Battle of Chancellorsville

The phrase banana republic was coined in 1904 by American writer O. Henry .

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.

North American F-100 Super Sabre dropping napalm in a training exercise

1920 advertisement for the Thor electric washing machine.

Battle of Chancellorsville

Lee's most brilliant tactical victory was also the shot that doomed the Confederacy: returning from a night reconnaissance, Stonewall Jackson was fired upon by his own men and died eight days later.

Banana republic

United Fruit Company owned 42% of Guatemala's land by 1950, paid zero taxes, and orchestrated a CIA-backed coup when a president dared to tax unused fields. The term was coined in 1901.

Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's central bank printed a one-hundred-trillion-dollar note in January 2009 — worth roughly $0.40 at issue. Three months later the currency was abandoned entirely. The note now sells for $20 on eBay.

Napalm

Korea was the proving ground where napalm became a mass-casualty weapon. The U.S. dropped 32,357 tons on the peninsula. Villages burned at 1,000 °C. The formula perfected there was still in use in Vietnam.

Thor washing machine

The 1908 Thor washing machine married bare copper wiring to a full tub of water and called it progress. Its inventor, Alva Fisher, left the ground wire out entirely. It sold briskly.

Tissaphernes

Tissaphernes invited ten thousand Greek mercenary officers to a feast, then had them seized and beheaded mid-meal — stranding the surviving rank-and-file 1,500 miles from home without leadership.

Little King's Story

A small boy in a cardboard crown discovers a kingdom and builds it not by conquering, but by politely knocking on doors and asking residents — farmers, bakers, warriors — if they'd like to help. They usually say yes.

Rigoberta Menchú

Before turning twenty-three, Rigoberta Menchú had memorized the name and story of every neighbor disappeared in Guatemala's civil war. She dictated her testimony in eight days to anthropologist Elisabeth Burgos-Debray — in a second language.

The History of Sexuality

Foucault's 'History of Sexuality' — three volumes published before AIDS killed him — argued the Victorian era didn't repress sex; it invented an entirely new way to talk, confess, and be made by it.