Hoaxes

In early 1826, one of Europe’s most celebrated chess masters arrived in New York for his American debut. The event was widely touted in news articles and advertisements, and some 200 people later turned out for the first exhibition matches at Broadway’s National Hotel. To their ...read more

1. Drake’s Plate of Brass Once considered a major archaeological discovery, Drake’s Plate was an inscribed brass marker found in 1936 in Northern California, where it was thought to have been left in 1579 by explorer Francis Drake and the crew of the Golden Hind when they landed ...read more

The seed for what would become one of the 19th century’s most elaborate hoaxes first planted itself in George Hull’s mind in 1867. A cigar maker by trade, Hull was also a staunch atheist and skeptic, and during a business trip to Iowa, he became locked in a theological debate ...read more

As the clock struck 8 p.m. in New York City on the night of October 30, 1938, Orson Welles stood on a podium inside a Madison Avenue radio studio. The baby-faced, 23-year-old theatrical star, who had graced the cover of Time magazine months earlier, prepared to direct 10 actors ...read more

1. The Hitler “diaries” that embarrassed a German newspaper. On May 6, 1983, West Germany’s Federal Archives released the results of a forensic investigation into what turned out to be one of the greatest hoaxes of the 20th century–the Hitler diaries. Just weeks earlier, the ...read more

1856: The Tower of London hosts a lion washing extravaganza In the days leading up to April 1, 1856, London residents received an official-looking invitation printed on Tower of London stationery and bearing a crimson wax seal. Signed “Herbert de Grassen,” supposedly a “senior ...read more