Robert Mugabe

A Jake and Dinos Chapman fused mannequin piece from the exhibition Come and See at the Serpentine Gallery

01Chinese prisoners captured at Talas in 751 AD transmitted papermaking to the Islamic world — the technology spread faster than any army.
02Baghdad's first paper mill opened around 793 AD; by 900, Islamic scholars were producing books on a scale China alone had managed.
03Europe's first paper mill appeared in Fabriano, Italy, in 1276 — 525 years after Talas, and only after Moorish Spain passed the technique.

Memorial stone to the Ems dispatch in Bad Ems

Mugabe's hyperinflation peaked in November 2008 at 89.7 sextillion percent monthly; Zimbabwe issued a $100 trillion banknote that could not buy a bus ticket, while life expectancy fell to 37 — the world's lowest.