Gustav Landauer

Hydrogen-induced cracking (HIC) [ clarification needed ]

The eight "Chicago Black Sox"

Zimbabwean banknotes ranging from 10 dollars to 100 billion dollars printed within a one-year period. The magnitude of the currency scalars signifies the extent of the hyperinflation.

Gustav Landauer, Germany's foremost anarchist philosopher, was stomped and shot by soldiers in a Munich prison courtyard on May 2, 1919. His last book on Shakespeare was still unfinished. Philosophy ended with a boot.

Hydrogen embrittlement

Single hydrogen atoms — the smallest possible — squeeze between steel's iron lattice and make the metal brittle without leaving any visible trace. Bridge cables, surgical implants, and submarine hulls have failed this way.

Black Sox Scandal

Eight Chicago White Sox players were paid by gamblers to lose the 1919 World Series — then played the following full season undetected. Shoeless Joe Jackson, who batted .375 in the fixed series, was banned for life.

Anwar al-Awlaki

Anwar al-Awlaki, born in New Mexico, was placed on a presidential kill list, denied due process in U.S. courts, and killed by CIA drone in Yemen in September 2011. His lawyers were told they needed a license to represent him.

Samuel Doe

Master Sergeant Samuel Doe — ninth-grade dropout — overthrew Liberia's government in 1980, then had 13 cabinet ministers stripped, tied to telephone poles on a Monrovia beach, and shot before a crowd.

Sutton Hoo helmet

Dug from a Suffolk garden in 1939, the Sutton Hoo helmet's iron face-mask — with its dragon-eyebrow crest — belonged to a king whose name no one can agree on.

Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe

At its worst, Zimbabwe's inflation hit 89.7 sextillion percent annually. Workers were paid twice a day so they could spend wages before lunch erased the value.

South Sea Company

Isaac Newton, who calculated planetary orbits, invested and withdrew from the South Sea Company in profit — then reinvested at the peak, losing £20,000. He reportedly said he could not calculate the madness of men.

Stephen A. Schwarzman

Steve Schwarzman spent $3 million on his 60th birthday party — a Rod Stewart performance, a portrait of himself unveiled mid-room — then wrote a memoir advising readers to 'never do anything small.' The portrait still hangs at Blackstone.