10 Outlandish Conspiracies That Were Actually True

6. Naughty Ronald Reagan And The Iran-Contra Affair

Well, that was a fun jaunt across to mainland Europe, but now it's back to the general awfulness, backstabbing and Machiavellian world of American political history that allowed George RR Martin to make serious bank by just dressing all that up in fantasy drag and calling it Game of Thrones.

Not to be outdone by Tricky Dicky, when Ronald Reagan took office in the eighties he was intent to prove that he was just as awful a President as he was a Hollywood actor. The cherry on top of a period in office that saw him screw over poor people, screw over anybody who wasn't white and get shot was the Iran-Contra affair. The Iran-Contra affair was such a clustercuss of illicit activities that it's bonkers that anybody thought they could get away with it in the first place, let alone that they actually did get away with it for a good while.

This secret arrangement was a culmination of two separate - and totally illegal - acts the government got their hands dirty with: first, selling weapons to Iran (who were subject of an arms embargo at the time); second, using the money from those sales to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

Sounds simple enough, right? Not really, but bear with us, 'cause it gets worse from there. Besides helping the Contras in their fight against the Sandinista government - something which congress had just passed a law strictly prohibiting - the sales of arms to Iran was supposed to secure the release of US hostages in the country and maybe enure the country a little more to a Western way of thinking.

The actual outcome of all this conspiratorial covering up of thoroughly unconstitutional behaviour was that the Reagan administration had to fully disclose all details of their dealings, and lots of people lost their jobs. Except the President, of course, who had the good sense not to keep a library full of tapes where he copped to his involvement.