gnostek‹›1 / 2Tim Donaghy200%Sports gaffesNBA referee Tim Donaghy bet on games he personally officiated from 2005 to 2007, adjusting foul calls to swing point spreads. He pled guilty to two federal felony counts and served 15 months.+ See More01Donaghy placed bets through a childhood friend who relayed picks to a professional gambler named James Battista.02He earned roughly $30,000 from his gambling operation before FBI wiretaps caught him.03Donaghy later alleged that other referees also fixed games — the NBA denied it.
gnostek‹›1 / 2Clive Derby-Lewis100%Conflicts of Recent Past and their Origins: Rhodesia to White GenocideConservative Party MP Clive Derby-Lewis compiled a typed hit list of senior ANC figures and handed it to Janusz Waluś — Chris Hani's name was on page one. The list also included Nelson Mandela.+ See More01Derby-Lewis's list contained the names, addresses, and vehicle registration numbers of over 60 ANC targets.02His wife Gaye Derby-Lewis typed the final version of the list and was convicted alongside him as a co-conspirator.03Derby-Lewis applied for amnesty to the TRC but was denied; he died in prison of cancer in 2016.
gnostek‹›1 / 6The eight "Chicago Black Sox"Black Sox Scandal8013%Worst sports cheating scandalsEight Chicago White Sox players threw the 1919 World Series for gamblers paying as little as $5,000 per player. A boy reportedly pleaded, 'Say it ain't so, Joe.' Shoeless Joe Jackson batted .375 during the fix.+ See More01First baseman Chick Gandil organized the fix; the players received between $5,000 and $35,000, unevenly distributed.02Shoeless Joe Jackson actually batted .375 in the Series and hit the only home run — yet was banned for life.03Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned all eight players permanently, even after a jury acquitted them in 1921.
gnostek+4‹›1 / 11The phrase banana republic was coined in 1904 by American writer O. Henry .Banana republic600%Little-known economic phenomenaUnited Fruit Company owned 42% of Guatemala's land by 1950, paid zero taxes, and orchestrated a CIA-backed coup when a president dared to tax unused fields. The term was coined in 1901.+ See More01United Fruit owned Guatemala's only railroad, its telegraph lines, and its Caribbean port.02In 1954, the CIA overthrew President Árbenz after he tried to redistribute 234,000 acres of UFC land.03O. Henry coined 'banana republic' in 1904 while hiding in Honduras to escape embezzlement charges.
gnostek‹›1 / 5Battle of Nagashino500%Battles that were a turning point in a warOda Nobunaga lined 3,000 arquebusiers behind wooden palisades and rotated them in firing relays, shredding Takeda's cavalry in minutes. The samurai charge, centuries old, dissolved in a single afternoon in 1575.+ See More01Nobunaga deployed 3,000 firearms simultaneously — an unprecedented concentration for 16th-century Japan.02Takeda Katsuyori lost roughly 10,000 men, including almost his entire elite cavalry force, in one engagement.03Rotating volley fire at Nagashino predates its European adoption by decades, suggesting independent tactical invention.
gnostek+2‹›1 / 9Mitt Romney 2012 presidential campaign1208%Controversial statements by politicians in the 21st centuryAt a $50,000-a-plate Boca Raton fundraiser, Romney told donors 47% of Americans 'believe they are victims' and pay no income tax. A bartender's phone captured every word.+ See More01The fundraiser cost $50,000 per plate; the bartender, Scott Prouty, filmed it on a Sony camera.02Romney said the 47% who pay no income tax will 'vote for the president no matter what' — meaning Obama.03Prouty came forward publicly on MSNBC three months after the election, explaining he acted on conscience.
gnostek‹›1 / 2Dawn Brancheau600%domesticated wild animals that turned on ownersDawn Brancheau, SeaWorld Orlando's most senior trainer, was pulled into the water and killed by orca Tilikum in front of an audience on February 24, 2010. She had 16 years of experience. The show had just ended.+ See More01Brancheau had 16 years at SeaWorld and was considered its most accomplished trainer at the time of her death.02OSHA fined SeaWorld $75,000 and banned trainers from entering the water with orcas — a rule SeaWorld fought in court for years.03Internal documents showed SeaWorld knew Tilikum had been involved in two prior deaths before Brancheau entered his pool.
gnostekGuy Hocquenghem700%Revolutionaries in Queer TheoryHocquenghem's 1972 'Homosexual Desire' declared the anus — not the phallus — the true seat of revolutionary politics. He died of AIDS in 1988, at 41, unrecanted.+ See More01Hocquenghem published 'Homosexual Desire' in 1972, a year before Foucault's 'The Order of Things' was translated.02He argued the anus is the one orifice capitalism cannot productively colonize — therefore, liberation lives there.03Hocquenghem died of AIDS in 1988 at 41, after publicly refusing to hide his diagnosis.
gnostek+16‹›1 / 23Golden eagle200%Fastest AnimalsAt 150 mph in a stoop, the golden eagle strikes with talons exerting 750 psi — roughly the grip of a hydraulic press on a soda can. Civilizations from the Mongols to Rome named themselves by this bird.+ See More01Golden eagle talons exert 750 psi on impact — exceeding the bite force of most large predators.02Mongol hunters trained golden eagles to take wolves and foxes across the Central Asian steppe.03The eagle appears on the flags or seals of over a dozen modern nation-states.