The Jig Is Up! Famous Ruses In History Quiz

The Greeks had been trying for ten years to defeat the city of Troy when Odysseus came up with a crafty plan. He had a carpenter build a massive, hollow wooden horse in which a group of elite warriors hid inside. The rest of the Greeks then pretended to sail away, when in actuality they hid their fleet nearby. The Trojans awoke the next day to find the horse and one Greek, who was purposefully left behind as a "deserter". The Greeks told the Trojans the horse was a monument to the gods and had great power.

The Trojans were elated and pulled the giant horse through the gates into their city. They then proceeded to drink and feast. When they fell asleep, the Greek soldiers in the horse crept out and opened the locked gates. The Greeks, who had sailed back, poured into Troy and handily defeated the exhausted Trojans. After a decade, Troy fell.

In 860 AD, the Viking leader Bjorn Ironside and his mentor Hastein were conducting a huge raid throughout the Mediterranean. They came across a city and firmly believed it to be Rome. It actually was a town called Luni. Hastein sent messengers to the gates of Luni. They claimed their fearless leader was deathly ill and simply wished to convert to Christianity and receive a Christian burial before he died. The church officials and bishops were delighted to convert a pagan, and invited the Vikings through the gates and baptized him.

A few days later, the ruse continued when the Vikings came back, weeping and carrying a casket containing Hastein. They told the Luni citizens his last wish was to buried in their cathedral. As the funeral procession was let into the city, Hastein, very much alive and well, jumped out of the casket. The city was totally sacked by the Vikings. It was after the massacre that Hastein realized he had not conquered Rome at all.

In 1478 AD, in Florence, Rome, two controlling families were at "war". The Pazzi family was made up of prominent Florentine bankers and the Medici family was composed of bankers and politicians. The Pazzi family decided to literally decapitate the Medici family while at church. Pope Sixtus IV sided with the Pazzi group because the Church wanted some Medici land. So his priests even agreed to do the killing along with some noblemen.

During the most sacred moment of Easter Sunday Mass - the Elevation of the Host - the assassins struck while heads were bowed. One of the Medici brothers died instantly but the other, although gravely wounded, managed to escape the church. The Pazzi family was overjoyed and expected the citizens of Florence to celebrate with them. Instead, the crowd was horrified and sided with the Medici family. The citizens, now a mob, hunted down the Pazzi family until they were either all dead or forever exiled.

By 1605 AD, English Catholics had suffered decades of persecution and were really hoping King James I would be tolerant, but he, too, mandated anti-Catholic laws. A group of Catholic activists decided it would be best to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament and kill King James. One of the conspirators, Thomas Percy, used his connections to lease a cellar directly beneath the House of Lords. Over several months, they quietly moved 36 barrels of gunpowder there, hiding them under piles of firewood.

A soldier named Guy Fawkes was ordered to guard the stash and handle the fuse. The plan, however, was leaked to the king's ministers. On the early morning hours of November 5, officials conducted a search of the cellars. They found a man calling himself "John Johnson" (it was Fawkes) dressed in a cloak and spurs, carrying a lantern and a pocket watch and guarding the "firewood". Upon moving the wood, they saw enough gunpowder to level the building. Fawkes was arrested and the plan curtailed. The failure of the plot is still celebrated every November 5th in the UK as Bonfire Night.

In 1725, Johann Beringer was a professor of medicine and a dean at the University of Wurzburg and a passionate fossil collector. The scientific world was still trying to figure out exactly how fossils originated. Two of Beringer's colleagues, disliking Beringer, carved hundreds of fake fossils out of local limestone and planted them on a local hill where Beringer liked to hunt for specimens. They even "teased" him by carving letters and images into the stones.

Beringer totally fell for the ruse. Ignoring the fact there were tool marks on the stones, he published a book in 1726 titled "Lithographia Wirceburgensis". As the unfortunate book was being printed, Beringer found one final stone on the hill that featured his own name carved into it and realized he had been duped. He spent the rest of his life and fortune trying to buy back every copy of his own book to burn them and save his reputation. He did, however, take his colleagues to court to ensure their reputation went down in flames also.

In early 1814 AD, Europe was exhausted by the Napoleonic Wars and the British public was desperate for news that Napoleon had been defeated, as peace would mean the value of government bonds would skyrocket. On the night of February 21, 1814, the ruse began. A man wearing an officer's uniform arrived in England and reported that Napoleon had been killed by Cossacks. The news spread like wildfire.

When the news hit the London Stock Exchange the next morning, the market went into a frenzy. While the public was buying as much as they could, a small group of individuals, who had purchased massive amounts of bonds just days earlier, began selling everything at the peak of the chaos. That afternoon the government announced that Napoleon was, in fact, still very much alive and in charge. The market crashed back down, leaving thousands of investors ruined. It turned out that Lord Thomas Cochrane, a naval hero, was the chief culprit and the cause of the scandal.

The Cardiff Giant was a 10-foot-tall stone "petrified man" that captivated the United States in 1869 AD. George Hull, a cigar manufacturer and atheist, got into a heated argument with a minister about a passage in the Bible about giants in the earth. Hull decided to create a "giant" to mock the literal interpretation of the Bible and to make a profit while doing so. He purchased a 5-ton block of gypsum then hired stone cutters to carve a 10-foot (3 m) giant. The artisans treated the stone with acid to make it look ancient.

In 1868, Hull secretly buried the giant on his cousin's farm in New York. A year later, in 1869, he hired workers to dig a well in that exact spot and the giant was "found". Within days, the Cardiff Giant became a sensation with the public. A tent was set up and people were charged 25 cents to view the giant. Archeologists, however, were very suspicious, noting it appeared to be made of gypsum which melts (thereby the giant would have dissolved centuries ago). Hull eventually confessed, admitting the whole thing was a prank intended to "see how easy it was to fool the public." Despite being exposed as a ruse, the giant remained a popular attraction for years.

The Black Sox Scandal of 1919 (which broke open in 1920) is one of the most infamous ruses in the history of professional sports. In 1919, the White Sox was the best team in baseball, but the team members were miserable. One main reason is that they were paid a miserly wage, much less than other teams. This made them easy targets for bribes. First baseman Chick Gandil arranged a deal with a betting syndicate to throw the World Series for $100,000 for the group.

In Game 1, pitcher Eddie Cicotte hit the very first Cincinnati batter in the back with a pitch. This was the pre-arranged signal to the gamblers that the "fix was on." The players then started to make "unusual" errors and sloppy plays. Not shockingly, the White Sox lost the series. The ruse held for nearly a year. By 1920, the rumors had spread enough that a grand jury was convened and the confessions began. The scandal, called the "Black Sox Scandal" due to its blackening of baseball's reputation, was so profound that it led to the creation of the modern Commissioner's office and a zero tolerance policy for gambling.

The Watergate Scandal was a multi-year "ruse" of illegal surveillance, political sabotage, and a cover-up that eventually forced Richard Nixon to resign as U.S. President. While the scandal began in 1972 AD, it reached its explosive peak in 1974. It began in June 17, 1972, when five men were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. They were there to wiretap phones and photograph top-secret documents to give Nixon an edge in the upcoming election.

For two years, the White House maintained a ruse of total innocence but, behind the scenes, hush money was being paid and the "Washington Post" newspaper began an investigation. In a twist, it was revealed that Nixon had a secret voice-activated taping system in the Oval Office where he had literally recorded his own conspiracy. The Supreme Court ordered Nixon to turn over the tapes. One tape, known as the "Smoking Gun", proved that Nixon had personally ordered the cover-up and interference with the FBI. Soon thereafter, Nixon announced his resignation.

Bernie Madoff was a former chairman of the NASDAQ. He claimed he had created a unique way of making money called "Split-Strike Conversion", which involved blue-chip stocks. It didn't seem like a scam to people because he didn't promise get rich quick returns. Instead, he promised consistency. No matter if the market was up or down, Madoff's clients saw a steady 10-12% return. In truth, The returns were simply money coming in from new investors being used to pay out old ones.

Madoff kept the lie alive in several ways, including sending out thousands of professional-looking monthly statements that he created. The ruse ended because of the 2008 Financial Crisis. When the global markets crashed, investors tried to withdraw $7 billion. Madoff, however, only had about $200 million left in the bank. On December 10, 2008, Madoff told his sons the business was one big lie. His sons turned him in to the FBI the next morning and Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison.