Manzanar

The Severan Tondo , c. 199 AD tondo of the Severan family , with portraits of Septimius Severus , Julia Domna , and their sons Caracalla and Geta . The face of one of Severus' and Julia's sons has been erased; it may be Geta's, as a result…

Illustrative woodcut from the Latin edition of Columbus's letter printed in Basel in 1494.

At Manzanar, California, fathers imprisoned behind barbed wire signed their sons' draft papers — sons already bleeding in Italy. Some fathers received notification of death before the paperwork came back.

Killing of Osama bin Laden

A stealth Black Hawk — technology so classified it didn't officially exist — crashed in bin Laden's courtyard. SEALs blew it apart with thermite charges, but the tail section survived, photographed by the world.

Battle of Caporetto

Italy collapsed so completely at Caporetto in 1917 that 300,000 soldiers were taken prisoner in one week. A 29-year-old Lieutenant Erwin Rommel, with fewer than 200 men, personally accepted the surrender of 9,000 Italians.

Damnatio memoriae

Rome could condemn a man to nonexistence: his face chiseled off statues, his name gouged from inscriptions, his coins melted down. Domitian's name was erased from 31 separate official monuments after his death.

WannaCry ransomware attack

NSA's stolen EternalBlue exploit encrypted 80,000 NHS devices in May 2017, forcing British hospitals to turn away ambulances. The kill switch was found by a 22-year-old researcher who registered a $10.69 domain.

Toys "R" Us

KKR, Vornado, and Bain Capital bought Toys 'R' Us in 2005 for $6.6 billion, immediately saddled it with $5 billion in debt, and spent 13 years watching 33,000 employees lose jobs as the debt ate the stores.

Columbus's letter on the first voyage

Columbus wrote his letter aboard ship in February 1493, before landfall in Europe. It was translated, printed, and reprinted 17 times across the continent within a year — the first mass-media account of a new world.

Drake–Kendrick Lamar feud

In spring 2024, Kendrick Lamar alleged Drake had a secret daughter in addition to the already-hidden son — across certified gold and platinum releases. Two children, neither confirmed, both now public record.

Buckminsterfullerene

Sixty carbon atoms arranged as a perfect truncated icosahedron — identical to a FIFA football — were discovered in 1985 by Harry Kroto inside the soot of a carbon arc, winning a Nobel Prize eleven years later.