Whenever my mom says “Tell the truth you won’t be in trouble.” I would almost always end up telling the truth and i end up getting in trouble and she would talk to my dad and all kinds of things, what’s the most successful Lie in History?
I’d say the Donation of Constantine
It was a forged Imperial Roman decree supposedly from Emperor Constantine the Great, which gave all temporal power over the Western Roman Empire to the Pope. Now, how is this important? This was how the papacy came into possession of the Lateran Palace, which was the Pope’s residence for much of history. It also served as the justification for the pope to break the formal convention of the five episcopal sees (i.e in the early church, Rome was just one of the important seats of power, the others were: Constantinople, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Antioch and all had equal authority) and declare itself supreme over the other centres. It also played an important role in the events of the Great Schism of 1054 (which formally separated the Western Latin church from the Eastern Greek church) and the investiture crisis in the 11th to 13th centuries.
Way to make me learn. On social media.
Seriously though, thanks for this great comment!
If you subscribe to the right subs/magazines/communities/whatever, there is a ton to learn. History, science, archeology, sociology, psychology, medicine, marine biology, mycology, geography, foreign languages, programming… On and on and on. Social media doesn’t have to be utter crap.
I feel like it would have to be one of the many lies that Juan Pujol Garcia made in WWII.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blN49yGet8g&ab_channel=TomScott
He was a double agent for British intelligence. Won the highest Military honor in Britain AND in Germany. This man lied his way into the spy business, and proceeded to completely hoodwink German intelligence.
For a lie to be completely successful I think none of us would ever know it was a lie.
“Iraq has WMDs” - W
I don’t know, it was pretty successful in enriching a number of bloodthirsty and soulless goons in the MIC, and helping to continue to destabilize the middle east and generate more terrorist sympathies to the west given the awful methodology employed.
It’s all about perspective.