Bugsy Siegel

A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry depicting Bishop Odo rallying Duke William 's army during the Battle of Hastings in 1066

Tupac Shakur (right) and The Notorious B.I.G. (left), the two main figures of the East Coast–West Coast hip-hop rivalry, prior to the conflict in 1993 in Los Angeles. The image was also used in the 2002 feature-length documentary film…

Chinese propaganda poster from the Korean War era: "Vaccinate everyone, to crush the germ warfare of US imperialism !"

Trump's tweet activity from his first tweet in May 2009 until June 2020

Bugsy Siegel was reading the Los Angeles Times on a sofa in Beverly Hills when a rifle bullet blew his right eye out of its socket — landing four feet away on the floor.

Bayeux Tapestry

Embroidered in wool on linen 70 metres long, the Bayeux Tapestry was likely stitched within twenty years of the 1066 invasion it records — by English hands, for a Norman patron, depicting the death of a king the embroiderers may have watched fall.

Japanese American Citizens League

The Japanese American Citizens League publicly urged Nisei to cooperate with internment orders in 1942 — calling resistance un-American. Decades later the JACL issued formal apologies to the resisters it had condemned.

East Coast–West Coast hip-hop rivalry

By 1997, two of rap's biggest figures were dead and their labels were in ruin. What began as promotional rivalry between Death Row and Bad Boy became geography that determined whose side you were on at gunpoint.

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.

Pompey

Caesar's own son-in-law and political patron, Pompey was beheaded in a rowboat off Egypt by a former Roman officer named Septimius. His severed head was presented to Caesar, who reportedly wept.

Allegations of biological warfare in the Korean War

China charged the U.S. with dropping plague-infected fleas and cholera-laced clams over North Korea in 1952. Twenty-five captured American airmen confessed. Every confession was later recanted. The insects remain unresolved.

Cecilio Domínguez

Prime Minister Cánovas del Castillo received a bouquet of flowers from Cecilio Domínguez — and a bullet. The pistol hidden among the stems ended Spain's 1897 summer. Who taught an anarchist the etiquette of assassination?

Use of X by Donald Trump

Trump tweeted 'South Africa' and 'large scale killing of farmers' after a Tucker Carlson segment in August 2018 — Pretoria summoned the U.S. ambassador within hours and land prices dropped before markets closed.