gnostek‹›1 / 3Andres Serrano1000%Critically acclaimed modern artSerrano sank a plastic crucifix in a tank of his own urine, photographed it glowing amber, and received a $15,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant. Congress spent months trying to defund the NEA.+ See More01The photograph is called 'Piss Christ' and was printed at 60 × 40 inches.02U.S. senators read the title aloud on the Senate floor in 1989 as evidence of federal depravity.03A print was physically attacked with hammers by protesters in Avignon, France, in 2011.
gnostek‹›1 / 6Calamity Jane200%Violence in the Wild WestCalamity Jane scouted in men's clothes, claimed to have served under Custer, and demanded burial beside Wild Bill Hickok — a man she may have met only briefly. Deadwood gave her what she wanted in 1903.+ See More01Jane was buried next to Hickok in Deadwood's Mount Moriah Cemetery on August 4, 1903, per her deathbed request.02She dressed in buckskin and Army uniform throughout her career, often passing as male on military expeditions.03Her autobiography, published 1896, claimed she married Wild Bill — a claim historians have never been able to verify.
gnostekThe Story of Adidon100%Most cultural significant rap beefsPusha T named Drake's hidden son Adonis and placed his image inside Drake's own Adidas campaign artwork — a diss track that used corporate branding as a delivery mechanism for a secret.+ See More01Drake had concealed Adonis's existence; Pusha T's 2018 track was the public revelation.02The cover art repurposed a leaked Drake Adidas promotional photo, weaponizing Drake's own brand deal.03Drake confirmed the son's existence days later via an Instagram post, validating every claim.
gnostek‹›1 / 8A thermite mixture using iron(III) oxideThermite700%Discoveries in materials scienceOnce ignited, thermite burns at 2,500 °C — hot enough to melt through an engine block — and pouring water on it accelerates the reaction. The military uses it to destroy their own equipment.+ See More01Thermite burns at 2,500 °C — hotter than the surface of most lava flows.02Water poured on burning thermite causes a steam explosion, making it actively worse to fight.03U.S. military M14 incendiary grenades use thermite specifically to destroy field artillery beyond enemy recovery.
gnostek+9‹›1 / 16Close-up of a barbed wireBarbed wire1210%Inventions that changed the course of historyJoseph Glidden's 1874 barbed-wire patent — filed after sketching the design on a coffee grinder — closed the American open range within a decade and then reappeared at the Somme, herding men into machine-gun fire.+ See More01Glidden sold his patent share to Washburn & Moen for $60,000 plus royalties in 1876.02By 1890, the open-range cattle industry was effectively dead — killed by wire, not weather.03WWI trenches on the Western Front used an estimated 1,200 miles of barbed wire by 1917.
gnostek‹›1 / 82023 Tour de France710%Tour de France crashesOver seven decades, press motorcycles weaving through the peloton have shattered collarbone, kneecap, and career — one cameraman's vehicle knocked Joseba Beloki into a fracture pattern that ended his season in 2003.+ See More01Beloki's femur, wrist, and elbow all fractured in a 2003 crash partly triggered by a race vehicle.02Armstrong famously cut across a field to avoid the same crash — an improvised off-road detour mid-stage.03Tour motorcycles carry cameras, doctors, and sponsors, yet have no mandatory speed floor or collision protocol.
gnostek‹›1 / 2Anthony "Tino" De AngelisSalad oil scandal300%Craziest financial crimesTino De Angelis filled vast New Jersey tanks mostly with seawater, floated a thin film of soybean oil on top for inspectors, and borrowed $175 million against it. The 1963 collapse took down two Wall Street firms in a single afternoon.+ See More01Inspectors measured oil levels by dipping rods into tanks — De Angelis pumped oil between tanks to fool simultaneous checks.02The fraud's 1963 collapse triggered losses that bankrupted brokerage firms Ira Haupt & Co. and Allied Crude Vegetable Oil.03Total borrowed against nonexistent oil reached $175 million — roughly $1.7 billion in today's money.
gnostek‹›1 / 3Abu Sayyaf3403%abu sayaffIn 2014, Isnilon Hapilon pledged bayah — formal oath of allegiance — to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, absorbing his Abu Sayyaf faction into the Islamic State's caliphate project. The pledge turned a kidnap-for-ransom gang into an ISIS province.+ See More01Hapilon's 2014 bayah to al-Baghdadi was among the earliest Southeast Asian pledges to the Islamic State.02The pledge reframed Abu Sayyaf's criminal ransom operations as acts of caliphate warfare.03By 2017, the alliance produced the Marawi siege — the largest urban ISIS battle outside the Middle East.
gnostek‹›1 / 4Braid (video game)4025%Best Xbox 360 GamesBraid's final level reverses time to reveal the princess the player has been chasing is not a captive — she is running from the player. The epilogue text identifies her as the atomic bomb. Jonathan Blow hid this in 2008.+ See More01The final level plays in reverse: what looks like rescue, rewound, is a woman fleeing in terror.02The epilogue's book passages directly name the Manhattan Project and J. Robert Oppenheimer's 'I am become death.'03Braid was built by one developer, Jonathan Blow, over three years on a personal investment of roughly $200,000.