gnostek1 / 5The Wow! signal represented as "6EQUJ5". The original printout with Ehman's handwritten exclamation is preserved by Ohio History Connection .
01Jerry Ehman wrote 'Wow!' in red pen on the Ohio State Big Ear printout on August 15, 1977.
02The signal hit exactly the 1420 MHz hydrogen frequency SETI researchers had predicted aliens would use.
03Forty-seven years of follow-up observations have produced zero repetitions or explanations.
gnostek1 / 2Exterior view of the building known as Ransom Room, in Cajamarca where the Inca Atahualpa was confined.
01The ransom room measured roughly 22 feet long by 17 feet wide; gold filled it once, silver twice.
02Estimated value of Atahualpa's ransom: over $1.5 billion in today's terms — the largest ever paid.
03Pizarro's justification for execution was a fabricated charge of plotting rebellion after payment was complete.
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01Hector Pieterson was the first child killed in the Soweto Uprising; he was shot at approximately 10 a.m. on June 16, 1976.
02Photographer Sam Nzima was ordered by his editor to hand over the negatives; he hid a copy and smuggled it out.
03Mbuyisa Makhubo, the teenager carrying Hector in the photograph, fled South Africa and was never seen again after 1978.
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01The Treasury Department ruled that U.S. lawyers required a special license to legally represent al-Awlaki in court.
02A federal judge dismissed his father's lawsuit to remove him from the kill list, citing lack of standing.
03The Justice Department's legal memo authorizing the killing was classified for three years after his death.
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01A neutron star packs 1.4 solar masses into a sphere roughly 20 km across.
02Its surface gravity is 200 billion times Earth's — a marshmallow dropped from 1 meter hits with nuclear-bomb force.
03The crust is so rigid that a 'starquake' of 1 mm releases more energy than the Sun emits in 100,000 years.
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01Caesar's inner wall (contravallation) was 11 miles; his outer wall (circumvallation) was 14 miles — both built in under six weeks.
02The relief army of roughly 250,000 Gauls attacked both walls at once; Caesar personally rode to plug a breach, his red cloak used as a field signal.
03When the relief army failed, Vercingetorix surrendered 80,000 starving survivors — and the 20,000 Mandubii civilians Caesar had refused to feed died in the gap between the walls.
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01Crowley led the Ordo Templi Orientis and published its graded initiation rites while in active heroin dependency.
02He attempted a formal cure at a German sanatorium in 1930 and relapsed within weeks of discharge.
03Several of Crowley's closest disciples developed severe opiate addictions after following his 'magical' drug regimens.
gnostek1 / 11A tulip, known as "the Viceroy" ( viseroij ), displayed in the 1637 Dutch catalogue Verzameling van een Meenigte Tulipaanen ("Collection of a Crowd of Tulips"). Its bulb was offered for sale for between 3,000 and 4,200 guilders (florins)…
01The Semper Augustus, the most prized tulip, fetched 10,000 guilders in early 1637 — roughly 10 years of a skilled craftsman's wages.
02Futures contracts for tulip bulbs still underground were being traded in taverns; buyers never saw the actual bulb.
03By May 1637, Haarlem courts ruled tulip contracts unenforceable, effectively wiping out every outstanding futures position.
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01A judge burned one of Schiele's drawings by candleflame in open court during his 1912 trial in Neulengbach.
02He was held for 24 days before his sentence; during confinement he made 13 drawings documenting his cell.
03Several of his young models were between 12 and 14 years old; he had sought parental permission for some sessions.