Mycenae

A column of Bulgarian Comitadjis captured during WWI in Thessaloniki .

Chapel interior

Anti-immigrant protesters in Calais hold a sign in French reading "Diversity is a code word for white genocide", above a banner calling for remigration (8 November 2015).

A mangle being used in a domestic science course during World War II

The limestone blocks at Mycenae's walls weigh up to 6 tonnes each, fitted without mortar across a circuit that stood 900 years before the Greeks of Thucydides's era declared their ancestors could not have built it.

Komitadji

Komitadji fighters waged war on two fronts at once — killing Ottomans by day, settling scores with rival Bulgarian or Macedonian bands by night. A single mountain pass could change hands three times in one season.

Iraqi invasion of Kuwait

Iraq invaded Kuwait at 2 a.m. on August 2, 1990, partly because Kuwait was drilling at a slant into the Rumaila oil field beneath their shared border — stealing, Baghdad claimed, $2.4 billion in Iraqi oil.

Sedlec Ossuary

A Czech church decorated with 40,000 human skeletons arranged into chandeliers, garlands, and a coat of arms — all assembled by a half-blind monk in 1870. The bones had to come from somewhere.

White genocide conspiracy theory

A claim of white genocide in South Africa — built on disputed murder statistics from Afrikaner advocacy sites — migrated from Boer forums to Brenton Tarrant's manifesto, cited by name before the Christchurch massacre.

Battle of the Metaurus

Roman soldiers catapulted Hasdrubal's severed head into Hannibal's camp. Hannibal recognized it, said 'I see there the fate of Carthage,' and wept. He had invaded Italy 14 years earlier and would never win again.

Mangle (machine)

Two steel rollers squeezed laundry dry — and de-gloved hands at the wrist without stopping. Hospitals tracked the injuries by decade. The machine outlasted every safety campaign aimed at it.

Spiro Agnew

Sitting Vice President Spiro Agnew received cash in small envelopes — handed directly to him inside the White House — while simultaneously prosecuting law-and-order rhetoric on national television. He resigned October 10, 1973, pleading no contest.

El Cid

El Cid's corpse was strapped upright on his horse Babieca and sent into battle after his death — and the Almoravid army reportedly broke and fled from a dead man.