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Biggest Forgeries in History

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  • Biggest Forgeries in History

    Let's have some threadi about them. I got the idea to this when watching a doc about the search for the "missing link" in human evolution, where they also had a story about the so-called "Piltdown Man":

    The "Piltdown Man" is a famous hoax consisting of fragments of a skull and jawbone collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at Piltdown, a village near Uckfield, East Sussex, in England. The fragments were thought by many experts of the day to be the fossilised remains of a hitherto unknown form of early human. The Latin name Eoanthropus dawsoni ("Dawson's dawn-man", after the collector Charles Dawson) was given to the specimen.

    The significance of the specimen remained the subject of controversy until it was exposed in 1953 as a forgery, consisting of the lower jawbone of an orangutan combined with the skull of a fully developed, modern man.
    more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man (yeah, it's Wiki, so what, if you find errors feel free to point them out)

    Interesting was esp. how many British aggressors...I mean...scientists in the same period dismissed the findings in South Africa of Raymond Dart, but easily bought into the "Piltdown guy" cuz they couldn't believe that such an important element of human evolution came out of Africa, not from Europe or Asia as they thought.

    I'll add two more examples, first this one:

    The Donation of Constantine (Latin, Donatio Constantini)[1] is a forged Roman imperial edict devised probably between 750 and 775, the earlier date being the more probable. It is often said that the document could have been written around 752. Albert Hauck suggested in 1888[2] that assuming that the document was forged shortly before the Council of Quierzy, 754, would explain demands made by the Pope on that occasion, "demands which had no basis in law or fact", commented F. Zinkeisen.


    And finally, since this thread is nothing without Nazis, this:

    The Gleiwitz incident was a staged attack on 31 August 1939 against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany (since 1945: Gliwice, Poland) on the eve of World War II in Europe.

    This provocation was one of several actions in Operation Himmler, a Nazi Germany SS project to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany, which would be used to justify the subsequent invasion of Poland.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident (though it suffers a bit from the fact that probably noone believed it really outside Krautland)

    Discuss and/or add more

    P.S. Any silly comments about moon landings, 9/11 and stuff are only allowed if they're new and funny. As always I negotiated with the mods that otherwise they lead to an automatic permaban
    Last edited by BeBMan; September 17, 2008, 10:01.
    Blah

  • #2
    If you're including hoaxes, how about the War of the Worlds radio broadcast?

    The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938 and aired over the WABC Radio network. Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds.

    The first two thirds of the 60-minute broadcast was presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested to many listeners that an actual Martian invasion was in progress. (Because the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a 'sustaining show' [without sponsorship], the broadcast had no commercials). Some fled their homes; others were terrified. The news-bulletin format was decried as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast, but the episode launched Welles to fame.
    Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. - Ben Franklin
    Iain Banks missed deadline due to Civ | The eyes are the groin of the head. - Dwight Schrute.
    One more turn .... One more turn .... | WWTSD

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Lord Avalon
      If you're including hoaxes, how about the War of the Worlds radio broadcast?



      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War...Worlds_(radio)
      That was a masterpiece indeedy!!
      Hi, I'm RAH and I'm a Benaholic.-rah

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      • #4
        Anyone else ever noticed how the names of those people go so well with each other? HG Wells - Orson Welles. And then, shortly after, George Or-well.

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        • #5
          Hitler diaries
          Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
          Douglas Adams (Influential author)

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          • #6
            Yeah, should have thought 'bout them myself

            Here's a rather funny one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies
            Blah

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            • #7
              Han van Meegeren, infamous vermeer forger.

              Clifford Irving's Autobiography of Howard Hughes

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              • #8
                Of course this one has to be in here:

                The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Protocols of the wise men of Zion, Library of Congress's Uniform Title; Russian: "Протоколы сионских мудрецов", or "Сионские протоколы" ; see also other titles) is an antisemitic tract alleging a Jewish and Masonic plot to achieve world domination. It has been proven to be a plagiarism[1], literary forgery[2][3][4], fraud[5][6] and a hoax[7][8][9]. It was first published in 1903 in Russian, in Znamya ("The Banner," a newspaper)
                Blah

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                • #9
                  Re: Biggest Forgeries in History

                  Originally posted by BeBro
                  Let's have some threadi about them. I got the idea to this when watching a doc about the search for the "missing link" in human evolution, where they also had a story about the so-called "Piltdown Man":
                  One theory is that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was behind the hoax. He was trying to build up interest in his "Lost World" novel.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Zkribbler
                    Han van Meegeren, infamous vermeer forger.
                    You beat me to it .

                    "post reported"Winston, on the barricades for freedom of speech
                    "I don't like laws all over the world. Doesn't mean I am going to do anything but post about it."Jon Miller

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