On 28 August 2003, pizza delivery driver Brian Wells walked into a Pennsylvania bank with a bomb locked around his neck, setting in motion what the FBI would call one of the most bizarre crimes in its history. The same date in 1993 brought two very different discoveries: NASA’s Galileo spacecraft accidentally photographed the first confirmed moon orbiting an asteroid, a tiny rock called Dactyl circling the asteroid Ida. Meanwhile, Singapore held its first popular presidential election, though one candidate had been recruited specifically to make the ballot look contested. From a meticulously planned crime that ended in tragedy, to an unplanned cosmic discovery, to a democratic exercise with pre-sorted outcomes, 28 August offers three stories about what happens when human plans meet reality. Some crimes are too strange for ordinary explanation. Some discoveries hide in the corners of photographs. And some elections have their winners chosen before the voting begins.
