gnostek1 / 3The 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.
01The Grandes Heures de Rohan were painted around 1420, likely in Paris, by an anonymous master known only by the manuscript.
02The full-page Death miniature shows a naked man, skin already graying, exchanging a scroll of words directly with God.
03The manuscript's patron remains unknown — one of the most personal books of the Middle Ages has no confirmed name attached.
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01Cargill's annual revenues have exceeded $160 billion, surpassing the GDP of many mid-sized nations.
02Founded in 1865 in Conover, Iowa, the company has remained family-controlled for over 150 years.
03Cargill operates in 70 countries and handles an estimated 25% of all U.S. grain exports.
gnostek
01Rubin drew a literal concentric-circle diagram ranking sex acts from 'good' to 'bad' — published in an academic anthology.
02'Thinking Sex' was written during the 1984 Meese Commission panic, when the FBI was raiding adult bookstores.
03Rubin named sadomasochism, cross-dressing, and fetishism as unjustly condemned — while criticizing the condemnation, not endorsing harm.
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01Holt's body was never found despite one of Australia's largest naval search operations covering 10 square miles of coastline.
02A 1983 biography floated the theory that a Chinese submarine extracted Holt, who was allegedly a spy — taken seriously enough to be officially denied.
03Australia named a swimming center the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre in his honor.
gnostek
01Getty's grandson John Paul Getty III was 16 when kidnapped in Rome in July 1973.
02The severed ear and a lock of hair arrived at a Rome newspaper six weeks into the standoff.
03Getty Sr. lent his son the final ransom sum at 4% interest — repayment was contractually required.
gnostek1 / 5Corybantian dance , the type of dance most likely danced on Gymnopedia festivals (image from Smith 's Dictionary of Antiquities ).
01The festival lasted several days in July, the hottest period of the Spartan calendar, with no shade permitted.
02Choral competitions involved three age groups — boys, men, and elders — performing simultaneously.
03When news of the defeat at Leuctra arrived mid-festival in 371 BC, the ephors refused to stop the dancing.
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01Thirty pieces of silver — the price paid — was roughly a month's wages for a laborer in Roman Judea.
02The Gospels cannot agree on how Judas died: Matthew says he hanged himself; Acts says his bowels burst open in a field.
03Dante placed Judas in the ninth and deepest circle of Hell, frozen in Satan's mouth alongside Brutus and Cassius.
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01His Cyrus Cylinder, 539 BC, is the oldest known declaration of religious and ethnic tolerance by a ruler.
02Queen Tomyris of the Massagetae allegedly beheaded Cyrus and submerged his head in a skin of blood.
03He freed the Babylonian Jewish exile — ~40,000 people — and funded the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple.
gnostek1 / 6Plot of shear rate as a function of the shear stress. Dilatants in green.
01A pool of cornstarch-water mix is runnable: fast footsteps keep you on the surface; standing still, you sink.
02BAE Systems developed d3o armour using dilatant polymers that stiffen on impact within milliseconds.
03The same shear-thickening principle appears in Kevlar vests soaked in silica nanoparticle fluid, improving stab resistance by 45%.