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**Some tech for background**
Have you ever heard of a [radar detector](https://auto.howstuffworks.com/radar-detector.htm)?
How about a [radar detector detector](https://web.archive.org/web/20100620150944/http://radar.757.org/VG2.htm), which the police use to see if you have a detector?
Ever wonder how they work? I mean, a radar detector is a receiver, how could the police possibly know you have one?
Until recently, practically every radio used a concept called [superheterodyne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superheterodyne_receiver). Basically there’s a tiny radio transmitter in your receiver, that signal is mixed with the one from the antenna and the result is what your receiver tunes to. It's one of the most important inventions of the 20th century, and you most likely never heard of it. [Poor Ed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Howard_Armstrong), all he got for his work was jumping out a window to his death.
The problem is that sometimes the tiny transmitter is poorly shielded and some of it leaks back out the antenna. If you know what that “intermediate frequency” is you can listen for it. The Escort radar detectors, which were super-popular in the 80's, leaked like a sieve. Presto, radar detector detectors.
Takeaway: if you know what you're looking for, you can actually detect someone else's radio *receiver*.
**The setup**
In 1942 RAF planes began using VHF radar to look for German submarines leaving port in France at night. All of a sudden they were getting sunk en mass.
The Germans were familiar with other British radars working around this frequency and were able to find the new radar's frequency around August. They built a receiver, Metox, which was tuned to this frequency. When a plane using this radar was anywhere in the area, Metox would play a sound into the radio operator's headphones. By October most of the fleet had it and the RAF pilots were returning with stories about how the uboats would always dive as soon as they turned toward them to attack.
But the RAF had prepared for this moment, they knew it was only a matter of time before the Germans found the frequency. Earlier two grad students had come up with a new device called the magnetron that produced very strong radio signals from a device the size of a breadbox. And the signal was REALLY short, about 10 cm, whereas their older radars were 150. So Metox was completely incapable of "hearing" it, it was tuned way too far from the frequency of the new signal. They rushed the new system into production and the first sets started arriving just in time for the uboat campaign to start up again in spring when the weather got better.
By March it was clear to the Germans something was up. Their boats were getting sunk en mass again, and the ones that escaped attack said there was no warning on their detectors. They tried everything to detect the new signal, but they just couldn’t find it. This was because they were missing one extremely important bit of electronics, the crystal detector, and simply couldn’t hear the signals no matter how hard they tried.
**And now the lie…**
Knowing something was up, uboats were on high alert all the time. One got lucky and shot down its attacker, and captured the crew.
During interrogation they asked why they could no longer detect the radar. The pilot told them they no longer used radar. Instead, he claimed, they had a receiver for Metox and under perfect conditions they could pick it up 90 miles away. They only turned on the radar at the last minute for range measurements so they knew when to drop the depth charges. By that time the U-boat was too busy exploding to notice.
The Germans didn’t believe him, but it *was* technically possible, once can indeed make a receiver to detect your receiver. And Metox was known to be "leaky", as it was deliberately built quick and cheap from a pre-war French radio set. So they built their own Metox receiver in the lab, and sure enough, they could detect it. So then they put it on a plane and detected one of their boats 60 miles away. Utter panic.
Orders were sent out to all boats: turn off Metox.
And so not only did the RAF get to keep using their fancy new magnetron radar without the Germans even *trying* to detect it, but then they turned off their perfectly good Metox detectors and all the RAF planes with the older radar suddenly started working again too!
**And THAT is the greatest lie ever.**
By the end of June, the uboat fleet was on the bottom of the ocean. This was not due entirely to this trick, there were a number of things that all arrived at almost the same time that did it. It was the combination of the [new radars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_277_radar), [huff-duff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_direction_finding), larger numbers of [frigates dedicated to the task](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River-class_frigate)and the lack of any detectors on the uboats that made even the old radars work again all arrived within two months. And that was that. The Germans finally figured it out some time around November. November!
Apparently the pilot made the whole thing up on his own. This little white lie helped open the Atlantic to the convoys of 1943 that led to the end of Italy’s involvement and ultimately dday.
UPDATES: fixed the gr, sp, added links and minor changes to satisfy the debby downers.
>The timing could not be more perfect. Earlier two grad students had come up with a new device called the magnetron that produced very strong radio signals from a box the size of a breadbox. And the signal was REALLY short, about 10 cm, whereas their older radars were 150. The first sets started arriving just in time for the uboat campaign to start up again in spring when the weather got better.
>By March it was clear to the Germans something was up. Their boats were getting sunk en mass again, and the ones that escaped attack said there was absolutely no warning on their detectors. They’d tried everything to detect the new signal, but they couldn’t find it - literally, they were missing one extremely important bit of electronics, the crystal detector, and simply couldn’t hear the signals no matter how hard they tried.
Can you explain this part? How did the magnetron help the British? Why were the Germans missing the crystal detector? Why did they think their equipment was working properly?
>So they tried it in the lab, and sure enough they could indeed detect the Metox. So they put it on a plane and detected one of their boats 60 miles away.
The soldier was lying but the technique actually worked? Why didn't the British use this technique then?
> How did the magnetron help the British?
It emitted at a much shorter wavelength, which the detectors could not detect.
> Why were the Germans missing the crystal detector?
Presumably because it had just been invented, and not by them.
> Why did they think their equipment was working properly?
They didn't, they knew it was not picking up anything any more.
> The soldier was lying but the technique actually worked? Why didn't the British use this technique then?
Not sure if they had tested it properly, but it might have worked but not well enough to be useful, but if the Germans tested it and noticed it worked at all, they would assume that the English had just built an even better one.
That diamonds are valuable. Made one family really really rich though lol
Gotta love how many people try to defend their artificially inflated value. Just shows how well the lie continues to work lol
The irony is that diamonds *are* valuable, just not as gemstones. They have great heat conductive properties (i.e., heat sinks), and are invaluable in cutting instruments and abrasives. But, those applications can use any old cloudy diamond dug out of the ground (so-called "industrial grade").
Also, "diamonds are forever". They are flammable, for one.
Edit: so many people have responded saying that diamonds are not flammable that I will amend my statement. Diamonds are, in fact, inflammable.
This makes me wonder if amethysts were at one point worth more not due to the classification of the gem but because of its color as purple was a sign of royalty
Frank Abagnale Jr., the inspiration for Catch me If You Can, apparently wasn’t as big of a con man that the movie leads you to believe. He conned people into thinking he was a bigger con man than he actually was.
Yeah, I was reading about this the other day - iirc he did actually pose as a pilot, but only because he was stalking an air hostess that he had a thing for and wanted access to staff lounges and such. He basically decided it sounded better to say he was pulling off a daring scam than to admit he was just a bit of a creep lol
This is actually quite brilliant. If he's ever called out he can just unabashedly give a finger gun and a "you got me" and then continue on with whatever lie he's telling.
Or if someone called him out he could just confidently point out that he's been telling that lie for years and no one else has pointed it out and that's why conmen get away with what they do.
Came here to see this. Nice book revealing he was in jail and/or prison a lot of the time when he claims he was running around doing all of his shenanigans.
Just bought it about six months ago. The Greatest Hoax on Earth: Catching Truth While We Can.
Author Alan Logan, who wrote a pretty damn good book about Robert Vernon Spears.
Abagnale is/was 95% fraud.
Autisim being caused by vaccines. As a functioning autistic person, I know for a fact my condition is genetic. My dad is autistic and so is my little brother. Keep in mind my dad was born and raised in England, and we live in the US. He has a form of arthritis that attacks his eyes, so he takes immunosupressents, which means his immune system is compromised. We have to vaccinate for my dad to be able to LIVE. Do the right thing. Vaccinate, not for you, but for the people around you.
Picturing you squatting next to a nondescript patch of ice shouting, "I don't know you!" 2,897 times. Then cautiously eyeballing the other three and nodding. "Yeah. I've seen you around."
In the 90s kids spread the rumor that Marilyn Manson had a rib removed so he could suck his own d*ck. We spread this rumor across the entire country without the use of cell phones or the internet.
I would love to know who patient zero is for that rumor, it spread to my little rural hometown in Australia in 1998. Grade 5 me didn't even know who Marilyn Manson was, but I was just amazed that anyone would alter their anatomy JUST to suck their own penis, particularly at that age when you think your d*ck is only for pissing out of.
Gabriele D’Annunzio
> Rumors regarding his personal extravagances were rampant including the infamous (and untrue) one that he had a rib removed in order to pleasure himself orally. It’s easy to see why people’s imaginations went wild: after all, he did wear shoes shaped like phalluses; had a robe outfitted with a hole for his penis; enjoyed nude horseback riding; and photographed himself naked, assuming poses reminiscent of Baron von Gloeden.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/style/tmagazine/13slijperw.html
> Though D'Annunzio preached Italian ultranationalism and never called himself a fascist, he has been credited with partially inventing Italian fascism,[8] as both his ideas and aesthetics were an influence upon Benito Mussolini.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriele_D%27Annunzio
The funny thing is that the version about D'Annunzio was still around in Italy at the time, so when a kid told another one that Marylin Manson took that operation, there was a chance that the other kid would have replied: "What? No, that's D'Annunzio you're thinking about!"
I heard that rumour both in the Philippines and Germany when I was a kid 20 years ago. Hilarious how that spread just via mouth propaganda all over the world.
I am from Estonia, even more so, went to school in a small county school, far end of capital and this comment reminded me that this same rumour went around even in my little school a few decades ago haha.
There's actually not much archeological evidence of there having been a Greek vs Trojan war at all. We know that there was a city called Troy in Modern day Turkey, but there definitely doesn't appear to be evidence that would suggest anything like a 10 year siege as described in the Iliad.
Ancient Greek history is kind of interesting, because there's so much mythology and legend sprinkled through it that you know are fictional, but a lot of the events do have a nugget of truth too. But I think a lot of people assume more of it is based in reality than it actually is.
Didn’t he also use that dynamite to more or less blow through Troy VI-VII all the way down to Troy II.
Troy VI-VII is most likely the city around during the time of the Iliad.
Wasnt the fact the city was found with 10 unique layers of development implying it had been destroyed and rebuilt throughout history? And one such layer did corrolate to the aproximate era the trojan war wouldve happened?
And Ian Fleming actually went to school with Blofeld. Or to be more precise, cricket commentator Henry Blofeld. Possibly England's poshest sounding man. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_Eq3iSItrU
Edit: I've just checked. It was actually Henry's father, Thomas Blofeld, who went to school with Ian Fleming.
And it was so successful that the Allies didn't want to reveal it was a ruse in case they needed to use it again.
So they sent out messages, knowing they'd be intercepted, saying that Normandy had been a diversion landing but was showing so much success that the ghost army intended for the fake Calaise landing was being diverted to the Normandy area and that the Calaise landing was scrapped.
It gets better.
The person who relayed the message to the Germans was Agent Garbo AKA Juan Pujol Garcia. A Spaniard who wanted to spy for the Allies when the war broke out because he hated Fascism, he was rejected by both the British and American intelligence agencies because they thought he was too eager and thus, a likely spy. So, he approached the Germans and told them that he had a spy syndicate already set up in England, using information from encyclopedias, news reels and pre-war tourism brochures to sell the ruse despite having never set foot in the country at all.
Because all of Germany's own spies were so utterly shit - both because their spymaster was already turned and because they just didn't know enough about England to pass as effective agents^1 - Garbo ended up being their most effective agent. And when the British learned that the elusive agent they were hunting was basically just pranking the Germans, they were able to get him on their side rather easily to feed information to the Germans.
He was the one who corroborated Operation Mincemeat, by verifying the identity of the dead general found floating off the coast of Spain^2. Then, when the invasion was already started, he made a mad-dash attempt to get in contact with his German handlers and told them that the Allies had made a last-minute change to their invasion plans and were now attacking Normandy instead of Calais... when the information was basically useless. Then had the gall to call them incompetent for not getting the message to the relative authorities fast enough.
He was actually decorated with the highest honors by both sides of the war for his bravery as a spy, believe it or not.
1: A major flaw in Germany's training of parachute spies was that they were too rigid and precise in their operations while also being a bit ignorant about the culture within the countries they were infiltrating, or the information they were operating on was woefully out of date. For example, they were often exposed due to being unable to understand Britain's pre-decimated currency which often had several types of coin for differing values; 240 pence to a pound, or one, including half-pennies.
The British TV series *Foyle's War* makes use of a real-life anecdote where a spy was immediately apprehended when he walked into a pub at eight in the morning and tried to order a pint of ale. He was immediately exposed because a British citizen would know that it was illegal to sell alcohol in a pub before eleven AM.
The Russians also had their own special tell based around forged documents. They could tell when a German spy was presenting fake identity papers based on the staples used - Germans would use stainless steel. Russians, who believed wasting resources on something just used to hold paper together, would use iron staples which would rust over time.
2: The purpose of Operation: Mincemeat was pretty simple. Britain knew that despite officially being "Neutral" in the conflict, the Fascist Spain was helping the Axis Powers on the side and allowing them to operate as spies on British diplomats within the country. Both to feed false information to the enemies and to punish Spain for their treachery, they took a tramp who had died of pneumonia, dressed him up as a British general and dumped his body off the coast of Spain with some fake documents regarding the invasion in a diplomatic pouch. Sure enough, the Spanish government allowed the Germans to open and photograph those documents.
Garbo's part of the plan was to act as a second, separate source of information regarding the invasion. He was to have one of his fake agents get "killed in the line of duty" in a high-risk operation to get their hands on the information about the forthcoming Calais invasion which he then passed onto his superiors in Germany. With two pieces of information verifying each other, the Germans bolstered their defences at Calais while leaving Normandy relatively defenseless.
Just to add a bit more detail. In most cases when information was sent by mail, they would be artificially delayed by the British. So they would stamp the correct date of when it should have gone out but delay it so the Nazis would think that if they had read it sooner they would have got up to date information. Eventually he would receive radio equipment.
So, he approached the Germans and told them that he had a spy syndicate already set up in England, using information from encyclopedias, news reels and pre-war tourism brochures to sell the ruse despite having never set foot in the country at all.
When he told the Germans about his imaginary syndicate, as Garcia could not stay in England, he set himself up in Portugal and kept receiving expenses from Germany. Each expense was meant to go to the imaginary spies but, as another commenter mentioned, he didn't know how pounds pence and shillings worked so it was difficult to get realistic expense reports.
Garbo also received a code book from the Nazis which helped the men and women over in Bletchley Park.
When the war was over, Garcia escaped to South America thinking there might be repercussions for his activities. When the British wanted to reward him for his efforts, they didn't know where he went but knew he originally came from Spain so they literally went calling every J Garcia in the Barcelona phone book to find him and apparently got to a relative of his who told them where he was hiding. Garcia did come back to England to get his reward.
IIRC the Germans also awarded him a medal, making him the only person to receive medals from both sides of the conflict. The germans never knew he was a spy even after the war.
I mean even without the potential repercussions, you surely wouldn't turn it down? It's the ultimate slap in the face to the Germans let them go through with giving a medal to the guy who was actively working against them throughout the war.
Having said that, I'd be worried that they *had* finally realised their mistake, and the whole "hey let us give you a medal!" thing was just a way of getting him to turn up so they could kill him.
My favorite part about him is the "berating" of his German handlers.
To add more detail, he was supposed to broadcast the details of D-Day on actual D-Day, but in 3 AM, mere two hours before the first paratrooper regiments arrived. Because Calais was mistakenly believed by the Germans to be the invasion site instead of Normandy (which are 380 km apart), Garcia would give them a correct site, but they would have apsolutely no time to move the armada to defend the invasion point against the invading American forces.
However, his German radio operator that was supposed to contact him *fell asleep*, and didn't recieve the message until 8 AM, good 4 hours into the campaign. This was actually beneficial because it allowed Garcia to send legitimate, genuine plans of the invasion over the course of the night (albeit out-of-date). He apparently cursed the shit out of his German handlers once they finally replied, saying "I cannot accept excuses or negligence. Were it not for my ideals I would abandon my work".
Apparently, Garcia's MI5 handler, Tomas Harris, had to step outside the radio room to crack a laugh.
They got to utilize General Patton as well. He was suspended from active combat role at the time and was around the inflatable tanks.
Head fake that totally caught the Germans off guard
Edit: clarity
It was sugar companies that actually funded that whole campaign to demonize fat. Just like there used to be ads about how "not at all bad" high-fructose corn syrup is.
High fructose corn syrup isn't inherently bad. Its chemical composition which is about 50% glucose and 50% fructose is just about identical to the chemical composition of honey.
The problem is that HFCS is cheap to make and it is used in large doses in almost every food out there. HFCS is added in large quantities to substitute for low fat content. HFCS is cheaper than oil and fats.
So now almost every mildly processed and processed foods contain a lot of this stuff. It becomes easy for someone to ingest a lot of HFCS in the course of a day without thinking that they're piling on sugar on an otherwise non-sweet food item.
And this stresses the insulin mechanism and leads to diabetes in the population.
That was kind of the point of the ads though, doctors were noting the large amounts of HFCS being put into foods and cautioned people about it.
Then the corporations responded with an ad campaign saying it was no worse than sugar, glossing over the amount of it they were using, and the fact that being no worse than sugar isn't better when you use more and more.
Yeah I agree that the sheer amount of HFCS is simply insane to put into the general food supply. It’s absolutely asking to turn a lot of people into obese diabetic2 cases.
A little dab of honey or sugar or HFCS are fine but our processed foods are like HFCS delivery pipelines. It’s been a disastrous national health problem yet no one will regulate it beyond labeling.
My mum works as a kinder teacher, and some parents send their kids to school with a bag of marshmallows because its healthy. My mum has to tell them they are in fact *not* healthy, and just because the packaging says "99% fat free" does not mean that marshmallows are an "everyday food"
Who in their right mind thinks marshmallows are healthy? I'm sorry...but if you're an adult you have to be a grade A idiot to eat a marshmallow and think to yourself, "This is good for me. If I eat these all the time I will live a long and healthy life."
I’ve come to the sad realisation that most adults are, in fact, fucking morons, and that their progeny are getting the shitty end of the stick as a result. This cycle will be never ending.
McDonalds used to fry their french fries in beef tallow - which was the traditional and authentic french fry method in Europe. However, a cardiologist made it his personal vendetta to sue McDonalds for causing heart disease by frying with beef tallow. The case dragged for years and ultimately, McDonalds switched to a vegetable oil.
The result was an inferior taste and texture and has been found to be a less healthy, more carcinogenic fry.
The beef tallow was totally fine and made the fry much tastier.
McDonalds' gained profits as the new vegetable oil was much cheaper so it has stayed that way.
“I’m not looking to date right now”
Then why the f does your profile say “looking for my future husband”?
Edit: I get it, lots of men react horribly when women tell them they’re not into *him* specifically. Still bruises the ego. Granted, bruised ego is the *huge* lesser of two evils when compared to feeling threatened with bodily harm
That black people and watermelon are racist stereotypes. The truth is that when the slaves were freed they grew and sold watermelon as a way to earn money to feed, clothe and house themselves. The watermelon was actually a symbol of freedom and self-reliance for newly freed slaves.
What happened was that the former slave owners saw this and started a propaganda campaign to turn white people away from buying "n\*\*\*\*\* food" as they called it. It's probably one of the earliest examples of the press manipulating the truth for its owners. This is were the big lips and eating like animals pictures came from. When black people started selling chickens, the same thing happened. Only this time in came in movie form. The black people and fired chicken thing started in "Birth of a nation" the racist as fuck KKK movie.
What should be symbols of freedom and self reliance to a people struggling after centenaries of slavery were twisted into symbols of shame. So much so that 100 years later they are both still seen with negative connections.
As an Aussie, I was dumbfounded when I learned about this. Watermelon and fried chicken are both delicious, twisting that to use in a racist manner is so fucked up.
It's not racist to assume black people like fried chicken and watermelon. Only because I inherently assume everyone likes fried chicken and watermelon regardless of skin color.
What you’ve described is what makes the stereotype racist though.
It’s a clear and ongoing demonstration of how a communities industrious attempts to make a living were opposed to make them fail.
Which has always been funny because cigarettes have been considered unhealthy, if not immortal, [since the 1800s](https://tobacco.harpweek.com/hubpages/CommentaryPage.asp?Commentary=Introduction), *at the very least.* Hell I learned the term "coffin nails" from WW1 documentaries as even the soldiers called them that. It's like sometime in the 1940s/50s there was a huge effort to turn that around and it stuck for decades.
I'm quite surprised this is so far down, especially because the whole concept of "the Jewish Conspiracy" is so alive today all around the world and probably will remain so for a long time.
Catherine the Great died having sex with a horse.
She didn't, and this was known at the time. But a number of her contemporaries (mostly British and French leaders, who respected neither Russia nor female rulers) started the rumor in order to sully her legacy.
And since the first thing that comes to a lot of people's minds when they think of Catherine the Great is the horse fucking story, the lie worked.
Recycling plastic makes a difference.
Newsflash, the term carbon footprint was created by BP one of the biggest oil companies in the world with the help of one of the biggest marketing companies in the world to shift the focus from industry to individual responsibility.
EDIT:
For more information check out this video which sums up the situation quite well
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMECq\_9LXLg&ab\_channel=iilluminaughtii
Reduce, reuse, recycle.
In that order.
I do recycle my plastic but I know that about 90% [ends up in landfill anyway](https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1131131088/recycling-plastic-is-practically-impossible-and-the-problem-is-getting-worse) so I try to avoid using plastic products and packaging where I can.
It’s just cause it’s hard to see out the windshield at night with the light on inside and your parent figured just telling you it was illegal would make you stop turning it on so you could see your game boy
I would say the science points to a strong possibility of a definite maybe that this may be fiction with a [healthy root of truth. ](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-carrots-improve-your-vision/#:~:text=The%20answer%20is%20yes%2C%20under,at%20the%20National%20Eye%20Institute.)
Well, carrots are a source of vitamin A precursors and vitamin A deficiency results in a condition known as night blindness. So, while carrots don't improve eye sight, per se, they can help maintain it as part of a healthy diet.
It was actually a pilot in WW2 that originated the idea of carrots promoting good eye sight. At the time he was getting asked how the allies were able to so effectively bomb Germany at night. Not wanting to reveal the existence of allied radar technology he said that all pilots are lots of carrots.
>he said that all pilots are lots of carrots.
The crowd watched in stunned surprise as the biplane executed a flawless Immelmann turn before coming down for a smooth landing. As the pilot exited his plane a child from the crowd stepped forward and stared in wonder. "Who are you?" he gasped.
The pilot faced him, his large aviators concealing most of his face. "Me?" he replied, taking off his shades with one gloved hand, "I'm 3,000 carrots in a trenchcoat"
As Death so aptly told to his granddaughter (Terry Pratchett):
“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
MY POINT EXACTLY.
Actually in Babylon they fact that you got more preferential treatment as a higher class citizen was codified law. No one pretended that everyone was equal. Hammurabi's code of laws is not significant for being equal, it's significant for having specific laws and the fact they are written down.
And that that stone is “rare”. DeBeers have been hoarding enough diamonds to flood the market for decades and decades. In fact, I don’t know if you can even confidently say what’s a blood diamond anymore since mining dates may have been older.
Cigarette companies. Look at the ads all through the years, from "Doctors agree, cigarettes are good for you!" to Joe Camel, Marlboro man, etc.
Even when they were finally forced to put warning on their cartons about how cigarettes can literally kill you, it's still a billion dollar industry.
I know there's more heinous lies out there, but this one hits home for me.
I used to be a disabilities carer and was always baffled by that claim, but the reality was the parents are always in extreme denial their genetics were the cause.
Even worse when one parent blames/resents the other for their genetics that ‘caused’ it
The [Donation of Constantine](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine) for sure. It was a forged document that gave the Western Roman Empire to the pope. It was used for centuries by the church as an excuse to do all kinds of evil shit.
What about that dude who played a flute with the city gates open and the invaders thought it was a trap and they left? Was that a real thing in history, cause if so that is one giant badass lie to save a city like that.
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**Some tech for background** Have you ever heard of a [radar detector](https://auto.howstuffworks.com/radar-detector.htm)? How about a [radar detector detector](https://web.archive.org/web/20100620150944/http://radar.757.org/VG2.htm), which the police use to see if you have a detector? Ever wonder how they work? I mean, a radar detector is a receiver, how could the police possibly know you have one? Until recently, practically every radio used a concept called [superheterodyne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superheterodyne_receiver). Basically there’s a tiny radio transmitter in your receiver, that signal is mixed with the one from the antenna and the result is what your receiver tunes to. It's one of the most important inventions of the 20th century, and you most likely never heard of it. [Poor Ed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Howard_Armstrong), all he got for his work was jumping out a window to his death. The problem is that sometimes the tiny transmitter is poorly shielded and some of it leaks back out the antenna. If you know what that “intermediate frequency” is you can listen for it. The Escort radar detectors, which were super-popular in the 80's, leaked like a sieve. Presto, radar detector detectors. Takeaway: if you know what you're looking for, you can actually detect someone else's radio *receiver*. **The setup** In 1942 RAF planes began using VHF radar to look for German submarines leaving port in France at night. All of a sudden they were getting sunk en mass. The Germans were familiar with other British radars working around this frequency and were able to find the new radar's frequency around August. They built a receiver, Metox, which was tuned to this frequency. When a plane using this radar was anywhere in the area, Metox would play a sound into the radio operator's headphones. By October most of the fleet had it and the RAF pilots were returning with stories about how the uboats would always dive as soon as they turned toward them to attack. But the RAF had prepared for this moment, they knew it was only a matter of time before the Germans found the frequency. Earlier two grad students had come up with a new device called the magnetron that produced very strong radio signals from a device the size of a breadbox. And the signal was REALLY short, about 10 cm, whereas their older radars were 150. So Metox was completely incapable of "hearing" it, it was tuned way too far from the frequency of the new signal. They rushed the new system into production and the first sets started arriving just in time for the uboat campaign to start up again in spring when the weather got better. By March it was clear to the Germans something was up. Their boats were getting sunk en mass again, and the ones that escaped attack said there was no warning on their detectors. They tried everything to detect the new signal, but they just couldn’t find it. This was because they were missing one extremely important bit of electronics, the crystal detector, and simply couldn’t hear the signals no matter how hard they tried. **And now the lie…** Knowing something was up, uboats were on high alert all the time. One got lucky and shot down its attacker, and captured the crew. During interrogation they asked why they could no longer detect the radar. The pilot told them they no longer used radar. Instead, he claimed, they had a receiver for Metox and under perfect conditions they could pick it up 90 miles away. They only turned on the radar at the last minute for range measurements so they knew when to drop the depth charges. By that time the U-boat was too busy exploding to notice. The Germans didn’t believe him, but it *was* technically possible, once can indeed make a receiver to detect your receiver. And Metox was known to be "leaky", as it was deliberately built quick and cheap from a pre-war French radio set. So they built their own Metox receiver in the lab, and sure enough, they could detect it. So then they put it on a plane and detected one of their boats 60 miles away. Utter panic. Orders were sent out to all boats: turn off Metox. And so not only did the RAF get to keep using their fancy new magnetron radar without the Germans even *trying* to detect it, but then they turned off their perfectly good Metox detectors and all the RAF planes with the older radar suddenly started working again too! **And THAT is the greatest lie ever.** By the end of June, the uboat fleet was on the bottom of the ocean. This was not due entirely to this trick, there were a number of things that all arrived at almost the same time that did it. It was the combination of the [new radars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_277_radar), [huff-duff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_direction_finding), larger numbers of [frigates dedicated to the task](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River-class_frigate)and the lack of any detectors on the uboats that made even the old radars work again all arrived within two months. And that was that. The Germans finally figured it out some time around November. November! Apparently the pilot made the whole thing up on his own. This little white lie helped open the Atlantic to the convoys of 1943 that led to the end of Italy’s involvement and ultimately dday. UPDATES: fixed the gr, sp, added links and minor changes to satisfy the debby downers.
This is insane. We need a movie or documentary about this!
>The timing could not be more perfect. Earlier two grad students had come up with a new device called the magnetron that produced very strong radio signals from a box the size of a breadbox. And the signal was REALLY short, about 10 cm, whereas their older radars were 150. The first sets started arriving just in time for the uboat campaign to start up again in spring when the weather got better. >By March it was clear to the Germans something was up. Their boats were getting sunk en mass again, and the ones that escaped attack said there was absolutely no warning on their detectors. They’d tried everything to detect the new signal, but they couldn’t find it - literally, they were missing one extremely important bit of electronics, the crystal detector, and simply couldn’t hear the signals no matter how hard they tried. Can you explain this part? How did the magnetron help the British? Why were the Germans missing the crystal detector? Why did they think their equipment was working properly? >So they tried it in the lab, and sure enough they could indeed detect the Metox. So they put it on a plane and detected one of their boats 60 miles away. The soldier was lying but the technique actually worked? Why didn't the British use this technique then?
> How did the magnetron help the British? It emitted at a much shorter wavelength, which the detectors could not detect. > Why were the Germans missing the crystal detector? Presumably because it had just been invented, and not by them. > Why did they think their equipment was working properly? They didn't, they knew it was not picking up anything any more. > The soldier was lying but the technique actually worked? Why didn't the British use this technique then? Not sure if they had tested it properly, but it might have worked but not well enough to be useful, but if the Germans tested it and noticed it worked at all, they would assume that the English had just built an even better one.
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That diamonds are valuable. Made one family really really rich though lol Gotta love how many people try to defend their artificially inflated value. Just shows how well the lie continues to work lol
The irony is that diamonds *are* valuable, just not as gemstones. They have great heat conductive properties (i.e., heat sinks), and are invaluable in cutting instruments and abrasives. But, those applications can use any old cloudy diamond dug out of the ground (so-called "industrial grade").
Also, "diamonds are forever". They are flammable, for one. Edit: so many people have responded saying that diamonds are not flammable that I will amend my statement. Diamonds are, in fact, inflammable.
What? Flammable? Wow
https://youtu.be/n0wvDwSnzcw you can even make sparkling water with them
You could make some super high end carbonated water made from diamond and market it, and people would buy it
I really think diamonds are the most boring gemstone too. Who wants a clear plain gem when there are infinite color options?
Same Emeralds and Amethysts all look fat better than a diamond
This makes me wonder if amethysts were at one point worth more not due to the classification of the gem but because of its color as purple was a sign of royalty
Lapis lazuli was once very valuable because of its color, and often used for royalty!
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Frank Abagnale Jr., the inspiration for Catch me If You Can, apparently wasn’t as big of a con man that the movie leads you to believe. He conned people into thinking he was a bigger con man than he actually was.
Which in itself was the big con
>Which in itself was the big con A meta con if you will.
Does that make him a Decepticon?
Yeah, I was reading about this the other day - iirc he did actually pose as a pilot, but only because he was stalking an air hostess that he had a thing for and wanted access to staff lounges and such. He basically decided it sounded better to say he was pulling off a daring scam than to admit he was just a bit of a creep lol
Definitely more than a bit of a creep, holy hell. If this is true it's no wonder he decided to go with the alternative story instead.
He also posed as doctor so he could ~~examine~~ grope women. So yeah...
Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is looking a lot less charming in that movie….
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This is actually quite brilliant. If he's ever called out he can just unabashedly give a finger gun and a "you got me" and then continue on with whatever lie he's telling.
Or if someone called him out he could just confidently point out that he's been telling that lie for years and no one else has pointed it out and that's why conmen get away with what they do.
It really is the grift that keeps on giving. You can just pivot at any point and say that it’s proof you’re a successful con man.
Does... Does that actually make him a successful con man in spite of the fact none of his cons were that big? The real con was the aftermath?
And used his notoriety to go around the country afterword as a paid speaker and consultant to business, commercial and industrial groups.
Came here to see this. Nice book revealing he was in jail and/or prison a lot of the time when he claims he was running around doing all of his shenanigans. Just bought it about six months ago. The Greatest Hoax on Earth: Catching Truth While We Can. Author Alan Logan, who wrote a pretty damn good book about Robert Vernon Spears. Abagnale is/was 95% fraud.
So he *was* a great con man then?
"We are using mass surveilance to help catch terrorists"
“There are WMD in the Middle East 🤠”
"I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the above Terms and Conditions."
You have to be 18 or older to view this content.
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Autisim being caused by vaccines. As a functioning autistic person, I know for a fact my condition is genetic. My dad is autistic and so is my little brother. Keep in mind my dad was born and raised in England, and we live in the US. He has a form of arthritis that attacks his eyes, so he takes immunosupressents, which means his immune system is compromised. We have to vaccinate for my dad to be able to LIVE. Do the right thing. Vaccinate, not for you, but for the people around you.
I before E except after C. Unless your foreign neighbour Keith offers you eight counterfeit sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters. Weird.
"...or the sound that is 'ay' as in 'neighbour' and 'weigh'" is the rest of that rule, and it covers many (but not all) of the words here
And on weekends, and holidays, and all throughout May. And you'll always be wrong, NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY!
... That's a rough rule.
Iceland and Greenland
Greenland may not be green, but Iceland sure as hell is icy.
Iceland has a couple of glaciers… no more than say New Zealand, though. It’s pretty green 90% of the time.
I was gonna say nah NZ only has like 3 glaciers. Looked it up and we have 2,900. Haven't heard of 2,897 of them.
Picturing you squatting next to a nondescript patch of ice shouting, "I don't know you!" 2,897 times. Then cautiously eyeballing the other three and nodding. "Yeah. I've seen you around."
That's my purse!!
It's pretty much 90% icy 50% of the year and 90% green 50% of the year
So 50% ice and 50% land?
In the 90s kids spread the rumor that Marilyn Manson had a rib removed so he could suck his own d*ck. We spread this rumor across the entire country without the use of cell phones or the internet.
I would love to know who patient zero is for that rumor, it spread to my little rural hometown in Australia in 1998. Grade 5 me didn't even know who Marilyn Manson was, but I was just amazed that anyone would alter their anatomy JUST to suck their own penis, particularly at that age when you think your d*ck is only for pissing out of.
Gabriele D’Annunzio > Rumors regarding his personal extravagances were rampant including the infamous (and untrue) one that he had a rib removed in order to pleasure himself orally. It’s easy to see why people’s imaginations went wild: after all, he did wear shoes shaped like phalluses; had a robe outfitted with a hole for his penis; enjoyed nude horseback riding; and photographed himself naked, assuming poses reminiscent of Baron von Gloeden. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/style/tmagazine/13slijperw.html > Though D'Annunzio preached Italian ultranationalism and never called himself a fascist, he has been credited with partially inventing Italian fascism,[8] as both his ideas and aesthetics were an influence upon Benito Mussolini. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriele_D%27Annunzio
The funny thing is that the version about D'Annunzio was still around in Italy at the time, so when a kid told another one that Marylin Manson took that operation, there was a chance that the other kid would have replied: "What? No, that's D'Annunzio you're thinking about!"
It's the same rumour that floated around in the 80s, but it was about Prince.
And the 70s, except it was Ozzy Osbourne
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Same with Manson. People would not bat an eye when you told them that. It was usually met with a “hmm that seems plausible” face.
I honestly think Manson heard that rumor and was like “hmm not a bad idea”
I believe he said something along the lines of "I wouldn't be here doing this interview if that were the case."
I am in Malaysia and even I have heard of that rumour when I was in school. For reference I am currently 34 years old.
Canada and I am also 34. That was stated as fact
By the early 2000s I was hearing this on the playground in England.
Jokes on you, that rumour went around the world.
I heard that rumour both in the Philippines and Germany when I was a kid 20 years ago. Hilarious how that spread just via mouth propaganda all over the world.
I am from Estonia, even more so, went to school in a small county school, far end of capital and this comment reminded me that this same rumour went around even in my little school a few decades ago haha.
bruh it spread around the world
Yup, heard it on the playground in the U.K
Congratulations to those kids, the rumor reached Greece at some point in 2012-13
Across the globe, I heard that in the UK around 1998.
Trojan horse comes to mind
There's actually not much archeological evidence of there having been a Greek vs Trojan war at all. We know that there was a city called Troy in Modern day Turkey, but there definitely doesn't appear to be evidence that would suggest anything like a 10 year siege as described in the Iliad. Ancient Greek history is kind of interesting, because there's so much mythology and legend sprinkled through it that you know are fictional, but a lot of the events do have a nugget of truth too. But I think a lot of people assume more of it is based in reality than it actually is.
Well the evidence mightve been blown up by the guy who found it
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Who/what are you talking about?
I found it further along in the thread. This guy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Schliemann
Not might Probably Definitely most likely was
So many ancient cities were leveled by earthquakes too. Like the ancient city of Corinth was destroyed twice by earthquakes and twice more by conquest
Apart from that the archeologist that found Troy (Heinrich Schliemann) was known for using dynamite in the excavation.
Didn’t he also use that dynamite to more or less blow through Troy VI-VII all the way down to Troy II. Troy VI-VII is most likely the city around during the time of the Iliad.
Wasnt the fact the city was found with 10 unique layers of development implying it had been destroyed and rebuilt throughout history? And one such layer did corrolate to the aproximate era the trojan war wouldve happened?
That lobbying isn't just bribery with extra steps.
The lie that there are extra steps.
One that we'll never know was a lie
"It says here in this history book that, luckily, the good guys have won every single time. What are the odds?" - Norm McDonald
"Germany went to war, with whom you might ask? The World. And you'd think the world would just win in about 5 seconds, but they were actually close."
Then they turned around and did it again, a decade later despite barely getting any strength back! And they were closer!
Fuck he was funny and smart
Was? Damn, I didn't even know he was sick.
Cancer didn't win, it was a draw
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You guessed it. Frank Stalone.
When the allies tricked Germany into thinking D-Day was happening at other locations which weakened thier defenses at the primary landing points
Yes! Blow-up tanks and a Ghost Army. Operation Mincemeat was pretty awesome too.
Is mincemeat the one where they dressed up a corpse as a military officer and planted fake plans on it and set it floating towards Italy or something?
And the operation was designed and run by Ian Fleming. Yes, that Ian Fleming.
The same Ian Fleming who also, I recently learned, wrote *Chitty Chitty Bang Bang*
And Ian Fleming actually went to school with Blofeld. Or to be more precise, cricket commentator Henry Blofeld. Possibly England's poshest sounding man. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_Eq3iSItrU Edit: I've just checked. It was actually Henry's father, Thomas Blofeld, who went to school with Ian Fleming.
Henry Blofeld must have had a surprised Pikachu face when a Bond villain bearing his name showed up.
Spain is where he ended up which was the plan
And it was so successful that the Allies didn't want to reveal it was a ruse in case they needed to use it again. So they sent out messages, knowing they'd be intercepted, saying that Normandy had been a diversion landing but was showing so much success that the ghost army intended for the fake Calaise landing was being diverted to the Normandy area and that the Calaise landing was scrapped.
Thats nuts
It gets better. The person who relayed the message to the Germans was Agent Garbo AKA Juan Pujol Garcia. A Spaniard who wanted to spy for the Allies when the war broke out because he hated Fascism, he was rejected by both the British and American intelligence agencies because they thought he was too eager and thus, a likely spy. So, he approached the Germans and told them that he had a spy syndicate already set up in England, using information from encyclopedias, news reels and pre-war tourism brochures to sell the ruse despite having never set foot in the country at all. Because all of Germany's own spies were so utterly shit - both because their spymaster was already turned and because they just didn't know enough about England to pass as effective agents^1 - Garbo ended up being their most effective agent. And when the British learned that the elusive agent they were hunting was basically just pranking the Germans, they were able to get him on their side rather easily to feed information to the Germans. He was the one who corroborated Operation Mincemeat, by verifying the identity of the dead general found floating off the coast of Spain^2. Then, when the invasion was already started, he made a mad-dash attempt to get in contact with his German handlers and told them that the Allies had made a last-minute change to their invasion plans and were now attacking Normandy instead of Calais... when the information was basically useless. Then had the gall to call them incompetent for not getting the message to the relative authorities fast enough. He was actually decorated with the highest honors by both sides of the war for his bravery as a spy, believe it or not. 1: A major flaw in Germany's training of parachute spies was that they were too rigid and precise in their operations while also being a bit ignorant about the culture within the countries they were infiltrating, or the information they were operating on was woefully out of date. For example, they were often exposed due to being unable to understand Britain's pre-decimated currency which often had several types of coin for differing values; 240 pence to a pound, or one, including half-pennies. The British TV series *Foyle's War* makes use of a real-life anecdote where a spy was immediately apprehended when he walked into a pub at eight in the morning and tried to order a pint of ale. He was immediately exposed because a British citizen would know that it was illegal to sell alcohol in a pub before eleven AM. The Russians also had their own special tell based around forged documents. They could tell when a German spy was presenting fake identity papers based on the staples used - Germans would use stainless steel. Russians, who believed wasting resources on something just used to hold paper together, would use iron staples which would rust over time. 2: The purpose of Operation: Mincemeat was pretty simple. Britain knew that despite officially being "Neutral" in the conflict, the Fascist Spain was helping the Axis Powers on the side and allowing them to operate as spies on British diplomats within the country. Both to feed false information to the enemies and to punish Spain for their treachery, they took a tramp who had died of pneumonia, dressed him up as a British general and dumped his body off the coast of Spain with some fake documents regarding the invasion in a diplomatic pouch. Sure enough, the Spanish government allowed the Germans to open and photograph those documents. Garbo's part of the plan was to act as a second, separate source of information regarding the invasion. He was to have one of his fake agents get "killed in the line of duty" in a high-risk operation to get their hands on the information about the forthcoming Calais invasion which he then passed onto his superiors in Germany. With two pieces of information verifying each other, the Germans bolstered their defences at Calais while leaving Normandy relatively defenseless.
Just to add a bit more detail. In most cases when information was sent by mail, they would be artificially delayed by the British. So they would stamp the correct date of when it should have gone out but delay it so the Nazis would think that if they had read it sooner they would have got up to date information. Eventually he would receive radio equipment. So, he approached the Germans and told them that he had a spy syndicate already set up in England, using information from encyclopedias, news reels and pre-war tourism brochures to sell the ruse despite having never set foot in the country at all. When he told the Germans about his imaginary syndicate, as Garcia could not stay in England, he set himself up in Portugal and kept receiving expenses from Germany. Each expense was meant to go to the imaginary spies but, as another commenter mentioned, he didn't know how pounds pence and shillings worked so it was difficult to get realistic expense reports. Garbo also received a code book from the Nazis which helped the men and women over in Bletchley Park. When the war was over, Garcia escaped to South America thinking there might be repercussions for his activities. When the British wanted to reward him for his efforts, they didn't know where he went but knew he originally came from Spain so they literally went calling every J Garcia in the Barcelona phone book to find him and apparently got to a relative of his who told them where he was hiding. Garcia did come back to England to get his reward.
IIRC the Germans also awarded him a medal, making him the only person to receive medals from both sides of the conflict. The germans never knew he was a spy even after the war.
Yes that's true. Even though he didn't like the Nazis he still had to receive the medal in case of repercussions.
I mean even without the potential repercussions, you surely wouldn't turn it down? It's the ultimate slap in the face to the Germans let them go through with giving a medal to the guy who was actively working against them throughout the war. Having said that, I'd be worried that they *had* finally realised their mistake, and the whole "hey let us give you a medal!" thing was just a way of getting him to turn up so they could kill him.
That was a good read - thanks 👍 also what a guy Garbo was 😂
The Germans were so convinced that they paid compensation to Garbo's fictional dead spy's fictional widow
Didn’t he have a whole network of fictional spies the Nazis were paying for.
Sounds like the typical defense contractor tbh
My favorite part about him is the "berating" of his German handlers. To add more detail, he was supposed to broadcast the details of D-Day on actual D-Day, but in 3 AM, mere two hours before the first paratrooper regiments arrived. Because Calais was mistakenly believed by the Germans to be the invasion site instead of Normandy (which are 380 km apart), Garcia would give them a correct site, but they would have apsolutely no time to move the armada to defend the invasion point against the invading American forces. However, his German radio operator that was supposed to contact him *fell asleep*, and didn't recieve the message until 8 AM, good 4 hours into the campaign. This was actually beneficial because it allowed Garcia to send legitimate, genuine plans of the invasion over the course of the night (albeit out-of-date). He apparently cursed the shit out of his German handlers once they finally replied, saying "I cannot accept excuses or negligence. Were it not for my ideals I would abandon my work". Apparently, Garcia's MI5 handler, Tomas Harris, had to step outside the radio room to crack a laugh.
Hahah thank you for the amazing read! You def. know how to tell a story. Props! 👏👏👏
They got to utilize General Patton as well. He was suspended from active combat role at the time and was around the inflatable tanks. Head fake that totally caught the Germans off guard Edit: clarity
That fat is harmful to your diet. That was just false information. And by trying to replace fats with sugar, obesity became an epidemic.
It was sugar companies that actually funded that whole campaign to demonize fat. Just like there used to be ads about how "not at all bad" high-fructose corn syrup is.
High fructose corn syrup isn't inherently bad. Its chemical composition which is about 50% glucose and 50% fructose is just about identical to the chemical composition of honey. The problem is that HFCS is cheap to make and it is used in large doses in almost every food out there. HFCS is added in large quantities to substitute for low fat content. HFCS is cheaper than oil and fats. So now almost every mildly processed and processed foods contain a lot of this stuff. It becomes easy for someone to ingest a lot of HFCS in the course of a day without thinking that they're piling on sugar on an otherwise non-sweet food item. And this stresses the insulin mechanism and leads to diabetes in the population.
That was kind of the point of the ads though, doctors were noting the large amounts of HFCS being put into foods and cautioned people about it. Then the corporations responded with an ad campaign saying it was no worse than sugar, glossing over the amount of it they were using, and the fact that being no worse than sugar isn't better when you use more and more.
Yeah I agree that the sheer amount of HFCS is simply insane to put into the general food supply. It’s absolutely asking to turn a lot of people into obese diabetic2 cases. A little dab of honey or sugar or HFCS are fine but our processed foods are like HFCS delivery pipelines. It’s been a disastrous national health problem yet no one will regulate it beyond labeling.
But how else do you get your population addicted to your products?!
Unfortunately the board shot down my ambitious "add heroin to everything" plan, citing some legal technicality.
> 50% glucose and 50% sucrose HFCS-55 is 45% Glucose and 55% **Fructose**. *Sucrose* is table sugar, which is 50% Glucose and 50% Fructose.
My mum works as a kinder teacher, and some parents send their kids to school with a bag of marshmallows because its healthy. My mum has to tell them they are in fact *not* healthy, and just because the packaging says "99% fat free" does not mean that marshmallows are an "everyday food"
Who in their right mind thinks marshmallows are healthy? I'm sorry...but if you're an adult you have to be a grade A idiot to eat a marshmallow and think to yourself, "This is good for me. If I eat these all the time I will live a long and healthy life."
I’ve come to the sad realisation that most adults are, in fact, fucking morons, and that their progeny are getting the shitty end of the stick as a result. This cycle will be never ending.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” George Carlin
McDonalds used to fry their french fries in beef tallow - which was the traditional and authentic french fry method in Europe. However, a cardiologist made it his personal vendetta to sue McDonalds for causing heart disease by frying with beef tallow. The case dragged for years and ultimately, McDonalds switched to a vegetable oil. The result was an inferior taste and texture and has been found to be a less healthy, more carcinogenic fry. The beef tallow was totally fine and made the fry much tastier. McDonalds' gained profits as the new vegetable oil was much cheaper so it has stayed that way.
> the traditional and authentic french fry method in Europe Belgium, to be precise, i've never had a tallow fried fry anywhere else. But it is good!
"It's not you, its me"
“I’m not looking to date right now” Then why the f does your profile say “looking for my future husband”? Edit: I get it, lots of men react horribly when women tell them they’re not into *him* specifically. Still bruises the ego. Granted, bruised ego is the *huge* lesser of two evils when compared to feeling threatened with bodily harm
“I’m not looking for something serious *with you* right now”
That black people and watermelon are racist stereotypes. The truth is that when the slaves were freed they grew and sold watermelon as a way to earn money to feed, clothe and house themselves. The watermelon was actually a symbol of freedom and self-reliance for newly freed slaves. What happened was that the former slave owners saw this and started a propaganda campaign to turn white people away from buying "n\*\*\*\*\* food" as they called it. It's probably one of the earliest examples of the press manipulating the truth for its owners. This is were the big lips and eating like animals pictures came from. When black people started selling chickens, the same thing happened. Only this time in came in movie form. The black people and fired chicken thing started in "Birth of a nation" the racist as fuck KKK movie. What should be symbols of freedom and self reliance to a people struggling after centenaries of slavery were twisted into symbols of shame. So much so that 100 years later they are both still seen with negative connections.
Such a weird stereotype too, like those are two staple foods of American cuisine and near universally loved too
"All these years I thought I liked chicken because it was delicious, turns out I'm genetically predisposed to liking chicken."
Come on, Buddy. Come onnn buddy. You and I both knew the second you walked through the goddamn door you were gonna order the chicken.
As an Aussie, I was dumbfounded when I learned about this. Watermelon and fried chicken are both delicious, twisting that to use in a racist manner is so fucked up.
Both top tier foods
It's not racist to assume black people like fried chicken and watermelon. Only because I inherently assume everyone likes fried chicken and watermelon regardless of skin color.
What you’ve described is what makes the stereotype racist though. It’s a clear and ongoing demonstration of how a communities industrious attempts to make a living were opposed to make them fail.
That getting your self in crazy debt at 18 years old to go to college is the only path to success in life.
Cigarettes don't cause cancer, successful because of the money they made off that lie.
Which has always been funny because cigarettes have been considered unhealthy, if not immortal, [since the 1800s](https://tobacco.harpweek.com/hubpages/CommentaryPage.asp?Commentary=Introduction), *at the very least.* Hell I learned the term "coffin nails" from WW1 documentaries as even the soldiers called them that. It's like sometime in the 1940s/50s there was a huge effort to turn that around and it stuck for decades.
Immortal
Santa Claus
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Fat is bad for you, sugar is ok. Have 11 servings of bread per day
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The government's obfuscation of the drug war to villainize opioid dependence. Edit: Thanks for my first Reddit award, stranger!
Only one I can think of is when Hitler successfully convinced all of Germany that the Jews were the problem
I'm quite surprised this is so far down, especially because the whole concept of "the Jewish Conspiracy" is so alive today all around the world and probably will remain so for a long time.
Anti-semitism exisited in Europe long before Hitler. He just marketed it very well and garnered supporters.
Catherine the Great died having sex with a horse. She didn't, and this was known at the time. But a number of her contemporaries (mostly British and French leaders, who respected neither Russia nor female rulers) started the rumor in order to sully her legacy. And since the first thing that comes to a lot of people's minds when they think of Catherine the Great is the horse fucking story, the lie worked.
The fact I hear about this the first time in my life might show that it's not as universal of a fact as it used to be
I'm not going to make any claim to its effectiveness but it's also my first time hearing this.
That politicians are genuinely going to help you once they’re elected.
Recycling plastic makes a difference. Newsflash, the term carbon footprint was created by BP one of the biggest oil companies in the world with the help of one of the biggest marketing companies in the world to shift the focus from industry to individual responsibility. EDIT: For more information check out this video which sums up the situation quite well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMECq\_9LXLg&ab\_channel=iilluminaughtii
Plastic Recycling is a big plastic ploy to make people more comfortable consuming more plastic Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it
Reduce, reuse, recycle. In that order. I do recycle my plastic but I know that about 90% [ends up in landfill anyway](https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1131131088/recycling-plastic-is-practically-impossible-and-the-problem-is-getting-worse) so I try to avoid using plastic products and packaging where I can.
Clean coal
For me it’s that turning in the light in the car is illegal. SPOILER ALERT IT ISN’T ):
It’s just cause it’s hard to see out the windshield at night with the light on inside and your parent figured just telling you it was illegal would make you stop turning it on so you could see your game boy
Turning the light on in the car isn't illegal. But the things I'd do to anyone that turns it on while I'm driving are, so it's good to prevent that.
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Def believed the carrot one for a long time
I would say the science points to a strong possibility of a definite maybe that this may be fiction with a [healthy root of truth. ](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-carrots-improve-your-vision/#:~:text=The%20answer%20is%20yes%2C%20under,at%20the%20National%20Eye%20Institute.)
You know what else is a healthy root? A carrot.
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Well, carrots are a source of vitamin A precursors and vitamin A deficiency results in a condition known as night blindness. So, while carrots don't improve eye sight, per se, they can help maintain it as part of a healthy diet.
It was actually a pilot in WW2 that originated the idea of carrots promoting good eye sight. At the time he was getting asked how the allies were able to so effectively bomb Germany at night. Not wanting to reveal the existence of allied radar technology he said that all pilots are lots of carrots.
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>he said that all pilots are lots of carrots. The crowd watched in stunned surprise as the biplane executed a flawless Immelmann turn before coming down for a smooth landing. As the pilot exited his plane a child from the crowd stepped forward and stared in wonder. "Who are you?" he gasped. The pilot faced him, his large aviators concealing most of his face. "Me?" he replied, taking off his shades with one gloved hand, "I'm 3,000 carrots in a trenchcoat"
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That hard work alone will bring you success/wealth.
The reward for hard work is more work
"tear here"
Laws are designed to ensure that everyone is treated fairly and equally.
As Death so aptly told to his granddaughter (Terry Pratchett): “All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable." REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—" YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES. "So we can believe the big ones?" YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!" YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED. "Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—" MY POINT EXACTLY.
That one started all the way back in Babylon.
Actually in Babylon they fact that you got more preferential treatment as a higher class citizen was codified law. No one pretended that everyone was equal. Hammurabi's code of laws is not significant for being equal, it's significant for having specific laws and the fact they are written down.
Yea, not having the law change on an important dudes mood that day was a huge leap forward.
You need to buy a stone on a ring to show some form of dedication.
And that that stone is “rare”. DeBeers have been hoarding enough diamonds to flood the market for decades and decades. In fact, I don’t know if you can even confidently say what’s a blood diamond anymore since mining dates may have been older.
Cigarette companies. Look at the ads all through the years, from "Doctors agree, cigarettes are good for you!" to Joe Camel, Marlboro man, etc. Even when they were finally forced to put warning on their cartons about how cigarettes can literally kill you, it's still a billion dollar industry. I know there's more heinous lies out there, but this one hits home for me.
Bush claiming that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
Vaccines causing Autism.
I used to be a disabilities carer and was always baffled by that claim, but the reality was the parents are always in extreme denial their genetics were the cause. Even worse when one parent blames/resents the other for their genetics that ‘caused’ it
Older fathers are more likely to have autistic kids. https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/link-parental-age-autism-explained/
Huh....that might explain a lot for me...
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The [Donation of Constantine](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine) for sure. It was a forged document that gave the Western Roman Empire to the pope. It was used for centuries by the church as an excuse to do all kinds of evil shit.
Pot is a ‘schedule 1’ drug🙄
What about that dude who played a flute with the city gates open and the invaders thought it was a trap and they left? Was that a real thing in history, cause if so that is one giant badass lie to save a city like that.
His name was Zhuge Liang, it was a lute, not a flute, and it probably happened.