Prisoners of war in the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971

Wall Street during the bank panic in October 1907. Federal Hall National Memorial , with its statue of George Washington , is seen on the right.

The "Xiaohe Mummy", exhibited in Xinjiang Museum, is one of the oldest Tarim mummies, dating more than 3800 years ago. Another mummy from the same place is the " Princess of Xiaohe ".

Prisoners of war in the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971

Pakistan publicly claimed its 93,000 captured soldiers in Indian camps were 'volunteers' — a fiction sustained for two years while the men waited. Bhutto finally negotiated their return by conceding terms he publicly denied ever signing.

Spec Ops: The Line

Halfway through a military shooter, the player learns the white phosphorus airstrike they just executed killed 47 civilians in a refugee camp — and the game made them do it. No other ending is available.

Panic of 1907

In October 1907, J.P. Morgan physically locked the nation's top bankers inside his Manhattan library at midnight and refused to open the doors until they signed a $25 million rescue pledge at 4:45 a.m.

Trajan's Column

Inside the base of Trajan's Column — a 30-metre marble drum carved with 2,500 figures — sits a golden urn holding the emperor's actual ashes. The dead man is inside the monument.

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.

Artist's Shit

Ninety tins of Piero Manzoni's sealed feces sit in museum collections worldwide. Tin No. 083 sold for €275,000 in 2022 — worth more per gram than gold, exactly as Manzoni priced it in 1961.

Zinedine Zidane

Zidane headbutted Marco Materazzi in the chest in extra time of the 2006 World Cup final, received a red card, and France lost on penalties — his last professional act ever.

Operation Barras

A flock of live chickens airdropped as a distraction let 22 SAS soldiers rush a Sierra Leone jungle camp in 2000, freeing five hostages from a gang that called itself the West Side Boys.

Tarim mummies

Xinjiang's Tarim Basin gave up Bronze Age mummies with red and blonde hair, plaid textiles, and features no one expected in 2nd-millennium-BCE China — their genetic origin is still genuinely contested.