Index/Organizations/British Library

British Library

National library of the United Kingdom

Fact-Checks

9 results
Dec 13, 2025
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Did Albert Pike actually write a letter predicting three world wars and where is the primary source?

The widely circulated “Albert Pike letter to Mazzini” that supposedly predicts three world wars has no verifiable primary-source trail in major institutional collections; searches and Freedom of Infor...

Jan 12, 2026
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Did Albert Pike write any letters about future wars and are they authenticated?

A letter widely attributed to 19th‑century Freemason Albert Pike that allegedly predicts three world wars — including a future clash between “political Zionism” and Islam — is a modern forgery in the ...

Jan 23, 2026
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What evidence do scholars cite about the provenance and authenticity of the alleged 1871 Pike–Mazzini letter?

Scholars who have examined the alleged 15 August 1871 "" letter overwhelmingly treat it as unauthenticated or a forgery, primarily citing the absence of any verifiable archival provenance, the lack of...

Jan 17, 2026

What primary sources exist for Albert Pike's correspondence from the 1870s?

The documentary trail for Albert Pike’s 1870s correspondence is scattered across university special collections, state archives and historical societies that hold dated letters and finding aids; sever...

Dec 16, 2025

What textual sources and manuscript traditions underpin the Ethiopian Bible (Ethiopic/Ge'ez) and how are they dated?

The Ethiopian (Geʽez) Bible rests on a long manuscript culture: oldest physical witnesses include the Garima Gospels (parchment dated by carbon tests to roughly 4th–7th centuries) and many later codic...

Jan 12, 2026

What manuscripts and dating evidence support unique Ethiopian readings of 1 Enoch?

The unique Ethiopian witness to 1 Enoch rests on a dense medieval manuscript tradition in Geʽez (Ethiopic) — the only surviving complete versions — combined with fragmentary Aramaic and Greek evidence...

Jan 27, 2026

What are the major manuscript sources for Geʽez texts of the Ethiopian canon and where are they held?

The principal manuscript witnesses for of the n canon survive both inside Ethiopia—chiefly in monastery libraries and —and across a network of foreign repositories that collected or microfilmed Ethiop...

Jan 19, 2026

Are there documented earlier texts or forgeries that influenced the Pike world-war letters myth?

The widely circulated “Albert Pike three world wars” letter appears to be a modern concoction built from earlier anti‑Masonic hoaxes and mid‑20th century conspiracy amplification rather than a verifia...

Jan 10, 2026

How have historians and archivists evaluated the authenticity of the Pike three-world-wars letter?

The overwhelming judgment among historians and archivists is that the so‑called Albert Pike letter forecasting “three world wars” lacks credible provenance and is almost certainly a modern hoax rather...