Depleted uranium

The DU penetrator of a 30 mm round from the GAU-8 Avenger

The Kwakwaka'wakw continue the practice of potlatch. Illustrated here is Wawadit'la in Thunderbird Park , Victoria, B.C. , a big house built by Chief Mungo Martin in 1953. Wealthy, prominent hosts would have a Big House specifically for…

General Tomoyuki Yamashita

1920 advertisement for the Thor electric washing machine.

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

Depleted uranium

The US Army fired roughly 300 tons of depleted uranium rounds into Iraq and Kuwait, then left the radioactive debris in the sand. Birth defect rates in Basra spiked in the years that followed.

Potlatch

Pacific Northwest chiefs burned blankets, smashed canoes, and gave away slaves to humiliate rivals — the more you destroyed, the higher your rank. Canada banned the ceremony in 1885.

We'wha

We'wha, a Zuni lhamana, spent six months in Washington in 1886 as a cultural ambassador, met President Grover Cleveland, and was celebrated as a weaver and diplomat — a third-gender role the Zuni had honored for generations.

Frederick Lorz

Fred Lorz crossed the 1904 Olympic marathon finish line to cheers, waved at crowds, and posed for photos before admitting he'd hitched a car ride for 11 of the 26 miles.

Yamashita's gold

Rogelio Roxas claimed to have found General Yamashita's buried hoard and showed a golden Buddha to prove it; he was then arrested, tortured, and died in custody. The gold has never appeared.

Thor washing machine

The 1908 Thor washing machine married bare copper wiring to a full tub of water and called it progress. Its inventor, Alva Fisher, left the ground wire out entirely. It sold briskly.

Super Mario Galaxy

Mario sprints across planets the size of houses, gravity bending so he runs along their undersides, while a 70-piece orchestra plays music that swells as stars come into view. A platformer that accidentally felt like awe.

Joseph Valachi

Joseph Valachi, convinced Vito Genovese had marked him for death with a prison kiss, beat fellow inmate Joseph Saupp to death with a steel pipe — Saupp was the wrong man entirely.

Magnetar

One teaspoon of magnetar crust outweighs Mount Everest; its magnetic field, at 10^15 gauss, would strip the iron from your blood from half the distance to the Moon.