{"id":154690,"date":"2023-03-27T16:14:58","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T16:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/culture.org\/?p=154690"},"modified":"2023-03-31T19:58:34","modified_gmt":"2023-03-31T19:58:34","slug":"the-art-of-the-hoax-famous-historical-pranks-and-frauds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culture.org\/news\/the-art-of-the-hoax-famous-historical-pranks-and-frauds\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of the Hoax: Famous Historical Pranks and Frauds"},"content":{"rendered":"           <!--  <script type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n                jQuery(document).ready(function() {\r\n                    jQuery(\".key-accordion-item .key-menu\").on(\"click\", function() {\r\n                        if (jQuery(this).parent().hasClass(\"active\")) {\r\n                            jQuery(this).next().slideUp();\r\n                            jQuery(this).parent().removeClass(\"active\");\r\n                        } else {\r\n                            jQuery(\".key-content\").slideUp();\r\n                            jQuery(\".key-accordion-item\").removeClass(\"active\");\r\n                            jQuery(this).parent().addClass(\"active\");\r\n                            jQuery(this).next().slideDown();\r\n                        }\r\n                    });\r\n                })\r\n            <\/script> -->\r\n\r\n\r\n            <!-- start html -->\r\n\r\n            <div class=\"news-key-takeaway-wapper\">\r\n                                <span style=\"background-color:#9259b9;\">Key Takeaways<\/span>\r\n                <ul class=\"news-key-nbox\" style=\"border-color:#9259b9;background-color:rgba(146, 89, 185, 0.1);\">\r\n                                                        <li>April Fools' Day, celebrated on April 1, is a tradition of playing hoaxes and practical jokes on others.<\/li>\r\n                                                                    <li>The exact origins of the day remain a mystery, but it has been celebrated for centuries by different cultures.<\/li>\r\n                                                                    <li>Some historians speculate that it dates back to 1582 when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, while others link it to the ancient Roman festival of Hilaria or the vernal equinox.<\/li>\r\n                                                                    <li>Today, elaborate April Fools' Day hoaxes are still carried out by individuals, media, and major brands, ensuring the unofficial holiday's continued longevity.<\/li>\r\n                                                <\/ul>\r\n            <\/div>\r\n            \n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Delve into the fascinating world of deception and trickery with our exploration of famous historical hoaxes and frauds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From the enchanting Cottingley Fairies to the perplexing case of Mary Toft giving birth to rabbits, these tales of cunning and deceit have captivated the public&#8217;s imagination for centuries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Discover how an alchemist duped a Duke, and how a forged medieval document influenced politics and religion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Finally, learn about the timeless tradition of April Fools&#8217; Day and its origins in mystery and revelry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These extraordinary stories of audacious trickery reveal the human penchant for fooling others and being fooled in return.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Cottingley Fairies: Believing in Magic<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1917, young cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths took a series of photographs in Cottingley, near Bradford, featuring what appeared to be fairies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The pictures gained widespread recognition and were even declared genuine by experts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The duo later confessed in the 1980s that the fairies were drawings by Elsie, held in place with hatpins, but still claimed one photo was real.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Berners Street Hoax: Chaos in London<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On November 27, 1810, 54 Berners Street, London, became the scene of a grand hoax.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A steady stream of merchants, tradesmen, and dignitaries flooded the street, all summoned to the residence without the occupant&#8217;s knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Behind the hoax was Theodore Hook, who had bet a friend that he could make any house the most talked-about spot in London.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Tiara of Saitaferne: A Fraudulent Treasure<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In April 1896, the Louvre museum acquired what they believed was a golden, Greco-Scythian crown from the third century BC.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, the tiara was a fake, created just a year before using modern tools and soldering. The Louvre still owns the crown but does not display it.<\/span><\/p>\n                        <!-- <div class=\"container-c\"> -->\r\n                        <!-- <div class=\"row justify-content-between\"> -->\r\n                        <!-- <div class=\"col-post-800\"> -->\r\n                        <!-- start html -->\r\n                        <div class=\"blockquote-wapper\">\r\n                            <div>\r\n                                <span class=\"text_quot\">\r\n                                    <p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1555, an alchemist for Duke Cosimo I of Florence created a scheme to convince the Duke he could turn ordinary metals into gold.<\/span><\/p>\n                                <\/span>\r\n\r\n                                <div class=\"quot_icon\">\r\n                                    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-content\/themes\/culture\/icons\/i_quot.svg\" type=\"image\/svg+xml\">\r\n                                <\/div>\r\n                            <\/div>\r\n\r\n                            <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"quot_tick\" src=\"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-content\/themes\/culture\/icons\/i_quot_tri.svg\" type=\"image\/svg+xml\">\r\n                        <\/div>\r\n                        <!-- end html -->\r\n                        <!-- <\/div> -->\r\n                        <!-- <\/div> -->\r\n                        <!-- <\/div> -->\r\n                                    \n<h2><strong>Mary Toft: The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1726, Mary Toft, a woman from Godalming, convinced several doctors that she had given birth to rabbits.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When the second royal surgeon, Cyriacus Ahlers, grew skeptical, Toft was intensely questioned and eventually confessed to the hoax.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She was briefly imprisoned and later lived out her days in Godalming, known as the &#8220;Rabbit Woman.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Turning Lead into Gold: The Alchemy Scam<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1555, an alchemist for Duke Cosimo I of Florence created a scheme to convince the Duke he could turn ordinary metals into gold.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After a successful demonstration, the Duke paid a fortune for the recipe, only for the con artist to flee to France without leaving any trace of the mysterious substance.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Donation of Constantine: A Powerful Forgery<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This medieval document, supposedly recording a gift of land from Roman Emperor Constantine the Great to Pope Sylvester I, was actually a forgery dating from the eighth century AD.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The forgery influenced politics and religion in medieval Europe until its true nature was exposed in the 15th century.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":154692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3588],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154690"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culture.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}