History & Ancient Civilizations Theories

Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish Alsatian artillery officer in the French Army, was convicted of treason on 22 December 1894 on the basis of a handwritten document (bordereau) wrongly attributed to him, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. The real spy was Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. In 1896 Lt Col Georges Picquart discovered the bordereau's handwriting matched Esterhazy, but military hierarchy suppressed the finding. Émile Zola's open letter J'Accuse...! (L'Aurore, 13 January 1898) brought the case to international attention. Esterhazy fled to England in 1898. After a 1899 Rennes retrial reaffirmed conviction with mitigation and a presidential pardon, Dreyfus was fully rehabilitated by the Cour de cassation in 1906.

From the late 1960s through the early 1980s, the Chicago Outfit and allied Mob families skimmed unreported cash from Las Vegas casinos operated through the Argent Corporation — fronting the Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda, and Marina properties. FBI operations Strawman and Strawman II produced wire recordings and informant testimony that led to the convictions of Chicago bosses Joseph Aiuppa and Jackie Cerone and associates in 1986. The scheme is documented in FBI files, court records, and testimony. It formed the basis for Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese's Casino (1995).