On this day in conspiracies

Speaking to his commanders at the Obersalzberg about the coming war, Hitler indicates he will supply a propaganda justification for attacking Poland, saying its credibility does not matter because 'the victor will not be asked afterward whether he told the truth or not.' Planning for staged border provocations is already underway.

Glennie Lankford signs a handwritten statement describing the night. The Kentucky New Era publishes the first report. Curiosity seekers begin descending on the farm within days.

Roughly twenty officers, city police, state troopers, county deputies and military police from Fort Campbell, follow the family back to the farm. Chief Russell Greenwell leads the response. They find bullet holes, broken windows and torn screens, but no creatures, no footprints and no bodies. Investigators note the witnesses appear genuinely shaken and sober.

The FBI Hostage Rescue Team deploys under special Rules of Engagement. An FBI sniper wounds Weaver and Harris and, with a second shot, kills Vicki Weaver, who is standing in the cabin doorway holding her infant daughter. She is unarmed. The standoff ends in surrender days later.

US President Donald Trump tweets that he has asked the Secretary of State to study “land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers” in South Africa, echoing a segment aired on Fox News. The South African government rejects the claim; fact-checkers note there is no evidence of racial killing.

The Bombay High Court’s Aurangabad bench (Justices T. V. Nalawade and M. G. Sewlikar) quashes FIRs against 29 foreign Tablighi attendees, finding they were made “scapegoats,” that there had been “big propaganda” and “virtually persecution” against them, and that police had “acted mechanically” under “political compulsion.”

After a standoff over his transfer, Navalny is evacuated on a chartered air ambulance to the Charité hospital in Berlin. German doctors soon report clinical signs consistent with poisoning by a cholinesterase inhibitor.