These pathological liars couldn't stop spreading falsehoods. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the 10 worst liars in history.
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00:00160 million people felt they knew him personally, but the man they knew was an invention.
00:08Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the 10 worst liars in history.
00:16Most importantly, we've got spin control.
00:19That's where I come in.
00:20I get paid to talk.
00:23Number 10.
00:24Bernie Madoff.
00:25Madoff was driven.
00:27He has the kind of personality that is extremely proud of the incredibly intricate and complex
00:36web that he's woven.
00:37We might have started this list with Charles Ponzi, the 1920s fraudster after which the
00:42Ponzi scheme is named.
00:44But Bernie Madoff gets the nod seeing as his was the largest such scheme in history.
00:50In 2008, Madoff was arrested for defrauding thousands of investors out of around $65 billion.
00:58For years, he had been presenting false investment returns to his clients while using new investors'
01:03money to pay off older ones.
01:05He's also very quietly been growing his secret investment advisory business, which he keeps
01:11under the table, which he keeps separate from the market making business.
01:15It was the classic Ponzi scheme, but on steroids.
01:19Something that Madoff himself is said to have described as one big lie.
01:23So deep-rooted and widespread was his scam that, when it eventually unraveled, Madoff
01:29was sentenced to 150 years in prison.
01:31He died in 2021.
01:34How do you now plead to count 4?
01:36Guilty.
01:37How do you now plead to count 5?
01:39Guilty.
01:40How do you now plead to count 6?
01:43Guilty.
01:44Number 9.
01:45George C. Parker.
01:46Frank Sinatra once said of New York that, if you could make it there, you could make
01:50it anywhere.
01:51But George Parker certainly went about it the wrong way.
01:55Parker was a notorious con artist, operating in the early 20th century.
01:59He made his living selling famous landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty, Madison Square
02:04Garden, and most infamously, the Brooklyn Bridge, multiple times.
02:09How did he do it?
02:10Well, he would convince his unsuspecting victims, usually immigrants, to the US that he had
02:16the authority to sell such iconic real estate.
02:19He presented stacks of fake documents and spun elaborate tales, all to convince his
02:24targets that he either owned or controlled what he was selling.
02:28He was arrested multiple times and, ultimately, was sent to Sing Sing Prison for the rest
02:33of his life in 1928.
02:36Number 8.
02:37The French Army.
02:38They felt that they had to do whatever was necessary to win a conviction, and therefore
02:42they took the illegal road of creating a dossier of documents which were purported to refer
02:49to Dreyfus.
02:50History is littered with high-profile claims of conspiracy and or government cover-up,
02:56but few are as confirmed as what came to be known as the Dreyfus Affair.
03:01In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus of the French Army was wrongfully accused and convicted
03:07of treason for allegedly passing government secrets to the German embassy in Paris.
03:12Two years later, in 1896, evidence came to light to prove that Dreyfus was innocent,
03:18and that the true perpetrator was Ferdinand Walson Esterhazy, who was a French major at
03:24the time.
03:25The new evidence was purposefully hidden, though, by the French Army, and Dreyfus even
03:31had further false charges laid against him.
03:34Given that Dreyfus was of Jewish descent, the entire episode was fueled by anti-Semitism,
03:40and it took over a decade for him to eventually be exonerated.
03:51Number 7.
03:53Elizabeth Holmes
04:05It takes quite the lie to mislead investors, the government, and vulnerable patients.
04:11But that's what Elizabeth Holmes managed to do.
04:13As the founder and CEO of the blood-testing firm Theranos, she emerged as a leading biotech
04:19pioneer in the mid-2010s.
04:22It was claimed that Theranos could perform multiple tests with just a pinprick worth
04:26of blood, making the process far cheaper and easier than ever before.
04:37It appeared to be a game-changer in the field and, in and around 2015, Holmes appeared on
04:43a series of rich lists, becoming one of the most influential people in the world.
04:47However, it was later revealed that her claims were based on false information and misleading
04:52demonstrations.
04:54Theranos wasn't the miracle company that she'd made it out to be and, in November
04:592022, she was sentenced to more than 11 years for fraud.
05:13Number 6.
05:14Ferdinand Marcos Between the years 1965 and 1986, Ferdinand
05:26Marcos was President of the Philippines, but his rule is remembered as one of the harshest
05:31and most corrupt of modern times.
05:34Marcos led the way as he, his family, friends, and strategic associates amassed billions
05:39of dollars through the fraudulent distribution and embezzlement of government funds.
05:45Marcos created a handful of instant millionaires by dishing out lucrative contracts, all while
05:50the vast majority of Filipinos endured widespread poverty.
06:00When foreign aid was sent into the country, Marcos channeled that into his own pocket
06:05as well.
06:06For decades, he maintained a false image of himself as a champion for democracy, but he
06:11crushed political opposition and the free press through violence and intimidation.
06:17Ultimately, an entire country suffered due to Marcos' lies.
06:29Number 5.
06:30Vladimir Putin As one of the most dangerous world leaders
06:42right now, Putin's disturbing legacy as the President of Russia includes countless
06:47episodes of deception on both domestic and international fronts.
06:51From a series of allegedly rigged elections throughout his career, to his overseeing of
06:56the invasion of Ukraine, what Putin says happened, and what actually happened, are
07:01all too often different.
07:14Over the years, he's denied clear Russian involvement in various atrocities that the
07:18watching world deemed to be war crimes.
07:20He and his government have also emerged as masterminds of spreading disinformation.
07:25Putin controls the media in Russia, but is also known, or suspected, to be pulling the
07:30strings of social media and international news, leading to election interference in
07:35other countries in order to further his own agenda.
07:54Number 4.
07:55The Tobacco Industry There have been so many universal lies when
08:06it comes to cigarettes and smoking that, really, there's no one single person to lambast.
08:13Anyone and everyone who was involved in the 20th century effort to hide the effects of
08:17smoking is to blame.
08:19In the 1950s especially, the tobacco industry ran a decades-long campaign to downplay the
08:24health risks associated.
08:27The addictive nature of nicotine was repeatedly denied.
08:29The link between smoking and illness was also denied.
08:44The risk of secondhand smoke, the use of marketing strategies aimed at children, the paying off
08:50of the government and scientists to obscure the truth, all of it was hushed up with deliberate
08:54misinformation campaigns.
08:56Today, it perhaps seems incredible that they got away with it, although there are fears
09:01that a similar pattern could be setting in with the current food industry.
09:11Number 3.
09:12Joseph Stalin As a leader of the Soviet Union from 1924
09:24until 1953, Stalin was one of the most high-profile but also ruthless politicians of his era.
09:31His regime was marked by mass purges, total state control, famine-inducing policies, and
09:37widespread human rights abuses.
09:40But it was all concealed behind endless propaganda that portrayed him as a benevolent leader
09:45working towards a socialist utopia.
09:55For example, the Holodomor, or Ukrainian Famine, was a man-made disaster that led to the deaths
10:01of millions of people.
10:02It's believed that it was orchestrated from the very top, with Stalin seeking to crush
10:07creeping civil unrest.
10:09Fueled by paranoia, his people endured terrible conditions, but Stalin continually denied
10:14that there were problems.
10:16Meanwhile, whenever he dealt with other nations and leaders, he's known to have double-crossed
10:21and deceived time and time again.
10:36Number 2.
10:37Sergei Nelus Conspiracy theories have arguably never been
10:41more popular than they are today, given that they're so easily spread via the internet.
10:48Actually, we've always had conspiracy theorists, and as today, many of them are and were dangerous
10:55people.
11:04The Russian writer Sergei Nelus is best known for publishing The Protocols of the Elders
11:09of Zion in 1903.
11:12This was a forged but deeply anti-Semitic document that claimed to expose a global Jewish
11:17conspiracy toward world domination.
11:19The authors are unknown, but Nelus perpetuated the lie, spreading hate further and faster
11:25than anyone else until that point.
11:28Nelus died in 1929, but the protocols that he gave a platform to would go on to wield
11:34huge influence during the 1930s and 40s in Nazi Germany.
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12:071.
12:09Adolf Hitler
12:23Hitler carried out some of history's most heinous crimes.
12:26From his position at the top of German politics, he invaded Europe and oversaw the Holocaust.
12:32He was able to do so partly by spreading the Big Lie.
12:35In general, the Big Lie is a political tactic where, if you lie significantly enough and
12:40for long enough, then people will believe you.
12:43For Hitler, his relentless campaign against Jews was all part of the lie that he used
12:48to convince people that his depraved actions were justified.
12:53The Nazi propaganda machine was set into motion by Hitler's deception on a truly colossal
12:58scale.
12:5980 million people died in the Holocaust.
13:02Upwards of 80 million died in World War II in total.
13:06Hitler is remembered as the epitome of evil, and a major part of his character was that
13:10he was a prolific and deranged liar.
13:24Did we miss anyone else that should be on this list?
13:27Let us know in the comments.