On this day in conspiracies

Lucy Scales, 18, reports that a tall, cloaked figure in Green Dragon Alley, Limehouse, spat blue flame in her face, blinding and terrifying her; she collapsed in fits. The assailant carried a lantern like those used by police and walked off without a word.

President Paul von Hindenburg signs the Decree for the Protection of the People and State, the Reichstag Fire Decree, under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. Countersigned by Hitler, it suspends freedom of expression, press, assembly, and association, and protections against arrest and search. Thousands of Communists and other opponents are rounded up.

Madruga's 1969 Mercury Montego is found abandoned on that mountain road, roughly 70 miles from Chico. It is undamaged, still holds fuel, shows no sign of a struggle, and appears to have been driven in and left rather than run off the road.

Just after 23:20, Palme is shot in the back at close range on Sveavägen in central Stockholm while walking home from a cinema with his wife, Lisbeth, who is grazed by a second shot. The couple had dismissed their security detail earlier that day. The gunman flees up a nearby stairway and vanishes.

The government suspends constitutional guarantees and activates Plan Ávila, deploying the army alongside police to restore order. Soldiers move into densely populated, low-income neighborhoods, and reports of shootings multiply.

Near Waco, Texas, agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempt to serve search and arrest warrants at the Branch Davidian compound, Mount Carmel, over illegal weapons. A gun battle leaves four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians dead. The FBI takes over, beginning a siege.

A federal court convicts Galeano, former intelligence chief Hugo Anzorreguy, prosecutors, a former police chief, and Telleldin of obstructing and covering up the original investigation. Former president Carlos Menem is acquitted. An appeals court upholds the core convictions in 2024.

The confrontation widens with U.S. involvement and reported strikes in the region. Fact-checkers describe an immediate flood of miscaptioned, recycled and AI-generated media across X, Instagram, TikTok and Telegram.

The parade reaches its best evening visibility: Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter visible to the naked eye under dark skies, with faint Uranus and Neptune requiring binoculars or a telescope. The planets trace a gentle arc along the ecliptic, not a straight line in space.