Bisho massacre

Smoke plumes from a few of the Kuwaiti Oil Fires on April 7, 1991, as seen from Space Shuttle Atlantis during STS-37 .

Plate 34: Por una navaja ( For a clasp knife ). A garroted priest grasps a crucifix in his hands. Pinned to his chest is a description of the crime for which he was killed—possession of a knife.

Original Soviet space dog environmentally controlled safety module used on sub-orbital and orbital spaceflights

Ciskei Defence Force soldiers opened fire on 80,000 ANC marchers inside a soccer stadium in Bisho on 7 September 1992, killing 29 and wounding 200. The soldiers fired from behind a low fence as the crowd ran.

Javed Iqbal (serial killer)

Javed Iqbal dissolved 100 boys in vats of acid in Lahore, then mailed a handwritten confession and a diary to police. He was sentenced to be killed by acid in the same vat — a sentence never carried out.

Patty Hearst

The Symbionese Liberation Army demanded $6 million in free food as Patty Hearst's ransom — then she picked up a rifle, renamed herself 'Tania,' and robbed a San Francisco bank with them 10 weeks later.

Greek fire

Byzantine warships sprayed Greek fire through bronze siphons — it burned on water and could not be extinguished. The formula died with the empire in 1453, and no chemist has fully reconstructed it since.

Kuwaiti oil fires

Retreating Iraqi forces torched 730 Kuwaiti oil wells in early 1991; the fires burned for eight months, turning noon into black night across hundreds of miles. Red Adair's crews took until November to kill the last flame.

The Disasters of War

Goya etched 82 plates of castrated soldiers, impaled civilians, and mass graves — then hid them. They weren't published until 1863, 35 years after his death. The plates still exist; one shows a man arranged like a broken doll.

Dawn Brancheau

Dawn Brancheau, SeaWorld Orlando's most senior trainer, was pulled into the water and killed by orca Tilikum in front of an audience on February 24, 2010. She had 16 years of experience. The show had just ended.

Soviet space dogs

The USSR launched at least 57 dogs into space between 1951 and 1966; strays from Moscow streets were preferred because they were deemed psychologically tougher, and most early flights were explicitly one-way.

Robert Hanssen

Robert Hanssen attended Mass every morning, carried a rosary, and sold the FBI's deepest secrets to Moscow for 22 years. He betrayed at least three Soviet double agents who were subsequently executed.