Smart, educated and accomplished people, the pillars of our society, try to cheat the system in the most convoluted and fascinating ways. History's Greatest Scandals tells the stories of adultery, perversion, shameless greed, theft and deception that have brought down presidents, prime ministers, clergy and famous people of practically every stripe.The gripping cloak-and-dagger dramas climax in catastrophic exposures and career-destroying indiscretions that rival great fiction and are all the more astounding because they areseminal moments in our history. The stories star famous names and often share selfish desires, yet each tale shocks us, sometimes for its audacity, sometimes its complexity and sometimes its pure idiocy, from Bill Clinton's famous and recanted, 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman!' and King Edward VIII abdicating the throne to marry Wallis Simpson to televangelist Jimmy Swaggart caught with a prostitute, Howard Hughes's bizarre personal hygiene and Anthony Blunt who attained British royal favour while spying for the Soviet Union.Alternately disturbing and amazing, the narratives reveal clandestine affairs, underhanded political dealings, blatant criminal activity and other dramatic episodes that erupt in the lives of successful people gone bad.