gnostekKilling of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki3805%drone strikes with civilian casualtiesSixteen-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen eating dinner in Yemen, was killed by a drone two weeks after his father. The Obama administration later said it was a mistake. His grandfather asked why.+ See More01Abdulrahman was born in Denver, Colorado — an American citizen by birth, killed by American order.02He had run away from home to find his father; he never made it back alive.03White House press secretary Robert Gibbs suggested Abdulrahman should have 'had a more responsible father.'
gnostek‹›1 / 3Laika1100%Greatest scientific discoveries of the Cold WarLaika was sold to Soviet schoolchildren as a hero who lived days in orbit; in 2002, her handlers admitted she died of overheating within five to seven hours of launch, on November 3, 1957.+ See More01Sputnik 2 had no re-entry mechanism; Laika was always going to die — the lie was about when.02Her body orbited Earth 2,570 times before the craft burned up in April 1958.03One of her mission engineers, Oleg Gazenko, publicly apologized for her death decades later.
gnostek‹›1 / 3The Apicius manuscript (ca. 900 AD) of the monastery of Fulda in Germany, which was acquired in 1929 by the New York Academy of MedicineApicius1200%Controversial CulinaryMarcus Gavius Apicius spent a fortune building Rome's most extravagant culinary reputation, then calculated his remaining wealth and drank poison — the reduced budget made life not worth living.+ See More01Apicius reportedly spent 100 million sestertii on food; when 10 million remained, he poisoned himself rather than eat cheaply.02His cookbook, 'De Re Coquinaria,' lists recipes requiring flamingo tongue, dormouse stuffed with pine nuts, and roasted parrot.03He reputedly drowned a live mullet in a fish sauce vat to watch it change color as it died, for aesthetic pleasure.
gnostek‹›1 / 2Iamblichus5805%Most obscure philosophersHe rose ten cubits off the ground — glowing gold — while his students watched twice. A Syrian Neoplatonist who made ritual magic philosophically respectable. What do you do with a man who keeps floating?+ See More01Students witnessed Iamblichus levitate ten cubits, bathed in golden light, on two separate occasions.02He systematized theurgy — divine ritual magic — as philosophically superior to mere intellectual contemplation.03His commentary on Pythagoras described numerical mysticism as the architecture underlying all reality.
gnostek+21‹›1 / 28Diplodocus900%Scariest dinosaursDiplodocus's tail ended in a thin whip-tip that could break the sound barrier — a 45-foot bullwhip cracking a sonic boom, possibly the loudest sound made by any land animal.+ See More01Computer models show the tail tip could exceed 340 m/s — the speed of sound — generating a crack audible for miles.02The tail contained roughly 80 vertebrae, more than almost any other structure in the animal kingdom.03Diplodocus's neck was held nearly horizontal, not upright — it grazed low like a vacuum cleaner the length of a bus.
gnostek+12‹›1 / 19Battle of Chosin Reservoir100%Craziest events of the Korean WarAt −35 °C, 17,000 UN troops punched through 120,000 encircling Chinese soldiers over 17 days at Chosin Reservoir. Weapons froze mid-fire. Marines carried their dead rather than leave them. They called the retreat a march.+ See More01Temperatures hit −35 °C; rifle bolts froze, morphine syrettes had to be thawed in mouths before use.02The 1st Marine Division suffered 4,418 battle casualties and 7,338 frostbite casualties in 17 days.03General Oliver Smith called it not a retreat but 'attacking in a different direction' — 78 miles to the coast.
gnostek‹›1 / 6Cave of Altamira200%The Most Bizarre Places in EuropePainted 36,000 years ago on a cave ceiling in northern Spain, the Altamira bison are so anatomically precise that 19th-century archaeologists accused the discoverer of fraud — they simply could not accept the ancients were capable.+ See More01The paintings date to at least 36,000 BCE, making them among the oldest figurative art on Earth.02Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola's daughter María, age 8, first spotted the ceiling bison in 1879.03The cave was declared a hoax by the scientific establishment for over 20 years before vindication came in 1902.
gnostek‹›1 / 8Digitization of a Dunhuang manuscriptDunhuang manuscripts300%Legends of the Ancient Silk RoadA monk walled up 40,000 manuscripts in Cave 17 at Dunhuang around 1000 AD, then plastered it shut. The cache included sutras, contracts, love poems, and a star atlas — forgotten until 1900.+ See More01Cave 17 held roughly 40,000 documents in Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Sogdian, and at least five other languages.02Aurel Stein bought thousands of scrolls from the cave's guardian monk for just four silver horseshoes in 1907.03The cache included the world's oldest printed book, a star atlas 200 years ahead of any European equivalent.
gnostek‹›1 / 2Brennus (leader of the Senones)600%Scariest generals of antiquityAfter sacking Rome in 390 BC — the only time the city fell for eight centuries — Brennus tossed his sword onto the ransom scales and sneered 'Vae victis': woe to the conquered.+ See More01The Gauls held Rome for seven months; the ransom was 1,000 pounds of gold before Brennus added his sword.02'Vae victis' — woe to the conquered — became the phrase Rome never forgot and never forgave.03Rome's humiliation was so total that they later invented a legend where Camillus rode in to stop the payment.