On this day in conspiracies

Japanese National Railways is established as a public corporation, and Sadanori Shimoyama, a career rail administrator, becomes its first president. The reorganization comes under the Dodge Line, the austerity program imposed during the US-led Allied Occupation to curb inflation and balance Japan's budget.

During a regular Friday-evening family gathering at the Narayanhiti Palace in Kathmandu, a gunman opens fire on the assembled royals. King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya, and seven other members of the family are killed, and several more are wounded. Crown Prince Dipendra is found with a gunshot wound to the head.

David Sanger of The New York Times reports, citing officials, that Stuxnet was part of Operation Olympic Games, a joint US-Israeli effort begun under Bush and accelerated by Obama. His book Confront and Conceal appears the same month. Neither government confirms the account on the record.

Switzerland opens the Gotthard Base Tunnel, the world's longest railway tunnel, with an avant-garde ceremony by director Volker Hesse featuring a horned figure and dancers drawn from Alpine folklore. It has nothing to do with CERN and is staged some 200 kilometres away, but clips are soon misattributed to CERN as proof of a 'satanic ritual'.