97 Fun Facts About Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracy theories claim NASA staged the Moon landings. Which human spaceflight program achieved them for real?

Apollo was NASA's third human spaceflight program and the one that landed the first humans on the Moon; hoax theories claim some or all of it was staged.

Which US President's assassination in Dallas in November 1963 spawned enduring conspiracy theories?

John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas on November 22, 1963; the Warren Commission's lone-gunman finding on Lee Harvey Oswald never silenced theories blaming the CIA or organized crime.

Which ancient idea of Earth's shape has made a social-media comeback since the 2010s?

Greek astronomy settled the matter over two millennia ago, yet flat-Earth societies and unaffiliated online believers have grown since the 2010s.

Which secretive US Air Force base in Nevada anchors UFO folklore?

Area 51 sits inside the Nevada Test and Training Range; the intense secrecy around it is exactly what feeds the UFO folklore.

Which 18th-century Bavarian secret society is often falsely linked to a global-domination plot?

The original Illuminati was an Enlightenment-era secret society founded in Bavaria in 1776, which was eventually suppressed. Modern conspiracy theories often incorrectly connect them to a powerful, secretive elite aiming for global control.

Which musician is the subject of a hoax theory that he died in 1966 and was replaced by a look-alike?

The 'Paul is Dead' urban legend claims that Paul McCartney of The Beatles died in a car crash in 1966 and was secretly replaced. Proponents often cite alleged clues in album art and song lyrics.

Which major US airport draws theories about secret bunkers and symbolic murals?

Denver International Airport's lore says its tunnels lead to survival bunkers for the rich, military bases, or homes for aliens or lizard people; the real tunnel network is far smaller than claimed.

Alaska's HAARP research programme is often falsely accused of controlling what global phenomenon?

HAARP is a scientific research program studying the ionosphere. However, it has been the subject of conspiracy theories claiming it can control the weather, cause earthquakes, or even manipulate minds.

What term describes belief in a secret elite plotting a totalitarian global government?

The New World Order theory holds that a secretive elite is steering the world toward a totalitarian one-world government; it surged in the 1990s after George H. W. Bush used the phrase in 1990 and 1991 speeches.

Which cryptozoological creature reputedly lurks in a deep Scottish Highland lake?

The Loch Ness Monster is a mythical creature said to reside in Loch Ness, Scotland. While many alleged sightings and photographs have been debunked as hoaxes, belief in 'Nessie' persists.

Which CIA program, begun in 1953, dosed unwitting subjects with LSD in mind-control experiments?

Project MKUltra, begun in 1953 under Sidney Gottlieb, dosed unwitting US and Canadian subjects with LSD and used hypnosis and sensory deprivation; its files were largely destroyed in 1973 and it was exposed by the 1975 Church Committee.

The 1947 incident near Roswell, New Mexico, is famously associated with theories of what kind of crash?

Roswell lore holds that an alien spacecraft crashed in 1947; the debris was from a Project Mogul balloon train built to detect Soviet nuclear tests, and the Army's 'weather balloon' line covered that secret program.

What false 2016 conspiracy theory linked a D.C. pizza restaurant to child sex trafficking?

Pizzagate emerged during the 2016 election, falsely claiming Washington's Comet Ping Pong pizzeria hid a child-trafficking ring tied to Democrats; in December 2016 a believer fired a rifle inside the restaurant.

Which off-the-record conference, held annually since 1954, is cited by theorists as globalist plotting?

The Bilderberg Meeting is an annual, off-the-record forum established in 1954 to foster dialogue between Europe and North America. Its secrecy and influential attendees make it a target of conspiracy theories about a globalist agenda.

Shared false memories that differ from documented history, like a misremembered book title, are called the what effect?

The Mandela Effect, named by Fiona Broome after many people falsely recalled Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s, describes shared false memories; 'Berenstein' for the Berenstain Bears is the classic example.

Which theory says Charlemagne and roughly 300 years of the Early Middle Ages are made up?

Heribert Illig's 1991 claim: Otto III and Pope Sylvester II faked AD 614–911 (some 300 years, Charlemagne included) so their reigns would land on the round year 1000.

Which singer is frequently claimed by conspiracy theorists to be alive and in hiding despite his official death?

Despite his official death in 1977, Elvis Presley has been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories claiming he faked his death and is still alive, often citing alleged sightings.

Which airliner’s March 2014 disappearance with 239 aboard still feeds conspiracy theories?

Flight 370 vanished on 8 March 2014 flying Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard; with no definitive answer, theories filled the gap.

Which 2017-born theory says a Satan-worshipping cabal controls the US and fights Trump?

QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory originating in 2017, centred on the false belief that a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles runs a global child sex-trafficking ring and is secretly fighting Donald Trump.

Which director is falsely rumored to have secretly filmed a staged moon landing for NASA?

Stanley Kubrick had just made 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), which fed the rumor that he staged Apollo footage; the 2002 mockumentary Dark Side of the Moon spread it further.

Which public health measure, first tried in Grand Rapids in 1945, do theorists call mind control?

Water fluoridation, the controlled addition of fluoride to a public water supply to reduce tooth decay, has been the subject of conspiracy theories claiming it is a communist plot, a form of mass medication, or a mind control tactic.

The 1980s-90s 'Satanic Panic' spread claims of ritual what, notably at the McMartin preschool?

The 'Satanic Panic' was a moral panic that spread across the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, fueled by unsubstantiated claims of widespread Satanic ritual abuse of children.

What term describes the belief that unelected officials secretly steer government policy?

'Deep state' describes a supposed network of career officials and security agencies steering policy regardless of elections; a 2017 ABC News/Washington Post poll found 48% of Americans believed one exists.

What is the controversial COVID-19 hypothesis that the virus escaped from a laboratory called?

The COVID-19 'lab leak theory' is a controversial hypothesis proposing that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated from a laboratory incident, rather than natural zoonotic transmission, sparking significant debate and investigation.

Which US President was the target of the 'birther' conspiracy theory?

Barack Obama, the first Black US president, was born in Hawaii; in 2011 Donald Trump became the theory's leading proponent and claimed credit for pressuring the government to publish the birth certificate.

In what year were the Georgia Guidestones destroyed by an explosive device?

Commissioned in 1979 by a man using the pseudonym Robert C. Christian, the monument was blown up on the morning of July 6, 2022, and the county removed the remains later that same day.

What term describes the belief that the US government was secretly involved in the September 11 attacks?

The '9/11 inside job' conspiracy theory posits that the September 11, 2001, attacks were either orchestrated or allowed to happen by elements within the U.S. government, contrary to the official narrative.

Which US Air Force study of UFO sightings, run from 1952 to 1969, concluded that most reports were misidentified objects or natural phenomena?

Project Blue Book, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, ran from 1952 to 1969 and was closed after the Condon Report judged further UFO study unlikely to yield major scientific discoveries.

Disappearances in what western Atlantic region have fuelled paranormal and alien-abduction theories?

The Bermuda Triangle is a loosely defined region roughly bounded by Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico, where a number of ships and aircraft are said to have vanished under mysterious circumstances.

Which rapper, declared dead in 1996, is the subject of theories that he faked his death?

Despite his official death in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in 1996, many fans and conspiracy theorists believe Tupac Shakur faked his death and is still alive.

What codename did the KGB give its campaign claiming HIV was engineered at Fort Detrick?

Operation Denver, also called Operation INFEKTION, was the KGB and Stasi campaign that used East German biologist Jakob Segal to claim HIV was engineered at Fort Detrick; Soviet defectors later confirmed it was planted propaganda.

Which organ from the 1963 presidential autopsy was found missing from the National Archives in 1966?

John F. Kennedy's brain, placed whole in formaldehyde for later study, was found missing when the National Archives inventoried the autopsy materials in 1966; its disappearance made the autopsy a magnet for cover-up theories.

A 1996 weather-modification report from which US service helped spread 'chemtrail' theories?

US Air Force strategists wrote the Air University paper 'Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025', which the service later called the seed of a hoax.

The antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was first published in 1903 in which country?

The Protocols first appeared in 1903 in the Russian newspaper Znamya in Saint Petersburg; around 160 passages were lifted from Maurice Joly's 1864 satire Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.

Which industrialist's newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, ran a two-year series quoting the Protocols from 1920?

Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent ran the series from 1920 to 1922, later collected as The International Jew; Ford issued a public apology in 1927 after a libel suit by lawyer Aaron Sapiro.

What did Operation Northwoods, a 1962 Pentagon proposal the president rejected, call for?

The document stayed secret until the JFK Assassination Records Review Board released it in November 1997.

The satirical 'Birds Aren't Real' movement claims US birds were replaced by what?

Birds Aren't Real claims the government killed US birds and replaced them with surveillance drones; Peter McIndoe improvised the joke at a Memphis protest in January 2017 as a parody of conspiracy thinking.

The 'Philadelphia Experiment' hoax claims which US Navy ship was rendered invisible in 1943?

The USS Eldridge, a destroyer escort, is the ship the Philadelphia Experiment hoax says vanished in 1943; the tale came from letters Carl Allen sent UFO writer Morris Jessup in 1956, and the Navy says no such experiment occurred.

Who wrote the 1968 ancient-astronaut bestseller Chariots of the Gods?

Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods? (1968) argued that ancient monuments were built with alien help; his books have sold tens of millions of copies and inspired the History Channel's Ancient Aliens.

Which German city has been the butt of a joke conspiracy that it doesn't exist since a 1994 Usenet post?

The Bielefeld conspiracy began as a 1994 Usenet joke by Achim Held; in 2019 the city offered one million euros to anyone who could prove it did not exist, and Angela Merkel once quipped 'if it exists at all'.

How did the FBI describe the 'Majestic 12' documents that supposedly proved a secret 1947 UFO committee?

The FBI's file stamps the Majestic 12 papers 'completely bogus' after a 1988 inquiry with Air Force investigators; they had surfaced in December 1984 when ufologist Jaime Shandera received them anonymously on undeveloped film.

How many Soviet ski hikers died in the 1959 Dyatlov Pass incident in the Ural Mountains?

Nine hikers led by Igor Dyatlov died in February 1959; their tent was cut open from inside and footprints in socks led away, and in 2020 Russian prosecutors blamed an avalanche.

How many years did the Public Health Service run the Tuskegee study, leaving Black men with syphilis untreated?

The Tuskegee study ran 40 years, from 1932 to 1972, until whistleblower Peter Buxtun went to the press; Bill Clinton formally apologised in 1997.

Who was revealed in 2005 to have been Watergate's anonymous source 'Deep Throat'?

The FBI's associate director fed Woodward and Bernstein for two years; the June 1972 break-in ended with Nixon's resignation in August 1974.

The 4 August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin 'attack', now known to be false, was used to escalate which war?

Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on 7 August 1964, giving Lyndon Johnson broad authority to escalate the Vietnam War; declassified NSA records later showed the 4 August attack never happened.

The earliest known use of 'conspiracy theory' in its modern sense was an 1863 letter to which newspaper?

Charles Astor Bristed's letter to The New York Times, published on 11 January 1863, used 'conspiracy theory' about claims that British aristocrats were deliberately weakening the US during the Civil War.

In which country are conspiracy theorists derisively nicknamed 'cookers'?

In Australia, 'cooker' became slang for conspiracy theorists during the 2021-22 anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine protests, implying their brains are cooked; it is mostly aimed at the far-right fringe.

Who filmed the famous 26-second home movie of the Dallas motorcade shooting in 1963?

Abraham Zapruder, a Dallas dressmaker, filmed the motorcade from a concrete pedestal on Elm Street with a Bell & Howell Zoomatic; theorists have long argued that the 486-frame footage was later altered.

Which Dallas nightclub owner shot Lee Harvey Oswald on live television, two days after the Kennedy assassination?

Jack Ruby gunned down the accused assassin in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters and was arrested on the spot; a nightclub owner silencing Oswald became Exhibit A for cover-up believers.

Which Chief Justice chaired the 1963–64 commission that found Oswald acted alone?

Earl Warren chaired the commission Lyndon Johnson created by executive order a week after Dallas; Warren at first refused, arguing a Chief Justice should not serve the executive branch.

Which 1964 commission staffer is credited with the JFK 'single-bullet theory'?

Arlen Specter, an assistant counsel to the Warren Commission, devised the single-bullet theory; Exhibit CE 399 is said to account for seven wounds in two men, which is why critics dubbed it the 'magic bullet'.

Who was the only person ever put on trial over the 1963 Dallas assassination?

Clay Shaw, a New Orleans businessman, was prosecuted by DA Jim Garrison; the jury acquitted him in under an hour in 1969, and Tommy Lee Jones played him in Oliver Stone's JFK.

Who was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in June 1968?

Robert F. Kennedy was shot on 5 June 1968 after winning the California primary; Sirhan Sirhan, then 24, was convicted, yet a second-gunman theory built on bullet counts and audio analysis endures.

A 1999 Memphis civil jury found cafe owner Loyd Jowers liable in whose assassination?

Martin Luther King Jr.'s family brought the wrongful-death suit against Loyd Jowers; the jury found him part of a conspiracy, but a 2000 Justice Department review found no persuasive evidence of one.

Which Teamsters boss vanished in July 1975, was declared legally dead in 1982, and is presumed a Mafia victim?

Jimmy Hoffa vanished from a Detroit-area restaurant parking lot on 30 July 1975 and was declared legally dead in 1982; he is presumed a Mafia victim, and tip-offs have sent the FBI digging repeatedly.

A 1998 book claims the liner that sank in 1912 was really which Titanic sister ship?

Robin Gardiner's Titanic: The Ship That Never Sank? makes the case; researchers Bruce Beveridge and Steve Hall picked it apart in 2004.

Which nobleman is the leading alternative candidate for having written Shakespeare's plays?

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, became the leading alternative candidate after schoolteacher J. Thomas Looney's 1920 book 'Shakespeare' Identified; mainstream scholars overwhelmingly reject the Oxfordian theory.

Whose 1826 disappearance in New York ignited America's Anti-Masonic movement?

William Morgan, who had announced a book exposing Masonic secrets, vanished from Batavia, New York, in 1826; the Anti-Masonic Party that followed carried Vermont in 1832, the first electoral votes for any third party.

Where did bankers secretly meet in November 1910 to draft what became the Federal Reserve?

Senator Nelson Aldrich, Paul Warburg and other bankers met at Georgia's Jekyll Island Club in November 1910 to draft the Aldrich Plan; the club's members included Morgans, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts, and the meeting is a staple of anti-Fed literature.

Who became the first woman executed by the US federal government, as a Lincoln plotter?

Mary Surratt ran the Washington boardinghouse where the plotters met and was hanged on 7 July 1865; a death sentence needed a two-thirds vote of the military commission that tried her.

Which 1933 scheme allegedly sought to install Gen. Smedley Butler as dictator over FDR?

Butler blew the whistle to a House committee himself; no one was ever prosecuted.

A 1971 burglary of an FBI office in which Pennsylvania town exposed COINTELPRO?

The Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into the bureau's office in Media, Pennsylvania, on 8 March 1971, took about 1,000 files and mailed them to journalists; the burglars stayed anonymous until 2014.

Which Idaho senator chaired the 1975 committee that exposed CIA and FBI abuses?

Frank Church chaired the Senate select committee, approved 82 to 4 in January 1975, that exposed CIA assassination plots and the FBI's COINTELPRO; 1975 became known as the 'Year of Intelligence'.

The CIA's remote-viewing Stargate Project was shut down in what year?

The CIA closed the Stargate Project in 1995 after an American Institutes for Research review found the psychics' intelligence vague and often wrong despite statistically odd lab results; the unit had been named Sun Streak in the 1980s.

Barney and Betty Hill claimed a 1961 alien abduction while driving through which state?

The Hills were driving home through New Hampshire's White Mountains in September 1961; ufologists linked Betty's star map to Zeta Reticuli, and in 2011 the state put up a historical marker at the site.

Rendlesham Forest, site of Britain's most famous UFO case in 1980, is in which county?

Rendlesham Forest lies in Suffolk between RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge; US airmen reported the lights in December 1980, and sceptics point to a fireball, bright stars and the Orfordness lighthouse.

Which winged humanoid was reported around Point Pleasant, West Virginia in 1966–67?

Mothman was first reported in November 1966 under the headline 'Couples See Man-Sized Bird'; John Keel's 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies tied the sightings to the December 1967 Silver Bridge collapse.

The 1967 Patterson–Gimlin film, the best-known Bigfoot footage, was shot in which state?

It was shot at Bluff Creek in Northern California's Six Rivers National Forest on 20 October 1967; the 953 frames last about 53 seconds if run at 18 frames per second.

Hoaxer Pierre Plantard founded which 'order' in 1956, later central to The Da Vinci Code?

Plantard registered the Priory of Sion in 1956 and later claimed it guarded a Merovingian bloodline; The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982) fused that with a Jesus bloodline, and Dan Brown borrowed the lot.

Which Yale senior society, founded in 1832, is a magnet for elite-cabal theories?

Skull and Bones, also called The Order or Order 322, is Yale's oldest senior-class society, one of the 'Big Three' with Scroll and Key and Wolf's Head; alumni include both Bushes and John Kerry.

A conspiracy broadcaster secretly filmed the 'Cremation of Care' rite in 2000 where?

The broadcaster sneaked into Bohemian Grove in Sonoma County, California, in July 2000 and filmed the ceremony at the Owl Shrine beside the lake; he called it a 'ritual sacrifice', which other reporting does not support.

Which InfoWars host was ordered to pay about $1.5 billion over his Sandy Hook lies?

Alex Jones was hit with verdicts of roughly $1.4 billion in Connecticut and $49 million in Texas in 2022 after juries found he had called the 2012 massacre a hoax; families said his followers harassed them for years.

Texas's governor ordered the State Guard to monitor which 2015 US military exercise?

Jade Helm 15 was a summer 2015 Special Operations drill across several southwestern states; theorists claimed it was cover for martial law, and Republican legislator Todd Smith told Greg Abbott he was 'pandering to idiots'.

French writer Renaud Camus coined which white-nationalist conspiracy theory?

Camus set out the Great Replacement in his 2011 book Le Grand Remplacement, claiming native Europeans are being swapped for non-white immigrants; it nests within the older 'white genocide' idea pushed by neo-Nazi David Lane in the 1990s.

Fox News paid $787.5 million in 2023 to settle a defamation suit by which company?

Dominion Voting Systems settled with Fox for $787.5 million in April 2023 just as opening statements were due in Delaware; Fox acknowledged the court's ruling that it had broadcast false statements about the company.

The 'Great Reset' conspiracy theory grew out of a 2020 recovery plan from which body?

World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab launched 'The Great Reset' in June 2020 as a post-pandemic 'stakeholder economy' plan; it was to be the theme of the 2021 Davos meeting, which the pandemic cancelled.

Which British doctor's fraudulent 1998 Lancet paper linked the MMR vaccine to autism?

Andrew Wakefield's 1998 paper was retracted by The Lancet in February 2010 after the General Medical Council found him dishonest; it struck him off that May, and journalist Brian Deer had exposed his undisclosed financial interests.

Hillary Clinton's 1998 'vast right-wing conspiracy' remark came on which morning show?

Hillary Clinton said it on NBC's Today with Matt Lauer on 27 January 1998, days after the Lewinsky story broke; the phrase echoed a 1995 White House memo by Chris Lehane on the 'conspiracy commerce' media stream.

'Stop the Steal' was coined in 2016 by which Republican operative?

Roger Stone launched 'Stop the Steal' in 2016 as a website and committee warning of a rigged election; Women for America First co-founder Amy Kremer revived the name as a Facebook group during the 2020 count.

Jeffrey Epstein, of 'didn't kill himself' meme fame, died in 2019 at which New York jail?

Epstein was found dead on 10 August 2019 in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan; the two guards on duty were later charged with falsifying records after skipping their rounds.

The Met Police's Operation Paget examined conspiracy claims about whose 1997 death?

Operation Paget, led by Met Commissioner Lord Stevens, reported in December 2006 that Princess Diana's Paris crash was an accident and every allegation was without foundation; the 2008 inquest blamed grossly negligent driving and the paparazzi.

Avril Lavigne was supposedly replaced in 2003 by a double with what first name?

The claim began on a 2011 Brazilian blog, Avril Esta Morta, which says a double named Melissa Vandella took over; believers cite a photoshoot in which the singer has 'Melissa' written on her hand.

ZetaTalk founder Nancy Lieder first made which doomsday planet prediction in 1995?

Lieder's Nibiru cataclysm warned that a rogue planet would pass Earth; she first set the date for May 2003, then folded it into the 2012 phenomenon, and NASA has issued repeated denials.

Which two English pranksters admitted in 1991 to making over 200 crop circles?

Doug Bower and Dave Chorley told the press in September 1991 that they had begun in 1978 with a plank, rope and a wire-loop cap, inspired by the 1966 Tully 'saucer nest' case in Queensland.

The 1908 Tunguska explosion, beloved of alien-crash theorists, flattened forest where?

The blast, near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in central Siberia, felled trees across some 2,150 square kilometres of taiga; estimates put its yield at 3 to 30 megatons.

Which 1977 thriller depicts a faked crewed Mars landing?

Capricorn One, written and directed by Peter Hyams, has NASA fake a Mars landing in a studio; the astronaut cast included James Brolin, Sam Waterston and O. J. Simpson.

Richard Hofstadter's 1964 essay 'The Paranoid Style in American Politics' first ran where?

The essay ran in Harper's Magazine in November 1964, soon after Barry Goldwater took the Republican nomination, and became the standard reference for the conspiratorial mindset.

In the 1997 film Conspiracy Theory, Mel Gibson plays a paranoid man with what job?

Mel Gibson's Jerry Fletcher is a New York taxi driver who publishes a conspiracy newsletter; Richard Donner directed, and Julia Roberts plays the Justice Department lawyer drawn into his world.

Who was convicted and executed for setting the February 1933 Reichstag fire?

Marinus van der Lubbe was found inside the burning Reichstag on 27 February 1933 and executed in January 1934; the Nazis blamed a Communist plot, and historians have long argued whether he really acted alone.

The Gleiwitz incident of 31 August 1939 was a staged attack on what kind of facility?

SS men in Polish uniforms seized the German radio station at Gleiwitz and broadcast an anti-German message as a pretext for invading Poland the next day; the operation was led by Alfred Naujocks.

In 1999, FSB agents were caught planting a bomb-like 'drill' device in which city?

Residents in Ryazan found sacks wired to a detonator in their basement on 22 September 1999; FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev called it a drill with sugar, which fuels claims the apartment bombings were a pretext for the Second Chechen War.

Rudolf Hess flew solo to which country in May 1941, inspiring decades of theories?

Hess parachuted into Scotland near Eaglesham on 10 May 1941, hoping to open peace talks with the Duke of Hamilton; he served life in Spandau, and theorists long asked whether the prisoner was a double.

Stalin told the Potsdam Conference that Hitler was alive in Spain or which other country?

Stalin told Truman at Potsdam in July 1945 that Hitler had escaped to Spain or Argentina; the dental remains kept in Moscow, examined by French researchers in 2018, match Hitler's records and confirm he died in Berlin.

Cuba's ex-spy chief put the number of CIA plots against Fidel Castro at what figure?

Fabian Escalante, former head of Cuban counter-intelligence, counted 638 plots, the title of a 2006 documentary; the 1975 Senate intelligence inquiry itself substantiated eight attempts, including a scheme to lace cigars with botulinum toxin.

Which tech billionaire was falsely accused of using COVID vaccines to implant microchips?

Bill Gates, whose foundation funded vaccine work, was the target; he has said he cannot imagine what purpose anyone thinks tracking people would serve, and the theories spread mainly on Facebook.

The 'mud flood' theory claims which lost empire's buildings were buried and re-labelled?

Tartaria believers say a global 'Tartarian' empire was erased; Tartary was simply an old European name for a swath of Central and North Asia, and the theory began as pseudoscientific Russian nationalism.

Which three letters typed in Wingdings produced a skull, Star of David and thumbs-up?

Typing NYC in Wingdings, shipped with Windows 3.1 in 1992, gave a skull, Star of David and thumbs-up, read by some as an antisemitic message; Microsoft's later Webdings font deliberately renders NYC as eye, heart and skyline.