List of political conspiracies
In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of people united in the goal of usurping, altering or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination. A conspiracy can also be used for infiltration of the governing system.
A conspiracy is to be contrasted with a cabal. The two are similar but have quite different connotations; in contrast to a cabal, a conspiracy usually looks to overthrow a fixed power instead of usurping it from within.
A "Conspiracy theory" is a belief that a conspiracy has actually been decisive in producing a political event which the theorists strongly disapprove of.[1]
Notable political conspiracies
- 1552 BCE - Apophis Kush Alliance against Egypt as attested to in the second Kamose stele[2]
- 1st century BCE - Catiline conspiracies[3]
- 44 BCE - Liberatores plot assassination of Julius Caesar to restore Roman Republic[4]
- 65 CE - Pisonian conspiracy[5]
- Late 15th century (1478) Pazzi conspiracy, which included the Pope[6]
- 1506 - Conspiracy against the life of the brothers Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara and Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, coordinated by their half brother Giulio d'Este and full brother Ferrante d'Este[7]
- 1570 - Ridolfi plot against Elizabeth I of England[8]
- 1583 - Throckmorton Plot to murder Elizabeth and replace her with her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots[9]
- 1586 - Babington Plot, second major plot against Elizabeth, that led most directly to execution of Mary, Queen of Scots[10][11]
- 1603 - Main Plot to remove James I of England and enthrone Arbella Stuart
- — Bye Plot, leads to the execution of Sir George Brooke[12]
- 1605 - Gunpowder Plot to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament as prelude to a popular revolt in the Midlands, during which James's nine-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth, was to be installed as the Catholic head of state; often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot; origin of Guy Fawkes Day[13]
- 1749 - Conspiracy of the Slaves by Muslim slaves to kill Grand Master Manuel Pinto da Fonseca and take over Malta with the help of the Barbary states.[14]
- 1788 - Anjala conspiracy[15]
- 1832 - Georgian plot, assassination of the Russian imperial administration and restoration of the Georgian monarchy
- 1865 - Abraham Lincoln assassination plot, to include assassination of cabinet members[16]
- 1898 - The Dreyfus Affair, a coordinated attempt to falsely accuse Alfred Dreyfus of treason[17]
- 1903 - The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, presented as authentic text by the Tsar's secret police efforts to foment anti-Semitism[18]
- 1914 - The Black Hand, a secret society controlled by Serbian Military Intelligence, coordinates the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, thus causing World War I.
- 1938 - Presumed Hitler Youth Conspiracy, NKVD case in Moscow involving some 70 arrests and 40 executions of teenagers and adults, later found to be baseless[19]
- 1939 - Operation Himmler and its Gleiwitz incident, "False Flag" terrorism by Nazi Germany as pretext for invasion of Poland
- — Shelling of Mainila, "False Flag" terrorism by USSR as pretext for Winter War[20]
- 1943 - Bomb on Hitler's aircraft, an attempt on Adolf Hitler[21]
- 1944 - July 20 Plot, attempt to assassinate Hitler with suitcase bomb, and then use Operation Valkyrie to grab power[22][23]
- 1953 - 1953 Iranian coup d'état Anglo-American conspiracy under the names of 'Operation Ajax' (CIA ) and 'Operation Boot' (MI6)[24]
- 1954 - Lavon affair Operation Susannah, "False Flag" terrorism by Mossad[25]
- 1968 - The Markovic affair, French Secret Service Gaullist plot destabilise future president Georges Pompidou[26]
- 1969 to 1972 Secret war in Laos, and Operation Menu in Cambodia, concealed from Congressional oversight[27]
- 1972 - Watergate scandal, burglary and cover-up scandals[28]
- 1982 - Fighting Solidarity[29]
- 1984 - Brighton hotel bombing - attempted assassination of Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet by the Provisional IRA[30]
- 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack[31]
- 1987 - Iran-Contra Affair[32][33]
- 1991 - Nayirah testimony to rally U.S. public support to launch the Gulf War[34]
See also
References
- ^ Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent, American Conspiracy Theories (2014) excerpt
- ^ Hawass, Zahi, The Mysteries of Abu Simbel: Ramesses II and the Temples of the Rising Sun, The American University in Cairo Press, 2001, ISBN 977-424-623-3, p. 12
- ^ "The Catilinarian Conspiracy". ancienthistory.about.com.
- ^ "The assassination of Julius Caesar, 44 BC". eyewitnesstohistory.com. 2004.
- ^ "The Pisonian Conspiracy". nazoreans.com.
- ^ "The pazzi conspiracy". palazzo-medici.it.
- ^ "The year of Lucretia d'Este, Duchess of Ferrara". mmdtkw.org.
- ^ "Plots against Elizabeth I". elizabethfiles.com. 29 January 2010.
- ^ "Queen Elisabeth I". englishhistory.net.
- ^ "The Babington Plot". history-magazine.com.
- ^ "Anthony Babington and the Babington Plot". luminarium.org.
- ^ "Conspiracy". alienscientist.com.
- ^ "The Gunpowder plot of 1605". historylearningsite.co.uk.
- ^ Sciberras, Sandro. "Maltese History - E. The Decline of the Order of St John In the 18th Century" (PDF). St. Benedict College. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 June 2015.
- ^ "Anjala Manor". spottinghistory.com.
- ^ "The Death of President Lincoln, 1865". eyewitnesstohistory.com.
- ^ "Emile Zola writes to Alfred Dreyfus at the height of the Dreyfus affair". shapell.org.
- ^ "Jews and Politics in the Twentieth Century: From the Bund to the Rise of the Nazis". Judaica in the Collections of the Hoover Institution Archives. Hoover Institution, Stanford University. 2004. Archived from the original on 2006-06-13. Retrieved 2006-04-28.
- ^ Hans Schafranek, Natalia Musienko, "The Fictitious 'Hiter-Jugend' of the Moscow NKVD" in: Barry McLoughlin, Kevin McDermott (Eds.), Stalin's Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union. Palgrave MacMillan (2003), p. 208ff. ISBN 1-4039-0119-8. Retrieved November 24, 2011
- ^ "Operation Himmler". 911review.com.
- ^ "The Valkyrie Conspiracy". valkyrie-plot.com.
- ^ "The 20 July bomb plot - a summary". historyinanhour.com. 20 July 2010.
- ^ "The July bomb plot". historylearningsite.co.uk.
- ^ "Operation Ajax: CIA, Muhammad Mossadeq, and the Shah of Iran". coldwar.org.
- ^ "Israel Military Intelligence: The Lavon Affair". jewishvirtuallibrary.org.
- ^ "Pompidou dans la tourmente". lexpress.fr. 26 July 2007.
- ^ "The history place". historyplace.com.
- ^ "What was the Watergate Scandal?". uspolitics.about.com.
- ^ "The fighting solidarity organization". sw.org.pl.
- ^ "Hunger strikes and the Brighton bomb". news.bbc.co.uk. 18 March 1999.
- ^ "A strange but true tale of voter fraud and bioterrorism". theatlantic.com. 10 June 2014.
- ^ "The Iran Contra Affair 1986–1987". washingtonpost.com.
- ^ "Iran contra affair". infoplease.com.
- ^ "How PR sold the war in the persian gulf". prwatch.org.
External links
Look up conspiracy (political) in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Media related to Conspiracies at Wikimedia Commons