gnostek1 / 11A tulip, known as "the Viceroy" ( viseroij ), displayed in the 1637 Dutch catalogue Verzameling van een Meenigte Tulipaanen ("Collection of a Crowd of Tulips"). Its bulb was offered for sale for between 3,000 and 4,200 guilders (florins)…
01The Semper Augustus bulb peaked at 10,000 guilders — equal to ten times a skilled craftsman's annual wage.
02At the crash's peak, tulip futures contracts were sold in taverns for bulbs that hadn't yet grown.
03Some historians argue the 'mania' was exaggerated — only a narrow merchant class was ever truly exposed.
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01The FBI planted a listening device in the house before the ceremony; the recording captured every oath word-for-word.
02Four men were inducted simultaneously; the ceremony was conducted by acting boss Joseph Russo, who was arrested shortly after.
03The recording proved in federal court that the ritual — long dismissed as legend — was practiced exactly as informants had described for 30 years.
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01By late 1936, roughly 70% of Catalonia's economy was under worker collectivization, not state control.
02Barcelona's tram network was collectivized and running within days of the anarchist takeover of the city.
03George Orwell arrived in December 1936 and wrote that it was the first time he had seen a town where the working class was in the saddle.
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01Hayashi killed 11 enemy soldiers and took out two machine-gun positions after being wounded twice in one action.
02He died of wounds shortly after the engagement — never knowing his DSC would be upgraded to a Medal of Honor.
03His Medal of Honor was awarded in 2000 as part of a congressionally mandated review of 104 Nisei WWII cases.
gnostek1 / 3Medieval English split tally stick ( front and reverse view). The stick is notched and inscribed to record a debt owed to the rural dean of Preston Candover , Hampshire, of a tithe of 20 d each on 32 sheep, amounting to a total sum of £2…
01Tally sticks recorded English government debt from the 12th century until 1826, outlasting empires.
02The notch width indicated denomination: a thumb-width notch meant £1,000; a barleycorn-width meant one penny.
03In 1834, burning obsolete tally sticks in a furnace set fire to the Houses of Parliament, destroying them.
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01Fish mailed the Budd family a letter in 1934 describing Grace's flesh as 'sweet and tender.'
02X-rays before his execution revealed 29 needles he had inserted into his own groin over the years.
03He claimed to have 'had children in every state,' suggesting up to 100 victims across decades.
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01Schwarzman's 2007 birthday party at the Park Avenue Armory cost an estimated $3 million and featured Rod Stewart.
02Blackstone's IPO that same year valued Schwarzman's personal stake at roughly $7.8 billion.
03He later donated $100 million to Yale, $150 million to MIT, and $188 million to Oxford — each naming a building.
gnostek1 / 2Exterior view of the building known as Ransom Room, in Cajamarca where the Inca Atahualpa was confined.
01The ransom room measured roughly 22 feet long by 17 feet wide; gold filled it once, silver twice.
02Estimated value of Atahualpa's ransom: over $1.5 billion in today's terms — the largest ever paid.
03Pizarro's justification for execution was a fabricated charge of plotting rebellion after payment was complete.
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01'Kubla Khan' was written in a single opium-induced session in 1797; Coleridge claimed an interruption by 'a person from Porlock' broke the trance.
02By 1816 Coleridge was consuming up to two quarts of laudanum per week, documented in letters to his physician James Gillman.
03Wordsworth formally ended their friendship partly over Coleridge's unreliability — lectures cancelled, manuscripts undelivered, debts accumulated.