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Identification
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Chronology
This page highlights incidents of historic and contemporary
identity theft, along with selected legislation.
Context is provided by the broader timeline
on this site and the chronology on personal identification
& surveillance here.
sons of God
580 'Christ' and 'Mary' of Arles
744 'Bishops' Adelbert and Clement
1190 False Frederick Barbarossas
1255 False Baldwin of Jerusalem appears in Flanders
1284 False Frederick II
1389 Paulus Tigrinus pretends to be Patriarch of Constantinople
1392 imposter bishop James of Jülich boiled alive
and royalty
1450 Jack Cade, supposed Earl of Mortimer, nearly captures
London
1486 Lambert Simnel (c 1475-1535), crowned in Dublin as
Edward VI
1497 Perkin Warbeck claims to be Richard Duke of York
1560 Martin Guerre
1578 four King Sebastians of Portugal
1605 first False Tsar Dimitri of Russia
1610 second and third False Dimitris
1760s three False Tsar Peters (following death of Catherine
the Great's husband in 1762 palace coup)
1790s thirty self-proclaimed Louis XVIIs (False Dauphin
Louis)
1830s false Constantine of Russia
clothes maketh the man?
1866 Roger Tichborne Case
1906 Wilhelm Voigt (Captain von Köpenick)
1910 Virginia Woolf successfully pretends to be Emperor
of Abyssinia
1919 three FalseTsarevichs
1921 Kumar of Bhawal
1922 Anna Anderson claims to be Anastasia Romanov
1925 Victor Lustig sells Eiffel Tower
1934 Stavisky incident in France
1935 federal Social Security Act provides basis
for national Social Security Number (SSN)
1939 national ID card reintroduced in UK
1986 Australia Card proposed
1991 John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation
1998 US federal Identity Theft & Assumption Deterrence
Act
1999 US federal Financial Services Moderization Act
2000 Binjamin Wilkomirski imposture
2003 US Federal Trade Commission estimates that identity
theft cost US consumers and businesses US$53 billion in
2002
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