gnostek1 / 6Zimbabwean banknotes ranging from 10 dollars to 100 billion dollars printed within a one-year period. The magnitude of the currency scalars signifies the extent of the hyperinflation.
01The Z$100 trillion note, issued January 2009, was worth approximately US$0.40 on the day it was printed.
02At peak hyperinflation in November 2008, month-on-month inflation hit 79,600,000,000% — prices doubled every 24 hours.
03Zimbabwe officially abandoned its dollar in April 2009; citizens were allowed to exchange Z$35 quadrillion for US$1.
gnostek
01Hani was killed with a Z88 pistol; Waluś had previously stalked Nelson Mandela as a potential target.
02A white Afrikaner neighbour, Retha Harmse, wrote down Waluś's number plate and called police within minutes.
03Waluś was finally paroled in 2023 after the Polish government intervened on his behalf for years.
gnostek1 / 4
01Cassander executed Roxane and her son Alexander IV — Alexander the Great's only child — in 309 BC.
02He had Olympias killed by relatives of her own victims, keeping his own hands technically clean.
03Cassander founded Thessalonica, named for his wife — a city that still exists — while erasing a dynasty.
gnostek1 / 11A tulip, known as "the Viceroy" ( viseroij ), displayed in the 1637 Dutch catalogue Verzameling van een Meenigte Tulipaanen ("Collection of a Crowd of Tulips"). Its bulb was offered for sale for between 3,000 and 4,200 guilders (florins)…
01The Semper Augustus, the most prized tulip, fetched 10,000 guilders in early 1637 — roughly 10 years of a skilled craftsman's wages.
02Futures contracts for tulip bulbs still underground were being traded in taverns; buyers never saw the actual bulb.
03By May 1637, Haarlem courts ruled tulip contracts unenforceable, effectively wiping out every outstanding futures position.
gnostek1 / 15
01At least 85 people were killed in 48 hours; the true number may exceed 200 — records were destroyed.
02Röhm and Hitler had been on a first-name basis since 1919 — a familiarity almost no one else was granted.
03The German cabinet retroactively legalized the murders three days later, calling them 'emergency state defense.'
gnostek1 / 8
01Powell's February 5, 2003 presentation included a small vial he waved to illustrate anthrax quantities — it was theater.
02The Downing Street Memo, written months earlier, had already confirmed intelligence was being 'fixed around the policy.'
03Powell spent five years writing his memoirs partly to document how CIA chief George Tenet personally vouched for the data.
gnostek1 / 7
01The expedition's chief architect, Alcibiades, defected to Sparta before the fleet even arrived in Sicily.
02The entire Athenian force — roughly 38,000 men — was killed or enslaved by 413 BC.
03Thucydides called it the greatest single military disaster ever suffered by a Greek city-state.
gnostek1 / 7
01The PDP-1 cost $120,000 in 1961; the students had no official authorization to monopolize it nightly.
02Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen, and Steve Russell coded it across several months of stolen lab time.
03Its source code was the first program freely shared between institutions, predating open-source by decades.
gnostek1 / 3
01Samus cannot use her Varia Suit — which protects against heat — until a commanding officer says she may.
02Director Yoshio Sakamoto took full creative control and deliberately sidelined co-developer Team Ninja's combat instincts.
03Fan and critical backlash was so sustained that Other M reshaped how Nintendo discussed the Metroid series for a decade.