Uruk

Devotional scene to Inanna , Warka Vase , c. 3200–3000 BC, Uruk. This is one of the earliest surviving works of narrative relief sculpture.

Spanish bullfight in Las Ventas in Madrid

Coat of arms of the Indies Company, with the reclining figure representing the Mississippi River taken from Law's Compagnie d'Occident , and the motto Florebo quocumque ferar taken from Louis XIV's East India Company

The walls Gilgamesh supposedly built to ring Uruk have been carbon-dated to 3000 BCE — making the oldest surviving epic's most personal boast a verifiable archaeological fact.

Patti Smith

Patti Smith spent years photographing Robert Mapplethorpe's hands — obsessively, serially — because, she wrote, she couldn't stop seeing them. Her 2010 memoir 'Just Kids' won the National Book Award and was written, she said, to keep a promise to a dying man.

Bullfighting

Minoan frescoes show unarmed athletes vaulting over charging bulls in rituals that predate the Spanish corrida by 3,000 years. The matador's suit of lights is Bronze Age costume with a modern tailor.

Sicilian Expedition

Athens voted in 415 BC to conquer Sicily — 38,000 men, 200 ships — based on flawed intelligence and civilian fever. Every ship and every soldier was lost; the expedition ended the Athenian Empire.

Charles G. Abrell

On June 10, 1951, nineteen-year-old Marine Corporal Charles Abrell threw himself onto an enemy grenade in Korea, absorbing the blast entirely. His squad lived. He was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.

Basil II

He blinded 15,000 Bulgarian prisoners and sent them home in columns of a hundred, each led by one man with a single eye. Tsar Samuel collapsed and died of shock two days later.

Chris Burden

In 1971 Burden asked an assistant to shoot him in the left arm with a .22 rifle inside a Santa Ana garage. The bullet grazed the bone. The event lasted five seconds and was witnessed by a handful of people.

John Law's Company

John Law sold France shares in the Louisiana Territory — mostly swamp — by convincing Paris that the Mississippi River ran through mountains of gold. Share prices rose 3,600% then fell to zero in 18 months.

CIH (computer virus)

CIH triggered on April 26 — Chernobyl's anniversary — flashing BIOS chips into permanent silence. Written by Taiwanese student Chen Ing-hau in 1998, it destroyed hardware, not just files.