Active SETI

In 1974, the Arecibo Observatory was used to send the first known intentional radio message transmission into space

01The 1974 Arecibo Message was aimed at globular cluster M13 — 25,000 light-years away, arrival date roughly 26,974 AD.
02Stephen Hawking publicly warned that contacting aliens could be analogous to Native Americans meeting Columbus — and we know how that ended.
03METI International transmitted 'Sonar' toward GJ 273, a nearby star, in 2017 without any international consensus or oversight body approving it.

A carpet beater

Tupac Shakur (right) and The Notorious B.I.G. (left), the two main figures of the East Coast–West Coast hip-hop rivalry, prior to the conflict in 1993 in Los Angeles. The image was also used in the 2002 feature-length documentary film…

A depiction of a hypothetical Dyson swarm surrounding a star

Some scientists call deliberately beaming our coordinates into space an act of civilizational recklessness — Stephen Hawking called it 'a little too risky.' The first intentional broadcast left Earth in 1974.

Carpet beater

Woven rattan, swung hard against hanging rugs in the yard every spring — the carpet beater was killed by one invention, the vacuum cleaner, within thirty years of its own peak production.

East Coast–West Coast hip-hop rivalry

By 1997, two of rap's biggest figures were dead and their labels were in ruin. What began as promotional rivalry between Death Row and Bad Boy became geography that determined whose side you were on at gunpoint.

1919 United States anarchist bombings

In April 1919, thirty-six mail bombs were posted simultaneously to US senators, a Supreme Court justice, and John D. Rockefeller. Most were intercepted by a postal worker who noticed the postage due. Justice nearly by accident.

Evander Holyfield vs. Mike Tyson II

Tyson bit a chunk from Holyfield's right ear in round three, spat the cartilage on the canvas, and kept throwing punches. The referee stopped the fight. Holyfield's ear was never fully repaired.

Vito Cascio Ferro

Vito Cascio Ferro reputedly committed the first Mafia murder on American soil — detective Joe Petrosino, shot in Palermo in 1909 — and allegedly boasted he was the only man to have done it personally in years.

Neutron star merger

When two neutron stars collide — GW170817, August 2017 — the explosion forged gold, platinum, and uranium in seconds. Every piece of jewelry on Earth traces back to a dead-star crash.

Dyson sphere

Freeman Dyson proposed in 1960 that a civilization running out of energy would dismantle its own planets to build a shell around its star, capturing every photon. We should look for the heat.

First Battle of Panipat

Babur deployed field artillery — new to the subcontinent — and routed a force nine times his size in a single afternoon. The Mughal Empire he founded that day would rule India for 300 years and build the Taj Mahal.