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 / 7Jean-Bédel Bokassa7014%Disgraced PoliticiansBokassa spent $22 million — one-third of the Central African Empire's annual budget — on a coronation modeled on Napoleon's, including a throne cast as a two-ton golden eagle, while France quietly paid the bill.+ See More01The coronation consumed $22 million, roughly one-third of the entire country's GDP for that year.02Bokassa personally beat schoolchildren with a cane during the 1979 Bangui massacre that finally ended French support.03After exile and return, a Central African court sentenced him to death — then commuted it; he died free in Paris, 1996.
gnostek+4‹›1 / 11Entebbe raid400%High profile ransom demandsAt Entebbe, hijackers sorted 248 passengers by passport — Jews to one side, non-Jews released. The remaining hostages were held in a terminal as ransom for 53 prisoners held across four countries. Israeli commandos flew 2,500 miles to answer.+ See More01Hostages were separated by nationality within hours; non-Jewish passengers were released at Entebbe, Uganda, on July 1, 1976.02The Israeli raid, Operation Thunderbolt, lasted 53 minutes on the ground; 102 hostages were freed.03One hostage, Dora Bloch, was left behind in a Kampala hospital; Ugandan soldiers murdered her the next day.
gnostekThe Mountain Wreath500%Blood Feud in the BalkansMontenegro's founding epic, written by Prince-Bishop Njegoš in 1847, celebrates the Christmas Eve slaughter of Muslims who had converted from Christianity — and is still taught in schools as national literature.+ See More01The poem is set on Christmas Eve 1702; the killings are framed as a sacrament, not a crime.02Author Petar II Petrović-Njegoš was simultaneously a prince, a bishop, and the poem's moral narrator.03Scholars still debate whether the istraga poturica it depicts was a real massacre or a nationalist myth.
gnostek+10‹›1 / 17Benedict Arnold400%top 10 anime betrayalsBenedict 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.+ See More01Arnold's plot was exposed only because André was stopped by three militia irregulars, none of them acting on official orders.02Arnold escaped to British lines; André was hanged as a spy on October 2, 1780, aged 29.03Arnold received £6,315 — less than a third of the agreed price — because the plot failed before completion.
gnostek‹›1 / 2WannaCry ransomware attack1910%Malware programsNSA's stolen EternalBlue exploit encrypted 80,000 NHS devices in May 2017, forcing British hospitals to turn away ambulances. The kill switch was found by a 22-year-old researcher who registered a $10.69 domain.+ See More01WannaCry used EternalBlue, an NSA-developed exploit leaked by the Shadow Brokers hacker group.0280,000 NHS devices were hit; surgeries were cancelled and ambulances diverted across England.03A 22-year-old named Marcus Hutchins halted the attack by registering a $10.69 domain name.
gnostek‹›1 / 6Vincent Gigante200%Real events that inspired the Sopranos, Goodfellas, and GodfatherVincent 'The Chin' Gigante shuffled through Greenwich Village in a bathrobe and slippers for thirty years, muttering to himself — a performance so convincing it kept him out of federal court until 1997.+ See More01Gigante was acquitted of mob charges in 1969 partly on psychiatric grounds; he kept the bathrobe act running for another 28 years.02The FBI recorded him conducting precise, lucid mob business in whispered conversations seconds before resuming the shambling routine.03He finally admitted the insanity was feigned in 2003, two years before his death, voiding decades of psychiatric testimony.
gnostek+5‹›1 / 12Jim Jones1000%Most prolific cult leadersJim Jones rehearsed mass suicide with fake poison for years before making it real. On November 18, 1978, 918 died — 276 of them children. A gun was found in Jones's hand.+ See More01Jones called the rehearsals 'White Nights'; followers who survived them believed they'd proved their loyalty.02Congressman Leo Ryan was shot dead on a jungle airstrip hours before the mass suicide began.03Cyanide was injected by syringe into children's mouths; adults who fled were shot by guards.
gnostek+23‹›1 / 30Poster symbolizing the Ele Não Movement.Controversies surrounding Jair Bolsonaro1000%Controversial statements by politicians in the 21st centuryOn the Senate floor, Bolsonaro told Senator Maria do Rosário she was 'not worth raping' — then, as president, publicly praised the colonel who tortured her during Brazil's military dictatorship.+ See More01In 2016, Bolsonaro told Senator Maria do Rosário she was 'not worth raping' during a floor dispute.02As president in 2019, he praised Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra — the man who tortured do Rosário — by name.03Ustra's torture methods included electric shocks; Bolsonaro called him 'a terror for the left' on national television.