Topsy (elephant)

Zimbabwean 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.

01Lilly received early funding from the U.S. Navy and NIMH for dolphin communication research while designing his first isolation tanks.
02During his ketamine period, Lilly reported contact with entities he called ECCO — the 'Earth Coincidence Control Office' — in published accounts.
03He injected ketamine inside a floatation tank while the tank itself was submerged in a swimming pool, compounding the dissociation.

Topsy (elephant)

Coney Island's Topsy, a circus elephant who had killed three men, was electrocuted before 1,500 paying spectators on January 4, 1903. Thomas Edison's company filmed it. The footage survives.

Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's central bank printed a one-hundred-trillion-dollar note in January 2009 — worth roughly $0.40 at issue. Three months later the currency was abandoned entirely. The note now sells for $20 on eBay.

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.

John C. Lilly

Lilly invented the isolation tank, mapped dolphin cognition for the government, and spent stretches of the 1970s submerged in ketamine for weeks at a time — still publishing, still funded, still presenting at conferences. The line between experiment and subject dissolved.

Jonestown

276 children died at Jonestown. The vat of Flavor Aid — not Kool-Aid — was found still full. Cyanide reached the bloodstream in under five minutes. Aerial photos showed bodies arranged in concentric rings.

Piss Christ

Andres Serrano submerged a plastic crucifix in his own urine, photographed it glowing amber, and won a $15,000 National Endowment for the Arts award — igniting a Senate floor denunciation by Jesse Helms.

Col de Portet d'Aspet

One descent on the Col de Portet d'Aspet killed Casartelli and a stone memorial marks the exact concrete block that ended him. Riders cross it every Tour, sometimes placing a hand on the monument.

Apollo Global Management

Leon Black founded Apollo after being effectively pushed out of Drexel Burnham Lambert in 1990. The SEC barred him from the securities industry — then watched the firm he built grow to manage $600 billion. Bars, it turns out, are negotiable.