Topaz War Relocation Center

Coat of arms of the Indies Company, with the reclining figure representing the Mississippi River taken from Law's Compagnie d'Occident , and the motto Florebo quocumque ferar taken from Louis XIV's East India Company

The Wow! signal represented as "6EQUJ5". The original printout with Ehman's handwritten exclamation is preserved by Ohio History Connection .

Takifugu in a tank

Topaz War Relocation Center

At Topaz, Utah, Japanese American artists built the Topaz Art School inside a relocation camp — teaching painting and sculpture under armed guard in the desert. Chiura Obata founded it; a guard shot and killed one student who wandered near the fence.

John Law's Company

John Law sold France shares in the Louisiana Territory — mostly swamp — by convincing Paris that the Mississippi River ran through mountains of gold. Share prices rose 3,600% then fell to zero in 18 months.

Iamblichus

He rose ten cubits off the ground — glowing gold — while his students watched twice. A Syrian Neoplatonist who made ritual magic philosophically respectable. What do you do with a man who keeps floating?

1995 Tour de France

In 1995, Casartelli's skull cracked on a roadside concrete block during stage 15; he was dead before the helicopter landed. The race continued. Miguel Induráin won overall in silence.

Psittacosaurus

One Psittacosaurus specimen still wears its skin — and that skin shows countershaded stripes, making it the first dinosaur whose actual color pattern has been scientifically confirmed.

Wow! signal

On August 15, 1977, astronomer Jerry Ehman circled a 72-second spike on a printout and wrote 'Wow!' beside it. It broadcast on the 1420 MHz hydrogen line. It has never come back.

Fugu

A single fugu pufferfish carries tetrodotoxin enough to kill 30 adults; there is no antidote. Japanese chefs must train three years and pass a written and practical exam — the failure rate exceeds 35%.

2023 Tour de France

Over seven decades, press motorcycles weaving through the peloton have shattered collarbone, kneecap, and career — one cameraman's vehicle knocked Joseba Beloki into a fracture pattern that ended his season in 2003.

Baruch Spinoza

At 23, Spinoza received the harshest cherem—formal excommunication—in Amsterdam's Jewish community. The writ called his 'abominable heresies' and 'monstrous deeds' unspecified, and they remain unspecified to this day.