Drexel Burnham Lambert

A Coleman white gas lantern mantle glowing at full brightness

The epitome of the Rohan Master's art is the " Lamentation of the Virgin " (f. 135, Pl. 57) from the Hours of the Cross. The grieving Virgin cannot be consoled by the Apostle John , who looks up in consternation at a saddened God.

Tupac Shakur (right) and The Notorious B.I.G. (left), the two main figures of the East Coast–West Coast hip-hop rivalry, prior to the conflict in 1993 in Los Angeles. The image was also used in the 2002 feature-length documentary film…

Drexel Burnham Lambert

Drexel Burnham Lambert collapsed in February 1990, wiping out in days the firm that had financed the entire decade of hostile takeovers. It left a $650 million crater and 5,000 unemployed bankers before a single competitor blinked.

Gas mantle

Before electricity, a mesh sock soaked in radioactive thorium dioxide burned inside every middle-class parlour lamp. The mantles crumbled to radioactive dust when touched. Millions were sold; none came with warnings.

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius wrote the Meditations in Greek, on military campaign, with no intention of publishing. The book — private, furious, self-lacerating — survived because someone ignored his wishes.

Battle of Chosin Reservoir

At −35 °C, 17,000 UN troops punched through 120,000 encircling Chinese soldiers over 17 days at Chosin Reservoir. Weapons froze mid-fire. Marines carried their dead rather than leave them. They called the retreat a march.

Ergotism

In 1951, an entire French village — Pont-Saint-Esprit — simultaneously hallucinated, convulsed, and attempted flight from windows after eating contaminated bread. A fungus called Claviceps purpurea may have fueled the Salem witch trials, too.

Petya (malware family)

NotPetya wore a ransomware mask but had no decryption key — ever. It cost Maersk $300 million, wiped Merck's drug production, and erased FedEx's European arm in hours.

Rohan Hours

In the Rohan Hours, painted around 1420, a skeletal dying man lies naked on bare ground while God leans down from the sky to address him directly — a private conversation between a mortal and the divine, held across a page smaller than a hardback book.

East Coast–West Coast hip-hop rivalry

By 1997, two of rap's biggest figures were dead and their labels were in ruin. What began as promotional rivalry between Death Row and Bad Boy became geography that determined whose side you were on at gunpoint.

Emperor Xian of Han

Emperor Xian reigned for thirty-one years as Cao Cao's hostage. He watched Cao Cao personally drag Empress Fu from her chambers and execute her inside the palace walls in 214 CE.