Tissaphernes

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An electric steam iron

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The Persian satrap Tissaphernes invited the Greek generals of the Ten Thousand to a peace feast in 401 BC, then seized and beheaded each one — leaving 10,000 soldiers leaderless in the Persian heartland.

At Entebbe, hijackers sorted 248 passengers by passport — Jews to one side, non-Jews released. The remaining hostages were held in a terminal as ransom for 53 prisoners held across four countries. Israeli commandos flew 2,500 miles to answer.

French presidents draped napkins over their heads to eat ortolan buntings whole — bones, organs, beak — hiding the act from God's sight. Mitterrand ate two at his final meal, eight days before he died.

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.

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.

Named from the Old English 'sæd,' meaning solid — not sorrowful — the sad iron was a 6-pound cast-iron slab heated directly on the stove. Women rotated three irons to maintain one usable temperature.

A spectator's fist on the Puy-de-Dôme cracked Eddy Merckx's cheekbone during the 1975 Tour — the blow that broke the greatest cyclist alive and handed Bernard Thévenet the race.

Yumenguan — the Jade Gate — was a Han-dynasty fort at the Silk Road's western edge. Tang poets used it as shorthand for the world's end: cross it and you were gone from civilization itself.

Thirty-nine people castrated themselves, donned identical black tracksuits and Nike Decades, and drank phenobarbital pudding to board the Hale-Bopp comet. Their bunk beds were made, bags packed, and hands folded across their chests.