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Under Roman law, an adult son, no matter his age or rank, remained under his father's power of life and death — patria potestas — until the father died. A consul could be executed by his own father.

Jane Goodall spent months sitting motionless in Tanzania's Gombe forest until a chimpanzee she named David Greybeard allowed her to approach — the first time a wild chimp accepted a human. She was twenty-six, had no university degree, and had been in Africa five months.

Norman Mailer's 1969 NYC mayoral run proposed making New York City the 51st state, hosting jousting tournaments in Central Park to settle civic disputes, and banning private cars from Manhattan — losing with just 5% of the primary vote.

Tissaphernes invited ten thousand Greek mercenary officers to a feast, then had them seized and beheaded mid-meal — stranding the surviving rank-and-file 1,500 miles from home without leadership.

Switch a lamp on and off — once per second, then half a second, then a quarter — completing infinite switches in two minutes flat. Mathematics gives no answer to whether it's on or off at minute two.

Taken from Albania as a child hostage, raised as an Ottoman janissary, Skanderbeg defected at 38 with three hundred men and held off the full Ottoman army 25 times over 25 years.

Emperor Xian reigned for thirty-one years as Cao Cao's hostage. He watched Cao Cao personally drag Empress Fu from her chambers and execute her inside the palace walls in 214 CE.

Kublai Khan's fleets were wrecked twice — in 1274 and again in 1281 — by typhoons striking the same Japanese coastline. The Japanese named the storms kamikaze: divine wind.

NBA 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.