John Profumo

Sir Geoffrey Luttrell , mounted, being assisted by his wife and daughter-in-law. Folio 202v.

A 13th–14th-century scroll of the Book of Esther from Fez, Morocco , held at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris . Traditionally, a scroll of Esther is given only one roller, fixed to its lefthand side, rather than the two used for a Torah…

British War Secretary John Profumo shared a mistress, 19-year-old Christine Keeler, with Soviet naval attaché Yevgeny Ivanov — then lied about it to Parliament. The lie cost him his career; the affair may have cost Britain state secrets.

Luttrell Psalter

Commissioned around 1320 for Sir Geoffrey Luttrell of Lincolnshire, the Luttrell Psalter fills its psalm margins with plowing serfs, acrobats, hybrid monsters, and a armored snail attacking a knight — 309 pages where medieval England's daily life sits beside its absurdist imagination.

Book of Esther

God's name never appears in the Book of Esther — the only biblical book with this omission. The plot hinges on a beauty contest for a drunk king and a eunuch's wounded pride.

CIH (computer virus)

CIH triggered on April 26 — Chernobyl's anniversary — flashing BIOS chips into permanent silence. Written by Taiwanese student Chen Ing-hau in 1998, it destroyed hardware, not just files.

Buhen

Egypt's Buhen fortress, raised around 1860 BCE deep in Nubia, had a dry moat, brick battlements, and loopholed walls for archers — a complete medieval-style defense built 3,200 years before the Middle Ages.

Cretto di Burri

Alberto Burri entombed the ruins of Gibellina — destroyed by a 1968 earthquake that killed 231 — in white concrete, preserving every street and foundation. The town-shaped slab is now a kilometer-long sculpture no one lives in.

Hieronymus Bosch

Bosch's Hell panel shows a bird-headed demon enthroned on a toilet, devouring humans and defecating them as souls into a transparent pit. He painted this around 1500, hung it in a palace, and died unexplained.

Jimmy Hoffa

Jimmy Hoffa walked into the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Michigan on July 30, 1975, and was never seen again. Over 50 years later, no body, no confirmed killer.

Alexei Leonov

Alexei Leonov floated free of his capsule in 1965, then found his suit had ballooned so rigid he couldn't reenter — so he bled pressure from the suit valve himself, alone, 500 km up.