On this day in conspiracies

Paula Welden, an 18-year-old Bennington College sophomore, sets out alone on the Long Trail in a red jacket and never returns. A search of more than a thousand people and a $5,000 reward find nothing.

A well-dressed man is found dead, seated against the sea wall at Somerton Park beach, Adelaide, with no identification and every clothing label removed or cut away.

Twelve nations sign the Antarctic Treaty in Washington, setting the continent aside for peaceful scientific use. It bans military bases, maneuvers, and weapons testing, freezes territorial claims, and guarantees freedom of scientific investigation. Conspiracists will later misread this demilitarization as a cover-up.

Robert L. Smith, a wildlife biologist at West Virginia University, tells local reporters the descriptions closely match a sandhill crane, a very large migratory bird with a seven-foot wingspan and bare reddish skin around the eyes.

President Reagan appoints the Tower Commission, a three-member presidential review board, to investigate the National Security Council's role in the affair.

Attorney General William Barr, one of Trump's staunchest allies, tells the Associated Press that the Justice Department has 'not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.' Georgia, having already done a full hand recount, recertifies Biden's win after a third count.

The estate and its co-executors settle the territory's suit for more than $105 million in cash plus half the proceeds from selling Little Saint James, and agree to return more than $80 million in tax benefits Epstein had obtained. The attorney general says the deal ensures the islands cannot again be used for such purposes.