On May 7th 1915, the British trans-Atlantic liner Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine. The Germans claimed that the ship was transporting weapons. The Americans denied it and used the disaster to justify their declaration of war.
6th June 1944. The beaches of Normandy are the scene of the most spectacular military operation of all time: the Normandy Landings. They owe their success, though, to a gigantic lie: a phantom army and a network of double agents.
In 1979, in the midst of the second oil crisis, two eccentric inventors proposed to the French industrial oil giant, Elf, a concept for an aircraft able to detect oil deposits underground.
Greatest American lie of the 20th century. Richard Nixon spared no effort to ensure his re-election: spying on his opponents, stealing documents, using slush funds. The truth came to light and forced the American president to resign.
G. W. Bush assured the UN Security Council that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to the US, particularly through its links with Al Qaeda. However, it was all untrue.
Mar '85: a flagship of the Greenpeace fleet - the Rainbow Warrior, while organizing a protest to stop French nuclear testing in Polynesia, was docked in New Zealand. Jul '85: French agents sank the flagship. France denied responsibility.
12th December 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis, B. L. Madoff was arrested. Being behind the US history's largest financial fraud of $65 billion how did he convince institutions and individuals to entrust their money to him?
Oct 1990: a 15 y. old girl gives a testimony of the atrocities committed in a Kuwait by Hussein's troops. Jan 1991: the First Gulf War begins. This war was based on a lie, invented by communication agencies, financed by the US and Kuwait.
Jan 2013: the 7x Tour de France winner confesses to Oprah Winfrey he has been doped, using growth hormone and blood transfusions. How did this American "hero" built the greatest lie in the history of cycling without being stopped sooner?
Jan 1998: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky", Bill Clinton lied live from the White House. The greatest sex scandal shook the US presidency while uncovering the lies mechanics at the state's highest levels.
Apr 1994: "Nicotine isn't addictive", the tobacco industry leaders pronounced in front of the US Congress. 4 years later, they had to pay a $200 billion fine and open their archives that uncovered a large-scale strategy of disinformation.
March 1993: two journalists questioned the French President, François Mitterrand, on the Elysée Palace wiretapping scandal which had just come to light. The President denied everything. Who set up this STASI-style intelligence mechanism?
In April 1991, a doctor and a journalist published an article about medical staff knowingly distributing blood products contaminated with HIV to thousands of hemophiliacs in 1984 - 85, causing a multinational HIV and hepatitis C outbreak.
It's one of the most efficient industrial lobbying case in France and the greatest industrial killer of the 20th cent. It's story isn't over yet: new cases of 'asbestos cancer' are still reported, possibly causing 500.000 deaths by 2025.
In March 1996, after 10 years of disinformation and lies by omission, and when ten British citizens got the deadly Creutzfeldt-Jacob (mad cow) disease, it finally became public this disease could be transmitted to humans.