Long-Term Capital Management

The "Xiaohe Mummy", exhibited in Xinjiang Museum, is one of the oldest Tarim mummies, dating more than 3800 years ago. Another mummy from the same place is the " Princess of Xiaohe ".

The Kwakwaka'wakw continue the practice of potlatch. Illustrated here is Wawadit'la in Thunderbird Park , Victoria, B.C. , a big house built by Chief Mungo Martin in 1953. Wealthy, prominent hosts would have a Big House specifically for…

Long-Term Capital Management

Long-Term Capital Management had two Nobel laureates on its board and leverage of 25-to-1. When Russia defaulted in 1998 the fund lost $4.6 billion in four months, and the Federal Reserve had to organize a private bailout.

Tarim mummies

Xinjiang's Tarim Basin gave up Bronze Age mummies with red and blonde hair, plaid textiles, and features no one expected in 2nd-millennium-BCE China — their genetic origin is still genuinely contested.

Abu Sayyaf

In 2014, Isnilon Hapilon pledged bayah — formal oath of allegiance — to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, absorbing his Abu Sayyaf faction into the Islamic State's caliphate project. The pledge turned a kidnap-for-ransom gang into an ISIS province.

Balfour Declaration

Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote 67 words to Lord Rothschild in 1917, promising a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Those 67 words are still quoted in international courts more than a century later.

Vlad the Impaler

He lined the road to his own capital with 20,000 impaled Ottoman corpses as a greeting for Sultan Mehmed II. Mehmed turned his army around and went home.

Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma left his 1733 Montagnana cello — valued at $2.5 million — in a New York taxi trunk in 1999. The cab company traced the driver within an hour. He played the cello at the reunion press conference.

Murray Sanders

Colonel Murray Sanders arrived in Japan with a briefcase and left with a deal: Ishii's plague data for full immunity. The exchange happened before any other Allied officer knew it was on the table.

Hinterkaifeck murders

In March 1922, someone slaughtered six members of the Gruber family at Hinterkaifeck farm with a mattock. Neighbors found the livestock fed, the stove warm, and fresh food cooked — the killer had lived there for days.

Potlatch

Pacific Northwest chiefs burned blankets, smashed canoes, and gave away slaves to humiliate rivals — the more you destroyed, the higher your rank. Canada banned the ceremony in 1885.