32 Battalion (South Africa)

The Wow! signal represented as "6EQUJ5". The original printout with Ehman's handwritten exclamation is preserved by Ohio History Connection .

Medieval English split tally stick ( front and reverse view). The stick is notched and inscribed to record a debt owed to the rural dean of Preston Candover , Hampshire, of a tithe of 20 d each on 32 sheep, amounting to a total sum of £2…

32 Battalion (South Africa)

South Africa's 32 Battalion was composed almost entirely of Angolan FNLA soldiers — men fighting for a country that wasn't theirs, led by white Rhodesian officers, denied citizenship after the wars ended.

Benedict Arnold

Benedict Arnold — wounded twice in American service, the hero of Saratoga — negotiated the surrender of West Point to the British for £20,000 and a military commission. His handler, Major John André, was caught with the plans in his boot.

Irritator

Paleontologists named it 'Irritator' — formally, in the scientific literature — because a fossil smuggler had packed car body filler into the skull to counterfeit a complete specimen.

Death of Tom Simpson

'Put me back on my bike' — Simpson's last request on Mont Ventoux, 1967. Amphetamines and brandy were found in his jersey pocket. The Tour rode past his corpse to finish.

Wow! signal

On August 15, 1977, a 72-second signal hit Big Ear radio telescope matching every alien-broadcast prediction. Astronomer Jerry Ehman circled it, wrote 'Wow!' — and it never came again.

Duke Cunningham

Randy 'Duke' Cunningham kept a handwritten 'bribe menu' on a sheet of congressional letterhead: a sliding scale of contract values against requested yacht upgrades, antique furniture, and cash — the most literal corruption document in U.S. congressional history.

Siad Barre

Siad Barre fled Mogadishu in a tank in January 1991, leaving behind a capital he had shelled into ruins; the artillery campaign against his own city killed thousands and destroyed Somalia's central state for a generation.

Iamblichus

He rose ten cubits off the ground — glowing gold — while his students watched twice. A Syrian Neoplatonist who made ritual magic philosophically respectable. What do you do with a man who keeps floating?

Tally stick

For 700 years, the English Exchequer split hazel sticks to record royal debts — the king kept one half, the creditor the other. In 1834, Parliament burned the old sticks and accidentally set Westminster on fire.