ottoman Sultan. Their plan was to push the Habsburgs out of Hungary by force. But with no foreign assistance, their attempts swiftly failed. Huge numbers of people were persecuted in retaliation by the Habsburg monarchy for the conspiracy against them. Few historical conspiracies are as poorly executed as this one.
Rajneeshee Bioterror Attack
In 1984, a group of followers of the Indian mystic Osho conspired to win a local election in Oregon’s Wasco county. Their plan was to poison most local voters so that they were unable to head out to the polls on election day. So they infected food in local restaurants with Salmonella. This caused 751 people to catch it, 45 of which were sent to hospital. This makes it the biggest biochemical terrorist incident in American history. Many followers of Osho were a bit crazy, and this was just one of several terrorist plots carried out by his students. One year later there was a plot to assassinate a high-profile lawyer.
Throckmorton Plot
Elizabeth I was Queen of England and the daughter of Henry VIII, so she wasn’t catholic. But there were many within England who believed their monarch should be a catholic. So a group of Catholics conspired to assassinate Elizabeth so that her Catholic cousin could assume to crown. Francis Throckmorton led the conspiracy. The plan was to kill the queen at the same time Spain was due to invade England. The Spanish agreed to fund the whole thing. Catholic groups within England would then rebel against the monarchy, and it would be enough to replace it with a Catholic queen. Francis Throckmorton was tortured into admitting the plot and it never happened.
Operation Himmler
World war two began with the Nazi invasion of Poland. The Germans had no legitimate reason to invade so they decided to create the illusion of Polish aggression towards Germany. They staged fake attacks on German officials and civilians along the border. Some German soldiers disguised themselves as polish soldiers and held up a radio station. They then proceeded to broadcast insulting messages as if they were coming from the Polish government. The result was expected, the German people would accept a full invasion of Poland. The Nazis crossed the border, and the war was on. I get the feeling most historical conspiracies were to justify wars.