gnostek1 / 11Smoke plumes from a few of the Kuwaiti Oil Fires on April 7, 1991, as seen from Space Shuttle Atlantis during STS-37 .
01730 wells burned simultaneously, consuming an estimated 6 million barrels of oil per day at peak.
02The smoke plume turned daylight into darkness across Kuwait and reached as far as Kashmir.
03Legendary firefighter Red Adair led one of the first teams; the last well was capped November 6, 1991.
gnostek1 / 5The Wow! signal represented as "6EQUJ5". The original printout with Ehman's handwritten exclamation is preserved by Ohio History Connection .
01The signal peaked at intensity 30 times above background noise at 1420 MHz — the hydrogen frequency.
02Big Ear was demolished in 1997; no other telescope was pointed at that sky position during the burst.
03A 2016 study proposed a pair of passing comets (266P/Christensen) as the source — most astronomers remain unconvinced.
gnostek1 / 8Chapel interior
01The bone decorations were formally commissioned in 1870; František Rint bleached and arranged roughly 40,000 skeletons.
02The Schwarzenberg coat of arms rendered in bone includes a raven pecking the eye socket of a severed skull.
03The original mass burial began after soil from Jerusalem was sprinkled on the site in 1278, making it the most desired grave in Bohemia.
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01He crashed at full sprint into a Coca-Cola barrier on the Champs-Élysées in the 1991 Tour's final stage.
02Officials classified him as a finisher despite the crash, preserving his points-jersey lead on a technicality.
03Nicknamed 'The Tashkent Terror,' Abdoujaparov was infamous for dangerous sprinting long before Paris.
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01Rubin drew a literal concentric-circle diagram ranking sex acts from 'good' to 'bad' — published in an academic anthology.
02'Thinking Sex' was written during the 1984 Meese Commission panic, when the FBI was raiding adult bookstores.
03Rubin named sadomasochism, cross-dressing, and fetishism as unjustly condemned — while criticizing the condemnation, not endorsing harm.
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01Black Tuesday, October 29, saw 16 million shares sold; the Dow lost 12% of its value in a single session.
02U.S. GDP fell 30% between 1929 and 1933; unemployment reached 25% — one in four American workers.
03The crash wiped out roughly $30 billion in market value within two weeks, equivalent to the entire U.S. GDP at the time.
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01Only the first kilometre of the cave is iced; the remaining 41 kilometres are limestone tunnels beyond the freeze zone.
02The cave was mapped by explorer Alexander von Mörk beginning in 1913; he was killed at Gallipoli in 1914, and his ashes were interred inside the cave.
03Air circulation within Eisriesenwelt keeps the ice formations frozen even when summer temperatures outside exceed 20°C.
gnostek1 / 9A bile bear in a "crush cage" on Huizhou Farm, Huizhou , China
01An estimated 20,000 bears are currently held on bile farms in China and Vietnam, many in 'crush cages.'
02Bear bile contains ursodeoxycholic acid — a compound now synthesized cheaply in labs, making farming medically redundant.
03Moon bears on farms are often declawed and defanged at capture; some have been caged since cubhood.
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01The Hoxne Hoard contained 14,865 gold and silver coins, 200 gold and silver objects, and weighed nearly 8 kg total.
02A gold body-chain belonging to 'Juliane' — her name stamped in the clasp — was among the jewelry; she buried it around AD 407.
03Lawes received a full market-value reward of £1.75 million, split with the landowner; he donated part to the local church.