Gisèle Halimi

Illustrated Jonah from the 15th-century Kennicott Bible

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.

French lawyer Gisèle Halimi defended rape survivors by transforming their trials into trials of French rape law itself — in the 1978 Aix-en-Provence case, she cross-examined the law until the courtroom became the accused. She won.

Baarle-Hertog is a Belgian municipality made of 22 non-contiguous enclaves scattered inside the Netherlands — some so small they contain a single house, with the national border running through the front door.

Schiele painted children in explicit sexual poses, was jailed in 1912 — and the judge burned one drawing in open court as a torch, declaring it pornography. He was 22. The models were sometimes as young as 12.

Jonah, swallowed by a fish, sulks when God spares the city he hated — and then weeps over a dead plant. Scholars now classify it as deliberate comic fiction targeting 5th-century Jewish nationalism.

Besieged in Syracuse, Agathocles loaded 14,000 men onto ships and invaded Carthage directly — turning his own siege inside out. He reputedly drank from enemy skulls and rose from a potter's wheel to a throne.

At its worst, Zimbabwe's inflation hit 89.7 sextillion percent annually. Workers were paid twice a day so they could spend wages before lunch erased the value.

After playing his own game and feeling like a villain, Richard Garriott scrapped Ultima III's kill-everything model and invented a new goal: becoming a moral exemplar across eight virtues, with no final boss to slay.

US aircraft trapped retreating Iraqi columns on Highway 80, then strafed them for hours. The 60-mile stretch of incinerated vehicles and bodies became so grotesque it helped end the war in 100 hours.

An Olympic gold medalist struck his unprotected skull on a stone culvert at 88 km/h on Stage 15, 1995. Teammates crossed the finish line the next day holding his bicycle above their heads.