Page "Conspiracy theory" Paragraph 6

The Oxford English Dictionary records the first use of the phrase " conspiracy theory " to a 1909 article in The American Historical Review .< ref >" conspiracy ", Oxford English Dictionary, Second edition, 1989 ; online version March 2012.

< http :// www. oed. com / view / Entry / 39766 >; accessed 20 March 2012 .</ ref > Other sources pre-date this use by nearly four decades to at least 1871, where it is used in The Journal of Mental Science reporting on a conference of the Fifth Quarterly Meeting of the Medico-Psychological Association ( now the Royal College of Psychiatrists ), held on Thursday, January 27th, 1870: