Diamond Sutra

Sir Geoffrey Luttrell , mounted, being assisted by his wife and daughter-in-law. Folio 202v.

"Queens" of Mysore : left, Krishnaraja Wadiyar III 's first wife, Devajammani has a discoloration around the mouth, thought to be due to the blowing of variolation dust in the nose ("nasal insufflation"). Right, his second wife shows the…

Side and top view of A-, B-, and Z-DNA conformations.

The Diamond Sutra, printed in 868 AD with a carved woodblock, is the world's oldest dated printed book — 587 years before Gutenberg. It opens with a line about the void and closes with instructions to destroy itself.

Siege of Marawi

In 2017, Hapilon's ISIS-aligned Abu Sayyaf faction and the Maute group held Marawi — a Philippine city of 200,000 — for 154 days. The military retook it building by building; most of the city was leveled in the process.

Frederick Lorz

Fred Lorz crossed the 1904 Olympic marathon finish line to cheers, waved at crowds, and posed for photos before admitting he'd hitched a car ride for 11 of the 26 miles.

Turnspit dog

The Turnspit dog — short-legged, long-bodied, now extinct — ran hamster-wheel treadmills bolted to kitchen walls for hours, rotating roasting joints. They worked in pairs, swapping shifts. By 1900, the breed had been deleted from existence.

Luttrell Psalter

Commissioned around 1320 for Sir Geoffrey Luttrell of Lincolnshire, the Luttrell Psalter fills its psalm margins with plowing serfs, acrobats, hybrid monsters, and a armored snail attacking a knight — 309 pages where medieval England's daily life sits beside its absurdist imagination.

Variolation

Ottoman physicians rubbed smallpox scabs into children's skin scratches centuries before Jenner's vaccine. The practice cut mortality from roughly 30% to under 2%, yet Europe called it barbarism until the death tolls reversed.

Nuestra Señora de Atocha

Mel Fisher searched 16 years for the Nuestra Señora de Atocha; three days before his crew found 40 tons of silver, his son Kane drowned when a salvage boat capsized.

A-DNA

In 1952, Rosalind Franklin produced Photo 51 — the clearest X-ray of DNA's helix ever taken; her colleague Maurice Wilkins showed it to James Watson without her knowledge, and Watson and Crick won the 1962 Nobel.

Patty Hearst

The Symbionese Liberation Army demanded $6 million in free food as Patty Hearst's ransom — then she picked up a rifle, renamed herself 'Tania,' and robbed a San Francisco bank with them 10 weeks later.