Every confirmed case

The CIA's own surviving records and 1977 Senate testimony document the program, the unwitting drug testing and the 1973 file destruction.

Federal records and 1920s press coverage confirm the government deliberately made industrial alcohol more lethal; only the exact death toll is uncertain.

Cartel records studied by historians show members agreed to a 1,000-hour bulb life and fined factories whose bulbs outlasted it.

Stolen and later released FBI files, plus the Church Committee's findings, document a long covert campaign against domestic political groups.

The industry's own archived correspondence shows it funded and shaped a 1967 review that played down sugar's role in heart disease.

A federal court found under racketeering law that the major tobacco companies deceived the public about smoking's dangers for decades.

The NSA's own declassified history concluded the August 4 attack did not occur and that intelligence was skewed to suggest it had.

Presidential admission, a special commission, congressional hearings and an independent counsel's prosecutions all documented the secret arms sales and the diversion scheme.

Leaked court orders, official acknowledgment and a federal appeals ruling confirmed bulk collection of Americans' phone records, which Congress then ended.

The declassified memo proves military leaders proposed staged attacks to justify war with Cuba; the plan was rejected and never carried out.

A presidential advisory committee documented all 18 injections and found no expectation that any patient would benefit.

The Army itself disclosed the 1950 release at Senate hearings; only its link to the Stanford infections remains unproven.

Declassified military records, examined by NPR and acknowledged by the VA, confirm the secret tests and their race-based design.

Declassified records and a presidential advisory committee confirm the deliberate, unannounced release of iodine-131 over Washington state.

The presidential radiation committee documented the experiments and the misleading consent letters; a 1998 settlement compensated former subjects.

Army records and a 1997 National Research Council review confirm the tests; the scientists found the health risk to residents very low.

Army records, Defense Department figures and federal court rulings confirm the program and the government's duty to the subjects.

The Defense Department itself declassified the tests from 2000 onward, and the VA recognizes the veterans who served in them.

Researchers' own records, a presidential commission and a formal U.S. apology confirm the deliberate infection of Guatemalans without consent.

The CDC's own history confirms the 40-year study, the withheld penicillin and the formal presidential apology.

National Park Service records document the shooting, the troop buildup and the 1872 arbitration, and agree that no soldier died.

The blockade, the bombardment and the 600,000-peso settlement are well documented; the pastry claim was real but only one of many French grievances.

Britannica and Georgia historians confirm Jenkins displayed his ear to Parliament and the war followed, though trade disputes were the real cause.

Militias mobilized and one deputy was stabbed, but no one died; Congress settled the boundary in 1836.

The militia standoff, the sheriff's arrest and the 1849 Supreme Court ruling are documented; the bee trees are part of the standard account.

The war and the qualifying matches are real, but historians agree the causes were land and migration; the games were the final provocation.

Contemporary records confirm a bombardment of under an hour, with about 500 Zanzibari casualties and one British sailor wounded.

The military cull really happened and largely failed; Meredith's kill counts are his own and probably exaggerated.

The contaminated plate is documented, though Fleming's notes are thin and exactly how the mold arrived remains unknown.

The unexpected glowing screen is well documented, though the details of the first evening come from later reconstructions.

DuPont records and the Science History Institute document the mysterious cylinder and the white powder inside.

3M's history and Silver's obituaries confirm the failed strong glue of 1968 and Fry's hymnal bookmark of 1974.

Goodyear's own published account documents the stove incident, though he insisted it rewarded years of experimenting rather than pure luck.

Greatbatch described the wrong-resistor moment himself, and the Heart Rhythm Society and MIT Technology Review both recount it.

Fahlberg's sweet-tasting hands are documented in his own account and in histories of the Remsen dispute.

Coover's 1942 rejection and the ruined refractometer prisms of 1951 are documented by the Lemelson-MIT program and contemporary obituaries.

The 1961 ordinance is real and has not been reported repealed, though it was a promotional stunt and has only been enforced as a joke.

New Jersey's 1949 Retail Gasoline Dispensing Safety Act still bars self-service gas, making it the only state with a total ban.

Arkansas Code section 1-4-105 sets the official pronunciation; it is in force, but it carries no penalty for saying it wrong.

A real, long-lived city stood at Hisarlik and fits ancient Troy; whether Homer's war happened as told remains debated.

Machu Picchu is a real Inca royal estate; it was known locally long before 1911 and was publicized, not discovered, by Bingham.

Excavation confirmed a major Bronze Age city, and with it a civilization that had vanished from written history.

The buried city at the foot of Vesuvius was positively identified as Pompeii by an inscription in 1763.

Petra was lost only to European geography; local Bedouin lived in it, and Burckhardt's 1812 visit reconnected it to the outside world.

Cahokia was a large Native American city; the lost-race myth that denied its builders credit has been thoroughly refuted.

Teyuna is a real Tairona city that Indigenous communities always knew; it became known to outsiders through looting in the 1970s.

Peer-reviewed lidar analysis revealed a large Classic Maya city; on-the-ground study was still needed when it was announced in 2024.

The wreck and its cargo, including the Antikythera mechanism, are well documented and still being excavated.

Ponzi's collapse, arrest, federal and state convictions, and deportation are all documented in court and newspaper records.

Chadwick's forged Carnegie notes, the Oberlin bank failure, and her 1905 federal conviction are matters of public record.

Poyais was fictional, the 1822 loan and settler voyages are documented, and most colonists died; a Paris court acquitted MacGregor in 1826.

Canadian naval records and contemporary reporting confirm Demara served as a ship's surgeon under a stolen identity and operated on wounded men.

Van Meegeren proved his forgeries by painting one under supervision, and a Dutch court convicted him of forgery and fraud in 1947.

A Manhattan jury convicted Sorokin in 2019 of grand larceny and theft of services, and she was sentenced to four to 12 years.

Court records document his false identities, his 2009 kidnapping conviction, and his 2013 first-degree murder conviction in the death of John Sohus.

The underground mine fire that began in 1962 is documented and still burning, and it drove the state-funded relocation of the town.

Brinicles are a well-understood result of brine rejection in freezing seawater, first filmed forming in 2011.

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology explains the Morning Glory as an atmospheric wave set off by colliding sea breezes over Cape York.

Glowing surf is bioluminescence from dinoflagellate blooms, a well-documented chemical reaction triggered by motion.

Field studies show volcanic lightning comes from charge built up by colliding ash particles and, in tall plumes, by ice.

Satellite data confirm the world's highest lightning density over Lake Maracaibo, driven by trapped moist air and surrounding mountains.

Official accounts confirm that Thule radar mistook moonrise for a Soviet missile attack, sending NORAD to maximum alert until the error was recognized.

Documented accounts confirm that one failed telephone relay cut SAC's links to its warning systems and triggered a full bomber alert.

Declassified records confirm two hydrogen bombs fell on North Carolina and that one switch prevented detonation; how close it came remains debated.

Khrushchev's own October 28 letter confirms the overflight and his fear it could be taken for a nuclear bomber.

Declassified U.S. records confirm a training scenario loaded into a NORAD computer triggered a false attack warning and alert actions.

Defense Department findings confirm a failed computer chip caused the June 1980 false attack warnings that put bomber crews at their engines.

Russian and Western accounts confirm the research rocket triggered an alert and the activation of Yeltsin's nuclear briefcase.

Russian accounts confirm the satellite false alarm and Petrov's call; only how much his decision alone prevented war is debated.

The Rogers Commission documented both the 1985 memo and the night-before warning against a cold-weather launch.

Documented concerns about the rebuilt dam, including Cambria Iron's, were dismissed years before it failed.

A 2004 federal exercise modeled a flooded New Orleans, and Congress found its lessons were only partly put into practice.

The Senate inquiry documented multiple ice warnings received that day and found no action was taken on them.

The official tribunal found clear warnings about the tip had gone unheeded and blamed the National Coal Board.

Leaks were reported to Mulholland hours before the collapse; investigators also documented deep flaws in his site work.

Years of slope movement and an earlier slide were recorded before the collapse, and warnings were not acted on in time.

TEPCO's own 2008 simulations warned of a much larger tsunami, and the results were not acted on before 2011.

A 2018 engineering report flagged major structural damage under the pool deck; federal investigators later found the collapse began there.

The investigation board documented the foam history, engineers' imagery requests and management's dismissal of the risk.

The stele is genuine and excavated in context; most scholars read it as naming the House of David, a minority dissent.

An Egyptian royal inscription from about 1208 BC names Israel as a people in Canaan, the earliest known reference.

A Moabite king's own inscription names King Omri of Israel and describes the revolt also recorded in 2 Kings 3.

Assyrian reliefs, an excavated siege ramp and Hebrew letters from the site independently confirm both biblically described sieges of Lachish.

The tunnel and its builders' inscription are real, and independent scientific dating places construction around 700 BC, matching Hezekiah's reign.

A royal seal impression naming Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, was recovered in a controlled excavation, matching the Bible's king and father.

A large stepped pool of the right period has been excavated at the end of Hezekiah's Tunnel, where ancient sources place Siloam.

Caiaphas is attested by Josephus, and the ossuary is genuine; its link to the high priest himself is widely accepted but not universal.

A contemporary Roman inscription names Pontius Pilate as prefect of Judea, confirming his office and title.