1973 Israeli raid in Lebanon

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights , oil on oak panels, 205.5 cm × 384.9 cm (81 in × 152 in) , Museo del Prado , Madrid

Medieval 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…

01Roman officer Volusenus struck Commius in the head with a sword during a supposed parley; Commius escaped and swore never to set eyes on a Roman again.
02Commius later negotiated a formal peace with Mark Antony on the sole condition that he never be required to enter Roman presence.
03He eventually crossed to Britain, founded a dynasty among the Atrebates tribe, and minted coins bearing his own name — the only Gallic rebel to build a kingdom afterward.

1973 Israeli raid in Lebanon

Ehud Barak wore a wig and dress into Beirut, walked upstairs, and shot PLO commanders Abu Iyad and Kamal Adwan in their own apartments. The future prime minister was also the makeup artist.

Wieliczka Salt Mine

Polish salt miners over seven centuries carved a full Gothic cathedral — complete with chandeliers, altarpieces, and bas-relief murals — entirely from grey salt, 101 metres below the earth's surface.

Tsutomu Miyazaki

Tsutomu Miyazaki killed four girls aged four to seven near Tokyo between 1988 and 1989, ate one victim's hands, and mailed her charred bones to her family in a box with photographs. Police found 5,763 videotapes stacked in his room.

The Garden of Earthly Delights

In Bosch's Hell panel, a man is crucified on the strings of a giant harp, arrows through both thighs. Painted around 1500, it hangs in the Prado — and no one is sure what any of it means.

Mongol invasions of Japan

Kublai Khan's fleets were wrecked twice — in 1274 and again in 1281 — by typhoons striking the same Japanese coastline. The Japanese named the storms kamikaze: divine wind.

Tally stick

For 700 years, the English Exchequer split hazel sticks to record royal debts — the king kept one half, the creditor the other. In 1834, Parliament burned the old sticks and accidentally set Westminster on fire.

Made man

To become a made man, a candidate pricks his trigger finger, bleeds onto a saint's card, and burns it in his cupped hands while swearing omertà — a rite older than the American republic.

Commius

Caesar trusted Commius enough to send him as personal ambassador to Britain — then ordered him assassinated mid-mission. Commius survived, defected, fought on for years, and finally escaped Caesar's reach by sailing into darkness.

Harold Holt

Harold Holt, Prime Minister of Australia, waded into the surf at Cheviot Beach on December 17, 1967, and was never seen again. No body was ever recovered. Australia has no official cause of death on record.