The Conspiratory

The archive, day by day

On this day in conspiracies

The dated turning points behind the case files: assassinations, crashes, leaks, votes, and the moments a theory was born, each drawn straight from a file's sourced timeline. We only place an entry on a day the record actually names.

  1. 1948
    Ourang MedanUnexplained Phenomena

    The Albany Times of New York carries an English-language version, attributing it to the Dutch magazine Elsevier’s Weekly, which helps carry the story into the American press.

  2. 1967
    Che Guevara executionGovernment & Intelligence

    Guevara's body is flown by helicopter to Vallegrande and put on public display on a laundry-room table for press and photographers. The Bolivian military announces he died of wounds sustained in battle the previous day.

  3. 1990
    Nayirah testimonyGovernment & Intelligence

    Before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, co-chaired by Representatives Tom Lantos and John Porter, a 15-year-old identified only as 'Nayirah' tearfully testifies that she watched Iraqi soldiers take babies out of incubators at a Kuwait City hospital and leave them 'to die on the cold floor.' The caucus is not a committee with subpoena power, and witnesses are not placed under oath.

  4. 2012
    Armstrong dopingHoaxes & Pop Culture

    USADA publishes its Reasoned Decision: a roughly 200-page report backed by more than 1,000 pages of evidence, including sworn testimony from 26 people (among them 11 former teammates), financial records, emails and lab data. USADA calls it the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program sport had ever seen.

  5. 2014
    Gary Webb's Dark AllianceGovernment & Intelligence

    The film Kill the Messenger, based on Webb's story, brings the series and his fall to a new audience and reopens debate over how far he was right and how badly he was treated. The Intercept publishes internal CIA material showing the agency monitored and welcomed the media pushback against him.

Drawn from 1,911 dated events across our case-file timelines. Dates reckoned in UTC.