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. 1969
    Zodiac KillerUnsolved Crimes & Disappearances

    At Lake Berryessa in Napa County, a hooded man stabs Bryan Hartnell, 20, and Cecelia Shepard, 22. Hartnell survives; Shepard dies. The attacker writes the dates of the earlier crimes on Hartnell's car door.

  2. 1974
    Karen Silkwood's deathUnsolved Crimes & Disappearances

    Silkwood travels to Washington and testifies to the Atomic Energy Commission, alleging that Kerr-McGee cut corners on radiation safety and falsified quality-control records on fuel rods to speed production. The union asks her to document the problems.

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