the.com/investigation
a polite name for refusing to believe the obvious explanation everyone else accepted.
means A formal, systematic effort to discover the facts about something — typically a crime, accident, or mystery — by gathering and examining evidence.
from From Latin investigare, "to track, trace out, search after," built from in- ("in, upon") plus vestigare ("to follow a trail"), which comes from vestigium — a footprint or track. So at its root, investigation is literally following footprints: the hunter reading the ground long before the detective read the room.
- word origin
- Latin vestigare, to track footprints
- cold cases
- DNA databases solve crimes decades after the trail froze
- slow burn
- most breakthroughs come from tedium, not eureka moments
- first detectives
- France hired ex-criminals to catch criminals
- the gap
- absence of evidence becomes its own clue
mueller investigation — 2017-2019 special counsel probe into trump campaign and russian interference, resulting in 37 indictments
watergate investigation — 1973-1974 congressional inquiry into nixon administration crimes that led to presidential resignation
iran-contra investigation — 1987 independent counsel lawrence walsh's probe into reagan administration illegal arms sales, resulting in 14 convictions