﻿Welcome back to Bad Things in History, where I’m asking you, Sugar, would I lie to you?
People lie all the time. Usually it’s just harmless white lies meant to spare someone’s
feelings. In some cases, avoiding the truth may simply be a strategy to avoid conflict.
On rare occasions someone might lie for fame and profit.
This has happened many times throughout history. Some of these historical liars have been so
proficient at their craft that they convinced everyone to believe their tall tales.
Today we are going to explore some of history’s greatest hoaxes.
Let’s begin with a man who created chaos just to win a bet.
—-------- Berners Street Hoax
Life in London in the early 1800s wasn’t entirely pleasant. But those
who had money and time could devote themselves to the pursuit of pleasure.
One of the pleasurable activities the upper class enjoyed was gambling.
Theodore Hook was born in London on September 22nd, 1788. He gained a reputation for being
a brilliant writer. However, he also had a habit of stealing money and going into debt.
Theodore’s greatest talent may have been his ability to execute practical jokes.
In 1810 Theodore made a bet with a fellow writer. He claimed that he could take any
random house in London and make it the most talked about place in the city within one week.
The wager was accepted. Theodore began working to ensure his vision would become reality.
He began writing letters and sending them to businesses all over the city.
Every letter was signed with the name of Mrs. Tottenham. She lived at 54 Berners street.
On November 27th, at five in the morning, a chimney sweep arrived
at Mrs. Tottenham’s home and knocked on the door.
The maid answered and told him that the services were never requested. The chimney sweep left,
but then another showed up. The maid sent him away and then another appeared.
A total of twelve chimney sweeps had to be sent away.
Next, a convoy of carts carrying coal arrived.
Then a series of wedding cakes were delivered. Doctors, lawyers,
and priests appeared at the front door claiming their services had been requested.
The visitors kept coming and nobody knew why. A fisherman showed up at the house,
as well as a shoemaker. A dozen pianos were delivered to the Berners Street residence.
The Governor of the Bank of England knocked on the door. So did the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Mayor of London. The side streets around Mrs. Tottenham’s
home became so congested that it began causing traffic jams all over London.
Theodore Hook spent the day watching the chaos unfold from a nearby house. But the pleasure of
his well-executed plan wouldn’t last long. The next day a newspaper wrote of the event:
Every Officer that could be mustered was enlisted to disperse the people,
and they were placed at the corners of Berners Street to prevent trades people from advancing
towards the house with goods. The street was not cleared at a late hour, as servants of every
denomination wanting places began to assemble at five o'clock. It turned out that letters had been
written to the different trades people, which stated recommendations from persons of quality.
A reward has been offered for the apprehension of the author of the criminal hoax.
Theodore decided to take a tour of the countryside
and get out of town. The authorities never arrested him for the prank.
He did win the bet, which would be worth about 87 pounds today.
Cottingley Fairies
Although adults are usually the ones that create elaborate hoaxes, sometimes
children are equally ambitious and clever. Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths lived near
Bradford, England. In 1917 Elsie was sixteen years old and Frances was just nine.
The two girls and their parents had just recently moved from South Africa.
The village in Bradford where the family resided provided ample opportunities for
the children to entertain themselves. Most days Frances and Elsie liked to play near a stream.
It made their mother mad because the girls usually returned home with muddy feet and wet clothes.
One day, after being admonished by their mother for playing near the stream,
Elsie and Frances told her that they only went back there to see the fairies.
Their mother asked for proof. The children took their father’s camera,
went to the stream, then returned thirty minutes later with their evidence.
Elsie and Frances asked their father to develop the photographs. As the
images appeared, he could see that one of them showed Elsie playing with fairies.
He was convinced it was probably staged by the girls and told them to quit using his camera.
Although Elsie and Frances didn’t convince their father that fairies were real,
they were not done yet. Elsie sent the fairy photographs to some friends in 1918.
By 1919, the images had been released to the public.
The pictures attracted the attention of the Theosophical Society. It was an
organization created in 1875 with the goal of emphasizing the commonality of human nature.
Many of its members also believed that everything was undergoing evolution.
After seeing the fairy pictures, one of the leading members of the
Theosophical Society said: the fact that two young girls had
not only been able to see fairies, which others had done, but had actually for the first time
ever been able to materialise them at a density sufficient for their images to be recorded on
a photographic plate, meant that it was possible that the next cycle of evolution was underway.
The pictures were also sent to Arthur Conan Doyle. He was the author of the
Sherlock Holmes novels. Doyle was also a spiritualist. Additionally,
he was supposed to write an article on fairies for The Strand Magazine. He used
the photographs that Elsie and Frances took to help prove fairies were real.
Several scientists examined the photographs and claimed they were fake. The Kodak company
also refused to claim they were real. But the belief and enthusiasm of Arthur
Conan Doyle was unaffected. In December 1920 he published an article which said of fairies:
The recognition of their existence will jolt the material twentieth-century mind out of its
heavy ruts in the mud, and will make it admit that there is a glamour and mystery to life.
Having discovered this, the world will not find it so difficult to accept that
spiritual message supported by physical facts which have already been put before it.
Interest in the fairies began to disappear after 1921. Elsie and Frances went on with their lives.
But in 1985 interest in the story emerged again, and a reporter found the sisters.
Elsie admitted that they use cardboard cutouts for the fairies. But the sisters
were too embarrassed to reveal the truth after successfully fooling Arthur Conan Doyle. Frances
didn’t feel remorse for the hoax saying: I never even thought of it as being a fraud – it
was just Elsie and I having a bit of fun and I can't understand to this day why they were taken
in – they wanted to be taken in. Frances died in 1986.
Elsie passed away in 1988. If you would like to learn more
about spiritualism, we suggest a previous episode called “The Last Witch”.
Giving Birth to Rabbits
For some reason, England has a long history of strange pranks.
One of the most unbelievable hoaxes happened long before either of our previous stories.
Mary Toft was born near Surrey, England in 1701.
She was a peasant and spent most of her life working in the fields.
But for a few brief weeks the monotony of Mary’s days would be interrupted by public curiosity.
On September 27th, 1726 Mary Toft was pregnant with her fourth child. Women
were expected to continue working while pregnant, and Mary was no exception.
But early in the day she complained about pain in her abdomen. Shortly thereafter she began passing
pieces of flesh out of her birth canal. But the discarded tissue didn’t appear to be human.
A midwife appeared the next day to check on Mary and he was skeptical of the story. But over the
next few days he became a believer. Mary gave birth to parts of cats, rabbits, and eels.
One of the reasons why Mary was able to find people who believed her claims was because
of a strange belief called maternal impression. Many doctors in the 1700s believed that a woman’s
emotional state could directly affect how a fetus developed. So, for many in the medical profession
the fact Mary gave birth to animal parts simply meant that she had been under a lot of stress.
The British Royal Family were curious to learn more about this strange tale, so they sent
someone to investigate. The observer witnessed Mary give birth to a rabbit’s torso.
Next, a surgeon was sent to investigate the matter. He was not so easily convinced
that a supernatural event was happening. The surgeon said that Mary spent a lot of time
keeping her legs and knees together, like she was trying to keep something from falling out of her.
And the midwife wouldn’t let anybody else handle the delivery either.
A political writer named John Hervey said of Mary:
Every creature in town, both men and women, have been to see and feel her: the perpetual emotions,
noises and rumblings in her Belly are something prodigious; all the eminent physicians,
surgeons and man-midwives in London are there Day and Night to watch her next production.
By December 7th the ruse was at an end. Mary was finally pressured into confessing.
She said that after having a miscarriage, her cervix was still dilated, and her
uterus was still accessible. So, she began having friends and relatives buy animals.
She would then shove them inside of her body so they could be pushed out later.
On December 9th, 1726 Mary Toft was sent to prison.
Hitler Diaries
For some people lying is a way of life. That was the case for one man
who created fake Nazi collectibles and sold them for a handsome profit.
Konrad Kujau was born in East Germany in 1933. Life was difficult during Konrad’s childhood. His
mother couldn’t afford to feed her children and sent them to live in orphanages several times.
Additionally, Konrad and his siblings spent their early childhoods being taught Nazi ideals.
As he became a young adult Konrad found his calling in
life. He wanted to be a petty criminal. While trying to figure out how to turn crime
into a way of life, Konrad worked as a waiter. But in 1959 he was sent to
prison for several months after being caught stealing tobacco and cognac.
In 1970, while visiting his family in East Germany, Konrad discovered
that many of them had a collection of Nazi memorabilia. This was illegal,
but it was also potentially very profitable.
He began purchasing Nazi artifacts cheaply in East Germany, then Konrad
would take them to West Germany and sell them for ten times the purchase price.
Eventually this plan fell apart when police found some of the memorabilia and confiscated it.
Konrad knew that there was still money to be made in the Nazi artifact trade. But it was too risky
to steal items and take them West. So, he decided to do the next best thing. He would create his
own collection of Nazi artifacts. In the late 1970s he began painting.
The finished artwork, according to Konrad, was created by Hitler. He was able to then convince
collectors that it really was from the Fuhrer. The paintings sold for a handsome profit.
Next, he began writing notes and claimed the notes were written by Hitler. Collectors believed it and
started buying the notes from Konrad. His plan became more ambitious as time
passed. Konrad started handwriting text from Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf.
Even though the original manuscript was created with a typewriter, collectors
were happy to buy this forgery as well. Konrad was finally ready to create something
far more valuable. So, in 1978 he began writing pages of what he would call “Hitler’s Diary”.
As he produced new volumes, collectors were waiting and eager to purchase them.
In 1980 the journalist Gerd Heidemann heard about these diaries and contacted Konrad. He
wanted to acquire the rest of the diary and was willing to pay handsomely for it.
Over the next several years Konrad produced an additional sixty-one volumes of Hitler’s
Diary. It was sold to Heidemann for around 2.5 million deutsche marks.
A historian in Germany named Hugh Trevor-Roper analyzed the diaries
and concluded they were real. He commented on the volumes:
I am now satisfied that the documents are authentic; that the history of their wanderings
since 1945 is true; and that the standard accounts of Hitler's writing habits, of his personality,
and even, perhaps, of some public events may, in consequence, have to be revised.
On April 22nd, 1983 the German magazine Stern held a press conference. The existence of
the diaries was revealed, and a date was set for their future publication.
However, by May 1st the enthusiasm started to turn into apprehension. Hugh Trevor-Roper,
after consulting with other experts, changed his mind and decided the diaries were fake.
The magazine had paid 9.5 million deutsche marks to Heidemann for the diaries. And now
that the public knew the pages were a forgery, the magazine was in legal jeopardy. It was illegal
to spread Nazi propaganda in West Germany. And that was exactly what the magazine had done.
The editors at Stern who paid Heidemann lost their jobs but avoided prison.
Konrad and Heidemann were put on trial in August 1984. They were convicted and sent to prison,
finally being released in 1987. Upon his release from prison,
Konrad had throat cancer. But he also was a celebrity. He continued to earn a living
by creating fake paintings. He also forged driver’s licenses for paying customers.
Cancer finally won its battle against Konrad. He passed away on September 12th, 2000 at the
age of sixty-two. —--------
History is full of liars and thieves. And we’ve only covered a few of the most
interesting examples in this episode. What do you think about these hoaxes? Are
they harmless fun, or is it a criminal act worthy of harsh punishment? Let us
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