Ali Hassan al-Majid — gnostek

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01Ali Hassan al-Majid ordered the Anfal campaign, killing an estimated 50,000–100,000 Kurds with chemical weapons.
02He personally signed the document declaring Kuwait Iraq's 19th province in August 1990.
03Convicted and sentenced to death four separate times before his 2010 execution by hanging.

Wikipedia Canon

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01Inventor Maurice Ward was a hairdresser with no scientific training when he created Starlite.
02A Starlite-coated egg survived a direct blowtorch for five minutes with the egg remaining uncooked inside.
03Ward refused every licensing deal — from Boeing to the British Ministry of Defence — until he died in 2011.

Wikipedia Canon

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01The 'ears' are rhinophores — chemosensory organs detecting dissolved molecules, not sound or balance.
02Sea bunnies are nudibranch sea slugs, reaching only 2 centimetres long, yet toxic enough to deter fish.
03Their bright coloration is aposematic — the prettier the pattern, the more potent the chemical warning.

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01Lorz claimed it was a joke; the Amateur Athletic Union banned him for life, then reversed it after a year.
02The actual winner, Thomas Hicks, was given strychnine and brandy mid-race by his handlers.
03Four of the 32 starters finished; the course was a Georgia-summer 90°F with a single water station.

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01Greek fire was first deployed in 672 AD, repelling the Arab siege of Constantinople by sea.
02The weapon burned on water — witnesses described ships continuing to burn as they sank.
03The recipe was a state secret; even modern analysis cannot pin down all its components.

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01The St. Kinga's Chapel underground is 54 metres long, 18 metres wide, and 12 metres tall — hewn entirely from salt.
02The mine stretches across 300 kilometres of tunnels on nine levels, mined continuously since the 13th century.
03Salt chandeliers appear to glow amber because the mineral is slightly translucent; the light travels through the carved crystal.

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Artist's conception of a powerful magnetar in a star cluster

01A magnetar's magnetic field reaches 10^15 gauss — Earth's field is 0.5 gauss.
02SGR 1806-20 released more energy in 0.2 seconds on Dec 27, 2004 than the Sun emits in 250,000 years.
03At 1,000 km, the field would rewrite the quantum structure of your atoms before you felt anything.

Wikipedia Canon

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01God kills Job's ten children, 7,000 sheep, and 3,000 camels on a bet with Satan.
02The prose frame—where Job is rewarded—was likely added centuries after the original poem was written.
03At the end, God mocks Job from a whirlwind for 71 verses without answering a single question.

Wikipedia Canon

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A mangle being used in a domestic science course during World War II

01The rollers exerted enough pressure to strip skin and muscle from hand to wrist in one pass.
02Wringer injuries were so common that 1940s home-economics textbooks devoted a full chapter to avoidance.
03The machine remained in production until the 1970s, decades after documented mass injury records accumulated.

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