List Of Conspiracies (political)

This is a list of political conspiracies. In a political context, a conspiracy refers to a group of people united in the goal of damaging, usurping, 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.

List

* 1971 BCE - Apophis Kush Alliance against Egypt as attested to in the second Kamose stele
* 399 BCE – Conspiracy of Cinadon to overthrow the government of ancient Sparta to grant rights to helots and poorer Spartans
* 63 BCE - First Catilinarian conspiracy and the Second Catilinarian conspiracy
* 44 BCE - Liberatores plot assassination of Julius Caesar to restore Roman Republic
* 65 CE - Pisonian conspiracy against Nero
* 1478 Pazzi conspiracy, a plot by Pope Sixtus IV and the Pazzi family to depose the House of Medici in the Republic of Florence
* 1506 - Conspiracy against the life of the brothers Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara and Cardinal Ippolito d'Este in the Duchy of Ferrara, coordinated by their half brother Giulio d'Este and full brother Ferrante d'Este
* 1569 - 1569 Plot against John III of Sweden.
* 1570 - Ridolfi plot against Elizabeth I of England
* 1574 - Mornay Plot against John III of Sweden.
* 1583 - Throckmorton Plot by English Catholics led by Sir Francis Throckmorton to coordinate an invasion of England led by Henry I, Duke of Guise, to murder Elizabeth, and replace her with her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots
* 1586 - Babington Plot, plot by Anthony Babington and John Ballard to assassinate Elizabeth and coordinate an invasion of England by King Philip II of Spain and the Holy League. Discovered by Sir Francis Walsingham and led to execution of Mary, Queen of Scots
* 1603 - Main Plot to remove James I of England and enthrone Arbella Stuart allegedly led by Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham, and sponsored by Spain.
* 1603 - Bye Plot, leads to the execution of Sir George Brooke
* 1605 - Gunpowder Plot to blow up the House of Lords by 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; foiled after a letter to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, and the discovery and arrest of Guy Fawkes. Often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot; origin of Guy Fawkes Day
* 1718–1720 The Pontcallec conspiracy during the minority of Louis XV to overthrow the Regent Philippe II, Duke of Orléans in favour of Philip V of Spain
* 1749 - Conspiracy of the Slaves by Muslim slaves in Hospitaller-ruled Malta to kill Grand Master Manuel Pinto da Fonseca and take over the island with the help of the Barbary states.
* 1756 - Coup of 1756 was an attempted coup d'état planned by Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden to abolish the rule of the Riksdag of the Estates and reinstate absolute monarchy in Sweden.
* 1788 - Anjala conspiracy
* 1789 - 1789 Conspiracy (Sweden) against Gustav III of Sweden.
* 1793 - Armfelt Conspiracy against Charles XIII of Sweden.
* 1796 – The Conspiracy of the Equals, led by François-Noël 'Gracchus' Babeuf, which attempted to overthrow the Directoire
* 1807 - The Burr conspiracy, an alleged plot by former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr and a cabal of his supporters to establish an independent country in the American Southwest. The accusations would lead to Burr being arrested and later indicted for treason.
* 1820 - The Cato Street Conspiracy, a plot to murder all the British Cabinet Ministers and the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool. A police informer resulted in the arrest of 13 plotters. Five conspirators were executed and five others were transported to Australia.
* 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. It had originated as a plot by Confederate sympathizers to kidnap Lincoln and force the Union to negotiate for either a release of prisoners of war or an end to the American Civil War.
* 1898 - The Dreyfus Affair, a coordinated attempt to falsely accuse Alfred Dreyfus of treason
* 1914 - The Serbian Black Hand secret society aided the nationalist group Young Bosnia in planning and organizing the assassination Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, thereby triggering a series of events that resulted in World War I.
* 1941 - Operation Spark, a planned attempt on the life of Adolf Hitler.
* 1944 - July 20 Plot - An attempt to assassinate Hitler with suitcase bomb at a conference at the Wolf's Lair in Kętrzyn, Rastenburg, East Prussia, and then use Operation Valkyrie to grab power
* 1945 - The Soviet Union, Soviet Union's infiltration of the Manhattan Project through atomic spies such as George Koval and Klaus Fuchs. Soviet intelligence was eventually confirmed by a declassified United States Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report and the Venona project, and assisted the Soviet atomic bomb project.
* 1951 - Rawalpindi conspiracy - failed coup against Liaquat Ali Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan.
* 1953 - 1953 Iranian coup d'état, Iranian coup d'état - The Imperial Iranian Armed Forces restores the List of monarchs of Persia, Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and overthrows Prime Minister of Iran, Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh with the aid of Central Intelligence Agency, CIA and Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.
*1959 - Bangkok Plot - a plan to overthrow Premier of Cambodia Prince Norodom Sihanouk, formulated by Cambodian politicians with international support.
* 1971 - 1971 Ugandan coup d'état, Ugandan coup d'état - Uganda Army (1962-1971), Ugandan Army units loyal to Idi Amin, General Idi Amin deposed the government of Milton Obote, President Milton Obote while he was abroad attending the annual 1971 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
* 1972 - Watergate scandal - The burglary of the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex by Committee for the Re-Election of the President, CREEP and subsequent cover-up scandals that forced Richard Nixon, President Richard Nixon to resign in 1974.
* 1973 - 1973 Chilean coup d'état, Chilean coup d'état -a group of military officers led by General Augusto Pinochet and backed by the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA seized power from democratically-elected leftist President Salvador Allende, ending civilian rule and establishing a U.S.-backed dictatorship
* 1981 - 23F - An attempted coup d'etat or putsch in Spain by the military where politicians in the Congress of Deputies were held hostage for 18 hours. King Juan Carlos I denounced the coup in a televised address. This caused the coup to eventually collapse.
* 1984 - Brighton hotel bombing - attempted assassination of Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet by the Provisional IRA at the Grand Brighton Hotel, Grand Hotel in Brighton, resulted in the death of Chief Whip, Deputy Chief Whip Anthony Berry.
* 1984 - 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack, Rajneeshee bioterror attack
* 1987 - Iran-Contra Affair - sale of arms to Iran to fund the Contras in Nicaragua by Reagan Administration officials to circumvent the Boland Amendment
* 1990 - Nayirah testimony, a false testimony to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, Congressional Human Rights Caucus organized by public relations firm Hill & Knowlton for the Kuwaiti government
* 2001 - September 11 attacks - Attacks on the World Trade Center (1973–2001), World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, Arlington, Virginia, and a planned fourth target in Washington, D.C., Washington D.C. using Aircraft hijacking, hijacked airplanes by al-Qaeda.
* 2003 - Plame affair - publication of Valerie Plame, Valerie Plame's employment as a covert Central Intelligence Agency, CIA officer by Robert Novak, who learned it from Richard Armitage (naval officer), Richard Armitage, after her husband Joseph C. Wilson published a The New York Times, ''New York Times'' op-ed expressing doubt that Saddam Hussein purchased uranium from Niger. Lead to conviction of Scooter Libby for obstruction of justice and perjury.
* 2015 - November 2015 Paris attacks - attacks on targets in Paris, including an Eagles of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan (theatre), Bataclan theatre and the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis, conducted by coordinated teams of Islamic terrorism, Islamic terrorists affiliated with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIS.

Fabricated conspiracies

* 1924 - The Zinoviev letter, published in the ''Daily Mail'' in London before the 1924 United Kingdom general election, 1924 general election, is a forgery that impacted the vote. It was signed with the name of Grigory Zinoviev, a politician in the Soviet Union and the leader of the Communist International, and called on violent action by the Communist Party of Great Britain. It was devised by Anti-communism, anti-Communist White émigré, White Russian émigrés in Paris and the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party blamed it for its defeat.
*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

False flag operations

* 1931 - The Mukden Incident or the Manchurian Incident - The Imperial Japanese Army sabotaged a railway section near a Chinese garrison at Beidaying as a pretext for a Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
* 1933 - Reichstag fire. In February 1933 the NSDAP operatives ignited the German Parliament, the Reichstag. Government accused the Communist into attempt of coup d etat. Hitler obtained an absolute and unlimited power and outlawed all political parties, that were not associated with NSDAP
* 1939 - Shelling of Mainila - False flag, false-flag artillery attack by the Red Army to provide the Soviet Union with a pretext for the Winter War against Finland.
* 1939 - Operation Himmler and its Gleiwitz incident - False flag, false-flag attacks, including on a Radio broadcasting, radio station in Gliwice, Gleiwitz, by Nazi Germany and Schutzstaffel, SS officers disguised as Polish Armed Forces personnel as a pretext for the invasion of Poland
* 1954 - Lavon affair Operation Susannah, "False Flag" terrorism by Mossad

See also

* List of assassinations
* List of coups and coup attempts by country
* List of terrorist incidents
* List of conspiracy theories
* Seditious conspiracy
* History of espionage

References

Further reading

* Burnett, Thom. ''Conspiracy Encyclopedia: The Encyclopedia of Conspiracy Theories'' (2006)
* Critchlow, Donald T., John Korasick, Matthew C. Sherman, eds. ''Political Conspiracies in America: A Reader'' (2008
online
* Coward, Barry, and Julian Swann. ''Conspiracies and conspiracy theory in early modern Europe: from the Waldensians to the French revolution'' (Routledge, 2017).
* Dean, Jodi. ''Aliens in America: Conspiracy Culture from Outerspace to Cyberspace'' (Cornell University Press, 1998).
* Knight, Peter, ed. ''Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia'' (2003)
* Lewis, Jon E. ''The Mammoth Book of Cover-Ups: The 100 Most Terrifying Conspiracies of All Time'' (2008
excerpt
* Newton, Michael, ed. ''Famous Assassinations in World History: An Encyclopedia'' (2 vol ABC-CLIO, 2014), covers 266 assassinations and attempted assassinations of world political leaders from 465 BCE to 2012.
* Newton, Michael, ed. ''The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories'' (2005)
* Sifakis, Carl. ''Encyclopedia of Assassinations'' (Facts on File 2001),
* Wood, Gordon. “Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style: Causality and Deceit in the Eighteenth Century.” ''William and Mary Quarterly'' 39 (1982): 401–41
online
US history

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