The CIA tried to poison Castro’s milkshake

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Fidel Castro

From exploding cigars and poisoned Cohibas to an infected scuba suit and plans to drug a TV studio with LSD, this account catalogs the CIA's strangest—and consistently unsuccessful—attempts to kill Fidel Castro over decades.

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

The US tried to overthrow the communist government in Cuba—and failed

In 1961, the US backed an invasion of Cuba by anti-Castro exiles, aiming to spark an uprising against the communist government. The operation collapsed within days, embarrassing the US and pushing Cuba closer to the Soviet Union.

How the CIA used 'Animal Farm' as Cold War propaganda

After Orwell's death in 1950, undercover agents bought the book's film rights from his widow and got to work creating a family-friendly version of the story that would reinforce its anti-Soviet themes and downplay its criticisms of capitalism and sympathetic portrayal of Snowball, the Trotsky analog.

The US intervened in Latin America to block communist influence during the Cold War

Fearing Soviet expansion, the US intervened across Latin America by backing coups, funding right-wing regimes, and supporting anti-communist militias—most notably in Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua and Guatemala.

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

Visualize how Coca-Cola's secret formula has changed over time

Coca-Cola contained small amounts of cocaine until the early 1900s—but that's not the only time Coca-Cola has altered its recipe over the years. For instance, Coca-Cola transitioned from cane sugar to high-fructose corn syrup in the 1980s.

Scholars allege the CIA funded the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop

The graduate program—which instructed legendary writers like Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, and John Berryman—received funding from several CIA fronts. Some academics suggest this was in the service of promoting a realist American literature as a counterpoint to Soviet fiction.

A movie helped make JFK assassination conspiracies widespread

Oliver Stone's film "JFK" (1991) imagined the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy as the result of a conspiracy by US government agents. Before the film, this belief was not common, but it became widely adopted afterward. The film's impact contributed to the release of major CIA files in subsequent decades. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Oil nationalization triggered the CIA‑backed 1953 coup in Iran

NPR's Four Days in August podcast recounts the four days of covert CIA‑UK operations in Iran that toppled Prime Minister Mossadegh in August 1953. Threats of Iranian oil nationalization were a major driver of the decision to facilitate regime change.

An NSA analyst helped avert nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis

In October 1962, NSA cryptographer Juanita Moody headed analysis of U‑2 surveillance data and urgently produced intelligence on Soviet missile deployments in Cuba. Her reports drove high-level US decision-making, and were critical to avoiding nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Watergate's anti-Castro Latino burglars believed they were fighting communism

Among the Watergate burglars, Virgilio González, Bernard Barker, and Eugenio Martínez were Cuban American anti-Castro exiles who believed they were combating communist influence in the United States.

McDonald's intentionally avoids using the word 'milkshake'

The restaurant's US menus use an abbreviated term: the simple "shake." Conspiracy theorists suggest this means the chain doesn't use actual milk, but the truth is a bit more complicated and—much to their displeasure—mostly related to dairy regulations.

An LSD scientist's role in a US mind control project

Within a decade of LSD's discovery, the US government had launched a secret initiative involving hypnosis and hallucinogens. LSD researcher Louis Jolyon West conducted experiments for the CIA's MKUltra project, which focused on the potential of mind control. He later took part in a criminal trial that hinged on testimony whose sourcing was seemingly inspired by MKUltra experiments. This article explores light shed by West's personal archive.

Camus died in a car crash, which some believe was orchestrated by the KGB

Albert Camus died in 1960, at the age of 46, after his publisher's car crashed into a tree. Italian author Giovanni Catelli, however, alleges that what appeared to be an accident was actually an assassination by the Soviet spy agency as a way to silence the French writer's anti-Soviet beliefs.

A fake vaccine campaign was used to locate Osama bin Laden, fueling vaccine distrust

As part of the intelligence operation to find bin Laden in Pakistan, the US Central Intelligence Agency recruited a Pakistani doctor who ran a fake hepatitis B vaccine campaign and obtained DNA samples from bin Laden. News of this fake campaign fueled further distrust of healthcare workers, attacks on them, and stymied efforts to vaccinate against polio in the region.

The host of ‘The Dating Game’ claimed it was a CIA front

In his 1984 autobiography, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” “Dating Game” host Chuck Barris claimed the show was a front concealing his true job as a contract assassin for the CIA. Despite skeptical responses and a lack of evidence, Barris continued to say the story was true. In 2002, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman adapted the book for the screen.

How a government chemist founded the FDA—by poisoning people

The Poison Squad tells the story of government chemist Dr. Harvey Wiley who, determined to banish these dangerous substances from dinner tables, took on the powerful food manufacturers and their allies.

Watch Anthony Bourdain's meal at El Bulli, which popularized molecular gastronomy

The 'drinks' included cocktails in the form of alcohol-infused sugarcanes, a cotton candy piña colada, and a dual-textured, temperature-changing gin fizz. Foods included a gorgonzola cheese sphere with the consistency of a chocolate egg and a dish of freeze-dried and foam tofu with the appearance and texture of tiramisu.

Sparkling wine was a political tool in the Soviet Union

To show the world that the Soviet Union had recovered after the devastating famine of the early 1930s, leader Josef Stalin turned to a surprising source: sparkling wine. Stalin believed that if everyday citizens could access luxury goods like caviar and Champagne, it would show socialism had succeeded. The result was Sovetskoye Shampanskoye, a Soviet-made sparkler that achieved his goal of availability and affordability if not quality.

One US Marine fighter squadron made their own ice cream during World War II

To boost his squad’s morale during World War II, squadron commander J. Hunter Reinburg developed a method for making ice cream on the fly: Empty ammo cans filled with ingredients were flown at altitudes high enough for them to freeze.

Limited transparency soon after Chernobyl made it a source of conspiracy theories

Some rumors about the event became perceived as more reliable than the Soviet mass media, which had omitted key information during the early days of uncertainty. The resulting theories included CIA involvement in the disaster, three-headed birds, aliens, and a weaponized earthquake.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Salvador Dalí and Coco Chanel bonded over art and fashion

In the late 1930s, Chanel hosted the eccentric artist to like and work in her home. Despite their differing styles, the two icons collaborated, and Chanel even inspired Dalí to mimic her perfume in his artwork.

How the Montreal Protocol made CFCs the most valuable Miami contraband after cocaine

Following the 1990s production ban, smugglers flooded Miami with illegal chlorofluorocarbons used in air conditioning. A 15-kilogram cylinder bought for $70 in Europe could sell for $242 in the US, fueling multimillion-dollar black-market trade. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

Chocolate can be deadly in humans, but only after consuming extraordinary quantities

Based on tests with mice, the lethal dose of chocolate is estimated to be no more than 1,000 mg/kg. This means that the lethal dose of dark chocolate for the average US adult is about 6.5 kilograms (14.33 pounds), or about 8,300 Hershey's kisses, in one sitting.

The strange story behind President Jimmy Carter's brother's 'Billy Beer'

During Carter's 1976 presidential campaign, his brother, Billy Carter, became a sideshow attraction as a country bumpkin. The Louisville-based Falls City Brewing Company decided to capitalize on the attention and hired Carter has a brand ambassador to promote his own "Billy Beer." What followed was a strange, suspicious bit of guerilla marketing and hucksterism, all of it documented in this Mental Floss retrospective.

In 1892, two scientists purposefully infected themselves with cholera bacteria

When they became ill—one with mild diarrhea and the other with severe cholera—researchers pointed to that as proof that the pathogen caused the disease.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Scientists testing how climate change affects plants found, in a years-long simulation study, that poison ivy grew 70% faster with the resulting extra carbon dioxide.

The identity of the Tank Man in the iconic photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests remains unknown and was possibly killed.

Watch contemporary footage covering the US-backed Shah of Iran fleeing the country in the face of the 1979 Iranian Revolution

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

The Dracula character, now seen as the vampire archetype, was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare its creator experienced.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

Learn how monoclonal antibodies, which mimic the body's antibodies, can fight diseases like Ebola.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US