Many were taken by surprise by the events in Washington, but to those who closely follow conspiracy and extreme right groups online, the warning signs were all there.
At 02:21 Eastern Standard Time on election night, President Trump walked onto a stage set up in the East Room of the White House and declared victory.
"We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election."
His speech came an hour after he'd tweeted: "They are trying to steal the election".
He hadn't won. There was no victory to steal. But to many of his most fervent supporters, these facts didn't matter, and still don't.
Sixty five days later, a motley coalition of rioters stormed the US Capitol building. They included believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory, members of "Stop the Steal" groups, far-right activists, online trolls and others.
On Friday 8 January - some 48 hours after the Washington riots - Twitter began a purge of some of the most influential pro-Trump accounts that had been pushing conspiracies and urging direct action to overturn the election result.
Then came the big one - Mr Trump himself.
The president was permanently banned from tweeting to his more than 88 million followers "due to the risk of further incitement of violence".
The violence in Washington shocked the world and seemed to catch the authorities off guard.
But for anyone who had been carefully watching the unfolding story - online and on the streets of American cities - it came as no surprise.
The idea of a rigged election was seeded by the president in speeches and on Twitter, months before the vote.
On election day, the rumors started just as Americans were going to the polls.
A video of a Republican poll watcher being denied entry to a Philadelphia polling station went viral. It was a genuine error, caused by confusion about the rules. The man was later allowed into the station to observe the count.
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