Battle of Actium

A barrel-type butter churn

The Zimmermann telegram as it was sent from Washington, D.C. , to Ambassador Heinrich von Eckardt , the German ambassador to Mexico .

Skydiver Bill Booth 's second rule states that "The safer skydiving gear becomes, the more chances skydivers will take, in order to keep the fatality rate constant."

Battle of Actium

Cleopatra's 60 ships broke from the battle line and fled south without warning. Antony, commanding the largest naval force in the ancient world, abandoned his fleet and his men to follow her by rowboat. He never commanded again.

Psittacosaurus

One Psittacosaurus specimen still wears its skin — and that skin shows countershaded stripes, making it the first dinosaur whose actual color pattern has been scientifically confirmed.

Robert Mugabe

Mugabe's hyperinflation peaked in November 2008 at 89.7 sextillion percent monthly; Zimbabwe issued a $100 trillion banknote that could not buy a bus ticket, while life expectancy fell to 37 — the world's lowest.

Butter churn

A wooden dasher plunged up and down by hand for forty unbroken minutes to produce one pound of butter. The task fell to whoever was smallest — usually the children.

Zinedine Zidane

Zidane headbutted Marco Materazzi in the chest in extra time of the 2006 World Cup final, received a red card, and France lost on penalties — his last professional act ever.

Cretto di Burri

Alberto Burri entombed the ruins of Gibellina — destroyed by a 1968 earthquake that killed 231 — in white concrete, preserving every street and foundation. The town-shaped slab is now a kilometer-long sculpture no one lives in.

Zimmermann telegram

German Foreign Secretary Zimmermann telegraphed Mexico in January 1917, proposing a wartime alliance and the return of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. British codebreakers intercepted it; Congress voted for war within weeks.

Vindolanda tablets

A Roman soldier stationed at Hadrian's Wall received a birthday party invitation and a parcel of socks from his mother — the oldest surviving personal letter written by a woman in Latin.

Risk compensation

After seatbelt laws passed, Sam Peltzman measured the data: drivers sped up and followed closer, killing roughly the same number of car occupants — but significantly more pedestrians and cyclists.