Freedonia

Freedonia is a fictional country in Europe, seen during the 1933 movie Duck Soup, which starred the Marx Brothers. Duck Soup was a box-office flop at the time of its release, but it has since been recognized as a classic of comedy film, and seen as a subversive satire on war.

In the movie, Freedonia was suffering from severe financial problems, and these problems were so extreme that the governing council willingly allowed a crazy dictator named Rufus T. Firefly (played by Groucho Marx) to take control and run the country. Firefly promptly declared war on a neighboring country just for the hell of it.

In the 1990s, the satirical magazine Spy pulled a practical joke on several members of Congress. The magazine successfully convinced several Congressional members to issue statements condemning the "ethnic cleansing in Freedonia,"'' without their realizing that Freedonia was a fictional country.