The Transsexual Empire

01Raymond argued that surgeons performing sex reassignment were 'cutting off the possibility of' authentic gender deviance to maintain social norms.
02Sandy Stone, named by Raymond as a male infiltrator, responded in 1987 with 'The Empire Strikes Back,' now considered the founding text of trans studies.
03The book was republished in 1994 with a new preface in which Raymond declined to retract any of its core claims.

A barrel-type butter churn

Skydiver Bill Booth 's second rule states that "The safer skydiving gear becomes, the more chances skydivers will take, in order to keep the fatality rate constant."

The Transsexual Empire

Janice Raymond's 1979 'The Transsexual Empire' argued that sex reassignment surgery wasn't liberation but a medical system eliminating gender-nonconforming bodies to protect the male-female binary. Sandy Stone answered it with a 1987 essay that founded trans studies.

Operation Eagle Claw

Eight Americans burned to death in the Iranian desert before a single shot was fired — a rescue mission that killed only its own rescuers, 53 hostages still chained inside Tehran.

Butter churn

A wooden dasher plunged up and down by hand for forty unbroken minutes to produce one pound of butter. The task fell to whoever was smallest — usually the children.

Risk compensation

After seatbelt laws passed, Sam Peltzman measured the data: drivers sped up and followed closer, killing roughly the same number of car occupants — but significantly more pedestrians and cyclists.

Cyrus the Younger

Cyrus the Younger paid 10,000 Greek soldiers to march 1,500 miles to overthrow his brother Artaxerxes II — then personally charged the royal bodyguard, took a javelin to the eye socket, and died instantly.

Briley brothers

James, Linwood, and Anthony Briley murdered 11 people across Richmond, Virginia, between 1971 and 1979 — then escaped from death row together in 1984, prompting a six-state manhunt that ended in Philadelphia six days later.

MV SuperFerry 14

A single bomb hidden in a SuperFerry's cargo hold on August 2, 2004 killed 116 people in Manila Bay — the deadliest peacetime maritime attack in recorded history. Abu Sayyaf planted it for $400.

Pyrrhus of Epirus

The greatest tactical mind of his era — a man who beat Rome repeatedly — was killed by a clay roof tile hurled by an anonymous old woman from a balcony in Argos. He was 46.

The hand of God

Maradona punched the ball into England's net with his left fist in the 1986 World Cup quarterfinal, then told reporters God's hand had done it. Argentina won 2–1 and went on to lift the trophy.