From Napoleon to Hitler, some of the most powerful dictators in history have sought and obtained the Lance of Longinus - also known as the Spear of Destiny.
Said to be the holy sword which was used to slice open Jesus Christ at his Crucifixion, the blade is one of the most precious archeological pieces in the world.
Currently believed to be in the possession of an Austrian museum, myths and rumours have circulated for generations about the spear's supposed mystical powers.
Legend has it that the tip of the spear could allow its owner to rule the world, and the Fuhrer certainly believed in its power, enough to make it his number one priority when invading Austria.
Hitler is understood to have carried the artefact with him in the belief that it could make his Nazi army the rulers of the planet for all eternity.
Where the spear came from, whether it is the blade that pierced the skin of Christ, and what powers it truly possesses are all subject to endless conspiracy theories and folk stories.
Questions still surround the relic.
Could the Spear of Destiny really be the reason Hitler invaded Austria?
Will it be safe in its new location should another maniac come searching for it?
But the most important question remains - How much of this tale is myth, and how much is fact?

From allegedly crooked referees to absolutely crocked players, the FIFA World Cup has had more than its fair share of controversy both on and off the pitch.
Over the years we have watched as the Hand of God robbed England of glory, the diving antics of the Germans went unpunished and penalty heartbreak hit the Three Lions over and over again.
In honour of the start of this year's tournament in South Africa, The Grassy Knoll is taking a look at 5 of the World Cup conspiracy theories that have consumed fans over the years.

For just £800,000 you can now buy yourself a piece of American folklore history.
Because despite what the real estate reports might say, 108 Ocean Avenue in the Long Island, New York, suburb of Amityville, is no ordinary seafront property.
It is in fact the original 112 Ocean Avenue, scene of the most infamous haunting in history, and subject of more books, films and general hysteria than any ghost story ever told.
The tale starts on a chilly November night in 1974 when Ronald DeFeo Jr wakes in the middle of the night and calmly shoots each member of his sleeping family between the eyes.
Confessing to cops after originally concocting a tale involving a mafia hit, he tells officers that he "just couldn't stop" killing and later mounts a defence of insanity based on hearing voices in his head instructing him to slaughter Ronald DeFeo Sr. his mother Louise DeFeo and his four siblings Dawn, 18, Allison, 13, Marc, 12, and John Matthew, 9.
This tragic and brutal murder spree ended in the caging of Ronald DeFeo Jr for six consecutive life terms, and to this day the killer remains in a maximum security lock-up in upstate New York.
But what took place in the year after the slaying of the DeFeos would go on to shock the nation and create a global paranormal phenomena as Kathy and George Lutz, who brought the dream Ocean Avenue property after the killings, claimed they were forced from their home after just 28 days by a demonic spirit which threatened their lives.
In the years that have followed their story has become a movie sensation, a best selling novel and a focus for the paranormal experts who believe this middle class New York couple were truly plagued by spirits from another dimension.
But a more sinister conspiracy has been identified by sceptics.
With millions of dollars in their back pockets, the Lutzes have done well from their terrifying four weeks on Ocean Avenue, and the conspiracy theory runs that this was a very well thought out hoax, aimed at paying off their dream home and ensuring their financial future.
The Lutz family have strenuously denied these claims, but the question still remains, was the Amityville horror story a haunting or a hoax?

Every year the world's most powerful men and women join together to drink cocktails, smoke cigars, and - possibly - control the fate of the entire planet.
Founded in 1954 the Bilderberg group is one of the most infamous and shadowy organisations on earth.
Notable attendees include Presidents and Prime Ministers, captains of industry, media magnates and banking plutocrats.
To most, this group is just another talking shop, a collection of the great and good gathering together to discuss boosting profits.
But many conspiracy theorists fear that these men represent a powerful cabal of dastardly puppet masters, making war, deciding the fate of the public and controlling our lives through their all encompassing influence over the world economy.
Of all the secret society theories, this is the most well developed, not least because Bilderberg members have admitted to attending meetings and have been photographed coming in and out of the swanky hotels where these annual get-togethers are held.
However, the meeting locations are always a closely guarded secret, and there is a strict no press policy.
Maybe they are just publicity shy, or maybe they have something to hide.
Whatever their justifications for the meeting the Bilderbergers are facing some pretty tough questions.
Exactly what are they discussing, how far does their influence reach and is the fate of the world being sealed behind closed doors by a powerful elite answerable to no-one?

Predicting the end of the world is a tough job.
From the crown prince of prophecies Nostradamus, down to deluded dimwits like David Icke, many have tried, and all have failed to name the date of Armageddon.
Forecast since biblical times, the idea that one day, maybe in our lifetimes, the world will shudder to a halt has become one of the most powerful fears in human history.
We all seem to believe that somehow, someday, whether through supernova or nuclear holocaust, something will change and the world as we know it will cease to exist.
Tracing its roots back to the ice age and the extinction of the dinosaurs, this ancient terror has grown in recent years as hundreds of thousands of doomsayers worldwide point to one date - 21/12/2012.
Taken from the finishing date of the ancient Mayan Long Count calendar which was used in South America before the European conquerors took control of the continent, the theory states that a world-altering change is just two years away.
But what evidence is there to back up the theory, why have so many people turned their attention to this date, and what is the cataclysmic event that could bring the world to its knees?
Mixing together a little ancient wisdom and a lot of imagination, and this is a conspiracy theory that looks set to grow and grow as the fateful date draws near.

Deep in the forests of North America the locals are spooked.
Something big is out there, something that destroys trees, something that howls like no other animal ever recorded, something between man and beast.
Sasquatch, Bigfoot, the missing link, whatever you want to call it, the hunt for this creature has become an international obsession and a conspiracy theory that has captivated the imagination of millions.
Sound recordings of eerie cries in the night, and a video which appears to show the legendary creature walking through the forests of California, have leant weight to claims that Sasquatch is very real.
The vast expanse of wild forests between Washington state and California has become a hotbed of hunters searching for this mysterious being, but so far no body has been produced, no DNA sample found, no authentic footage verified.
Mainstream science has dismissed the Bigfoot followers as crackpot conspiracists, hearing things that aren't there and chasing a myth through the misty trees.
Until someone provides a legitimate Sasquatch sample, these theories will remain outside the boundaries of regular science, but that doesn't mean there isn't some truth in them.
What if this prehistoric primate has survived, what if the thousands of documented encounters with the beast are legitimate, what if the sceptical scientific community is just plain wrong?
Could we really be on the verge of finding the missing link, or are these hunters simply a deluded, drunken rabble with more guns than common sense?

As a new decade dawns, we look back on the conspiracy theories that shocked, amazed and appalled us over the past 10 years.

The defining moment of the past decade has spawned the most controversial and hotly debated conspiracy theory of all time. Did the US government allow the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon to happen despite it's prior knowledge, or did the Bush administration plan and execute the attacks as a "false flag" operation to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the repressive anti-terror legislation that offers the US government unprecedented control over the public. A bitter argument between theorists and scientific journals still rages over whether the two planes that struck the twin towers were the cause of the World Trade Centre's collapse, or whether controlled explosions and thermite plasma were used to destroy the skyscrapers. The destruction of Tower 7, which was not hit by a plane, and questions over whether the Pentagon was struck by a cruise missile rather than a jumbo jet, have all lent weight to the conspiracists claims. Throw in the fact that the Air Force were on training missions on 11 September 2001, and that threat warnings about an Al Qaeda plot to use planes to attack the US were ignored, and theorists claim they have a damning case against their government. If the theory is true, it represents the most heinous act in modern history, a government either deliberately sacrificing or cold-bloodly murdering 3,000 people to further its own ends. However, the conspiracy theory, for all its millions of online devotees, remains unlikely, unproven, and unbelievably complex. Questions surrounding whether or not the government shot down the fourth plane, United 93, as it headed for Washington DC, are much more valid, and do point to a possible cover-up. That Al Qaeda planned and executed a daring, calculated act of malevolent violence remains the most likely explanation for the terror attack that changed the world as we know it. Despite the facts the 9/11 conspiracy theory, for all its failings and inaccuracies, remains the most powerful and widely debated theory of the past decade.

It's the disaster to end all disasters.
More dangerous than terrorism, scarier than a nuclear holocaust, and all your own fault, global warming is a man made apocalypse that threatens the future of humankind.
As the most powerful men on the planet prepare to meet in Copenhagen to discuss the climate change crisis and come up with a set of rules to save us all from the end of the world as we know it, we are told that when it comes to global warming the debate is over.
But there are still many respected climatologists, politicians and geologists who believe that the greatest threat facing our civilisation is not what it appears to be.
The conspiracy theorists fear that global warming, as with the war on terror and the fight against communism before it, represents a bid by the political and economic elites to curtail our freedoms, restrict the financial markets, and maintain their own authority.
Even those who accept that climate change is happening are split on whether or not man is the cause.
While the official line of most governments around the world is that man made climate change is a scientific fact, there is a vocal minority who argue that the shift in the earth's temperature would be happening regardless of our carbon output.
Bombarded with science and scared to death by predictions of an Armageddon that would make Roland Emmerich blush, the public are struggling to come to terms with the fact that carbon emissions and climate change will now become a guiding force in their daily lives.
Conspiracy theorists say these people are being duped in order to create a multibillion dollar "green economy" and impose controls on every aspect of our existence.
With academics on both sides of the debate approaching their research with an almost religious zealotry, the debate is getting nasty with accusations, smear campaigns and a scurrilous set of leaked emails creating a war the likes of which the scientific community hasn't seen since Galileo.
The forces that stand opposed to one another are strong.
An ex-Vice President of the USA, a legion of green economists looking to make a quick buck and a swarm of liberal activists are facing the entrenched values of a world that doesn't want to forego its creature comforts, a cabal of powerful oil producers eager to protect their profits and an up and coming superpower that needs carbon to fuel its development.
But who is right, who is conning who and what is the truth behind the "greatest challenge ever to face humanity"?
One thing is for sure the debate is not over yet.

At the height of the Cold War the US military was running out of ways to tackle the threat of communist Cuba.
Following the humiliating failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and just months before the Cuban Missile Crisis the desperate army elite came up with a dastardly new proposal.
Operation Northwoods ignored all rules of warfare, common humanity and moral decency.
It marked the first example of a False Flag plot, the concept that has informed conspiracy theories on everything from the 9/11 attacks to Pearl Harbour.
Under the controversial plan the CIA and the joint chiefs of staff recommended that civilians be targetted with real terror attacks, involving American casualties in order to justify an all out land invasion of Cuba.
Never before had a government countenanced the slaughter of its own citizens to warrant waging war against an enemy.
The plan was thrown out by President Kennedy, with many theorists speculating that this act of defiance against the military elite may have led to JFK's own untimely demise.
Shortly afterwards the US became embroiled in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Operation Northwoods was put back in the box it came in.
But when the most diabolical and devastating plot ever considered at the upper echelons of government was revealed in 2001, the distrustful US public had to accept that their leaders were now capable of anything.
Almost 50 years on the question remains, has a false flag terror act been committed by the US government and if not, how long will it be before Northwoods is put into operation?

December 2001, three months after terrorists have destroyed the Twin Towers and brought America to its knees.
The US is struggling to hold together a fragile coalition for its invasion of Afghanistan.
Questions are being raised about the strength of the evidence against their prime suspect for the 9/11 atrocities.
And the notoriously loudmouthed Al Qaeda chief still hasn't claimed responsibility.
Suddenly a video tape appears from a house in Jalalabad showing a barely recognisable Osama Bin Laden confessing all.
Could this be fortunate timing? Or is the video a fake recording of a man who is already dead?
Bin Laden has been the western world's most wanted man for the best part of a decade.
Well over 6ft tall, sporting a distinctive beard and with an instantly recognisable face the Saudi militant should stand out a mile.
But more than eight years after the 9/11 attacks he is said to have masterminded, Al Qaeda's commander in chief remains on the run.
He could still be sheltering in the mountains and caves of Afghanistan.
He may be hiding in the lawless tribal regions of North West Pakistan.
There is even a chance that he has sought refuge in a Middle Eastern state sympathetic to his fanatical cause.
Amid all of these possibilities there is one which is rarely covered in the mainstream media.
Osama Bin Laden, the Great Satan's staunchest foe, the devil incarnate himself, could well be dead.
With so much money, manpower and murder expended on attempts at capturing him, how can one man continue to elude the most powerful military in human history?
Surely with infinite resources, gadgets that would make James Bond's eyes pop out, and enough explosives to destroy the planet a thousand times over, the US would have found this elderly cleric with a serious kidney ailment by now?
Unless of course, he is no longer there to be found.
His death would certainly not have been announced by the Al Qaeda lieutenants who rely on his iconic status to recruit the deranged youths they need to wage their unholy war.
Nor would it have been trumpeted by the US had they caught wind of his demise.
With Bin Laden's life goes the human face of 9/11, the face that launched a hundred unmanned drones in Pakistan, a thousand F16s in Iraq, tens of thousands of soldiers in the Afghan badlands.
On the history pages Bin Laden's image is destined to sit next to those of Stalin, Pol Pot and Hitler as a case study in evil.
But with conflicting reports about his health, question marks over the authenticity of his videos and rumours about a burial, has he been consigned to those pages already?