Menu
Idea

deception

372
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Photo of a blue bin filled with recyclable garbage.

Petrochemical Companies Have Known for 40 Years that Plastics Recycling Wouldn't Work

Despite knowing that plastic recycling wouldn't work, new documents show how petrochemical companies promoted it anyway.
by Joseph Winters via Grist on February 20, 2024
Digitally altered portrait of a man in a suit with his face pixelated, framed by computer windows.

What the Doomsayers Get Wrong About Deepfakes

Experts have warned that utterly realistic A.I.-generated videos might wreak havoc through deception. What’s happened is troubling in a different way.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The New Yorker on November 13, 2023
Douglas R. Stringfellow reading a statement before the press.

The Congressman Who ‘Embellished’ His Résumé Long Before George Santos

In the 1950's, Rep. Douglas Stringfellow was a promising young congressman with an incredible World War II story. Then the truth came out.
by Gillian Brockell via Retropolis on December 29, 2022
Sacheen Littlefeather at the 45th Academy Awards, wearing Native dress and hairstyle

Sacheen Littlefeather and Ethnic Fraud

Why the truth is crucial, even it it means losing an American Indian hero.
by Dina Gilio-Whitaker via The Conversation on October 28, 2022
Postcard of the Davis Islands neighborhood in Tampa, Florida.

How Schemers Built a State

How the development of Southwest Florida became a marketing scheme.
by Mark Massaro via Los Angeles Review of Books on June 21, 2021

George Washington Was a Master of Deception

The Founding Fathers relied on deceit in championing American independence—and that has lessons for the present.
by Amy Zegart via The Atlantic on November 25, 2018
Robert Redford in "The Sting."

Why Are All the Con Artists White?

The history of the black con artist has been forgotten.
by Shane White via Journal of the History of Ideas Blog on April 23, 2018
New York City (New York, USA), Brooklyn Bridge.
partner

Over Troubled Waters

Looking for an easy buck, con artists in the early 1900s infamously "sold" the Brooklyn Bridge to immigrants fresh off the boat.
via BackStory on October 20, 2016
Fake 1000 dollar bill.
partner

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems

The story of America's oldest counterfeiters and why the Civil War spurred the Secret Service into hunting them down.
via BackStory on October 20, 2016
George W. Bush at a press conference on Iraq, March 3, 2003.

The First Casualty

The selling of the Iraq war.
by Spencer Ackerman, John B. Judis via The New Republic on June 30, 2003
Cartoon of crooked Oliver Hartzell with his arm around an apprehensive Sir Francis Drake.

The Mythical Fortune That Fuelled America’s Greatest Fraud

Oscar Hartzell convinced thousands of Americans that they could get a piece of the Sir Francis Drake estate—a multibillion-dollar inheritance that didn’t exist.
by Richard Rayner via The New Yorker on April 15, 2002
Collage of John Roberts, Ronald Reagan, and a voting booth.

John Roberts’s Dream Is Finally Coming True

The chief justice has been working to neuter the Voting Rights Act since the beginning of his career.
by David Daley via The Atlantic on December 10, 2025
Lee Atwater

Southern Strategies

You're misreading Lee Atwater’s infamous “southern strategy” quote as a confession.
by Kevin M. Kruse via Campaign Trails on December 7, 2025
John F. Kennedy

Why Is the Establishment Ignoring the Recently Declassified JFK Files?

The documents show how CIA spymaster James Angleton hid Oswald’s movements, hid a secret Israeli liaison, and lied to Congress for decades.
by Harrison Berger via The American Conservative on November 28, 2025
Collage art featuring Dorothy Martin

It’s One of the Most Influential Social Psychology Studies Ever. Was It All a Lie?

A classic book on UFO believers and their “cognitive dissonance” after aliens failed to land is called into question.
by Anna Merlan via Mother Jones on November 25, 2025
President John F. Kennedy with his brother Robert F. Kennedy

What RFK Jr. Didn’t Tell You About the False Flag Operation He Loves to Denounce

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. leaves out his father's role in pushing false flag plans for a war with Cuba.
by Ken Hughes via The Conversation on November 24, 2025
Workers for the Insular Lumber company felling a small Almon
partner

The Mythical Mahogany that Helped Build the American Empire

How “Philippine mahogany” became America’s tropical timber of choice, thanks to a rebrand from a colonial logging company that drove deforestation.
by Pippo Carmona via JSTOR Daily on November 19, 2025
Peter Matthiessen.

What Really Happened with the CIA and The Paris Review?

What led Peter Matthiessen from spying to starting a magazine?
by Dan Piepenbring, Lance Richardson via The Paris Review on November 11, 2025
Jean and Joseph McCarthy reading the Daily Worker.

McCarthyism Is Back. You Can Thank This Woman.

History has overlooked the real architect of Joe McCarthy’s purges: his wife.
by Joshua Kendall via Politico Magazine on November 9, 2025
Advertisement for Lucas brand car batteries, 1958.

Politically Charged

How a shady car battery additive called AD-X2 sparked a showdown between the U.S. country’s political and scientific establishments.
by Sam Kean via Distillations on November 6, 2025

His Works Completed, Dick Cheney, Mass Murderer of Iraqis and American Democracy, Dies

As much as the Trumpists claim to disavow the War on Terror, they walk a path paved by the most powerful vice president in US history.
by Spencer Ackerman via The Nation on November 4, 2025
Leo Frank.

Justice Miscarried: The Trial, Conviction, and Murder of Leo Frank

Leo Frank’s trial, death sentence, eventual commutation, and finally his lynching all show the nation’s problematic history with anti-Semitism.
by Ryan Reft via The Saturday Evening Post on October 29, 2025
Map fof the San Francisco Bay area.

How California’s Legacy of Violence Against Indigenous People Impacts the Present Day

Unpacking the complexities surrounding Native authenticity.
by Dina Gilio-Whitaker via Literary Hub on October 9, 2025

The Crisis of the University Started Long Before Trump

The financial crisis of the University of Chicago sheds light on the forces that are "corroding ideals, and wasting money" throughout American higher education.
by Clifford Ando via Compact on August 14, 2025
Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff/Getty Images

The Rise of the US Military’s Clandestine Foreign War Apparatus

In the darkest days of the Iraq War, the highly secretive Joint Special Operations Command emerged as one of the most influential institutions in government.
by Seth Harp via Wired on August 12, 2025
An open hand holds a variety of pills and supplements.

Supplement History: The Truth About Supplements and Vitamins That Teens Should Know

A lack of regulatory oversight of supplements allows misleading labels and dangerous products to slip through the cracks and into American homes.
by Sarah DiGregorio via Teen Vogue on July 31, 2025
Black man's face, and maps of Chicago, in an outline of a detective.

The Talented Mr. Bruseaux

He made his name in Chicago investigating race riots, solving crimes, and exposing corruption. But America’s first Black private eye was hiding his own secrets.
by Matthew Wolfe via The Atavist on July 23, 2025
Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer at Los Alamos in 1942.

General Groves Invented the Atomic Bomb, Not Oppenheimer

Gen. Leslie Groves promoted Oppenheimer as the atomic bomb's inventor to craft a propaganda narrative, obscuring the true creators and moral implications.
by Peder Anker via Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on July 21, 2025
Israeli nuclear power plant.

How Israel Deceived the United States About Its Nuclear Weapons Program

Israel is attacking Iran’s nuclear sites, but Tehran’s secret path was blazed by the Israelis.
by Glenn Kessler via Washington Post on June 23, 2025
Cover of the book Under Cover by John Roy Carlson depicts english language nazi newspapers.

The First Rough Draft of the United States’ Homegrown Nazis

On the renewed relevance of “Under Cover,” Arthur Derounian’s 1943 exposé of the United States’ Nazi underworld.
by Michael Bobelian via Los Angeles Review of Books on June 3, 2025
View More
30 of
372

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History