History's Greatest Lies

On May 7th 1915, the British trans-Atlantic liner Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine. The Germans justified the action by claiming that the ship was transporting concealed weapons. The Americans denied this, and used the disaster to help shift public opinion against Germany, and therefore justify their eventual 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, a key moment that will alter the course of the Second World War. They owe their success, though, to a gigantic lie: a phantom army, armed with inflatable tanks and wooden rifles; but also to a whole network of double agents, most of them entirely fictitious. And leading this campaign of disinformation - the most sophisticated ever dreamt up – is one man: Winston Churchill.

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. Encouraged by « promising demonstrations », the French state administration eagerly backed the « avion renifleurs » …which turned out to be a complete hoax, and a financial swindle that would soon become a national scandal.