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. 1865
    Lincoln assassination plotsGovernment & Intelligence

    Booth is cornered in a tobacco barn near Port Royal, Virginia. The barn is set alight; Booth is shot, by a soldier named Boston Corbett or by his own hand, and dies. His accomplice David Herold surrenders. Booth's diary is recovered and passes to the War Department.

  2. 1872
    William Desmond Taylor murderUnsolved Crimes & Disappearances

    William Cunningham Deane-Tanner is born into the Anglo-Irish gentry in County Carlow, Ireland. He later emigrates, drifts through several careers and a vanished first marriage in New York, and by around 1912 reinvents himself in California as William Desmond Taylor.

  3. 1998
    Bishop Gerardi murderGovernment & Intelligence

    Two nights later, Gerardi is beaten to death in the garage of the parish house of San Sebastián church, near the National Palace. His head is crushed with a piece of concrete, leaving the body nearly unrecognizable. He is found by a fellow priest, Mario Orantes.

  4. 1999
    Jill Dando murderUnsolved Crimes & Disappearances

    At about 11:32 BST, Dando is shot once in the head as she reaches the front door of 29 Gowan Avenue, Fulham. Neighbours find her body and call police at 11:47; she is declared dead on arrival at Charing Cross Hospital. There are no witnesses to the shot itself.

  5. 2011
    Satoshi NakamotoScience, Space & Technology

    In what is generally cited as Satoshi's last known message, an email to Andresen, Satoshi writes that they had 'moved on to other things' and asks him to stop portraying Satoshi as a 'mysterious shadowy figure.' Direct communication then ceases.

  6. 2026
    Correspondents' Dinner shooting 'staged'Government & Intelligence

    Federal authorities identify and charge a suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, and release surveillance footage that prosecutors say shows him running through a security checkpoint. Reporting notes he had traveled cross-country by train and checked into a nearby hotel before the event.

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