In 1943, British intelligence officers obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael, a homeless man who had died from eating rat poison, and dressed him as Royal Marines officer Captain William Martin. Documents on the body suggested the Allies would invade Greece and Sardinia, with Sicily as a feint. The body was taken by submarine to the Spanish coast and released near shore, where a fisherman found it. The Spanish government shared copies of the papers with German military intelligence before returning the originals. Forensic checks showed they had been read, and Ultra decrypts confirmed that the Germans reinforced Greece and Sardinia while Sicily received none. The invasion of Sicily went more quickly and with fewer losses than predicted. The operation was planned partly by Ian Fleming's Naval Intelligence colleagues.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.