the astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to set foot on the moon. Over 530 million people watched one of the greatest human achievements occur. In the following years, some Americans came to believe that the entire event had been a very expensive hoax created by the U.S. government. Conspiracy theories regarding the moon landing began and were popularized in the mid-1970s after numerous demonstrations of governmental dishonesty such as the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal. Many of the claims of the moon landing being faked have to do with various "errors" in the photographs and video taken during the event. One theory, based on the depiction of space in his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, is that the famed director Stanley Kubrick actually staged and filmed the moon landing. Such claims have since been debunked by various experts but they continue to live in American cinema, popular culture, and websites. October Surprise conspiracy theory: The term "October surprise" was coined by the Reagan administration during the tumultuous 1980 election. Minutes after the completion of Reagan's inaugural address, the Islamic Republic of Iran released the 66 Americans whom it had been holding hostage since November 4, 1979. That incredible timing of that release made many believe that the Reagan administration had worked out a deal with the Iranian government to hold off on releasing the hostages until after the inauguration. Since that episode, the term "October surprise" has been used to describe attention-grabbing information and events that occur in the final days prior to a presidential election like Hillary Clinton being affected by WikiLeaks releasing her Wall Street speeches and Donald Trump being affected by a video coming out in which he brags about sexually assaulting women. Pizzagate conspiracy theory: A month before the 2016 presidential election, some far-right followers of Donald Trump used a Reddit forum and 4chan message board to pour through a hacked email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's former campaign chairman, in search of a potential scandal. What they found was correspondence about a dinner between Podesta and his brother, with language involving pizza. The conservative devotees connected the phrase "cheese pizza" with "c.p." for child pornography, an abbreviation often-used in pedophile chatrooms. The connection between Podesta and James Alefantis, the owner of Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, DC, pizza restaurant, quickly led internet users to start conspiracy