Revolt of the Batavi

01Daly grouped Chinese footbinding — which broke and rebound girls' feet from age 5, targeting a billion women over ten centuries — alongside 20th-century psychiatric treatment as equivalent tortures.
02Audre Lorde wrote Daly a letter in 1979 accusing her of using women of color only as victims in a white feminist framework; Daly did not respond for over a year.
03The book coined the term 'gynecide' and introduced 'hag,' 'crone,' and 'spinster' as reclaimed feminist honorifics still in academic use today.

A 13th–14th-century scroll of the Book of Esther from Fez, Morocco , held at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris . Traditionally, a scroll of Esther is given only one roller, fixed to its lefthand side, rather than the two used for a Torah…

Revolt of the Batavi

The Batavians were Rome's most trusted cavalry — exempt from taxes, garrisoned near the emperor — until 69 AD, when their commander Julius Civilis led them to annihilate five Roman legions in a single revolt.

Mary Daly

Mary Daly's 1978 'Gyn/Ecology' classified Chinese footbinding, Indian suttee, African genital cutting, Nazi medical experiments, and American gynecology as a single continuous system — all chapters of the same male text written on the female body.

Sutton Hoo helmet

Buried in a Suffolk mound around 625 CE with a 27-metre ship and a king's full treasure, the Sutton Hoo helmet was found in 1939 in over 500 fragments — reconstructed, it still carries the pressed impression of a human face in its iron cheekplates.

Tim Donaghy

NBA referee Tim Donaghy bet on 57 games he personally officiated, then admitted to adjusting foul calls to manipulate the spread. He served 15 months in federal prison and alleged the league itself manipulated playoff series.

Book of Esther

God's name never appears in the Book of Esther — the only biblical book with this omission. The plot hinges on a beauty contest for a drunk king and a eunuch's wounded pride.

Siege of Marawi

In 2017, Hapilon's ISIS-aligned Abu Sayyaf faction and the Maute group held Marawi — a Philippine city of 200,000 — for 154 days. The military retook it building by building; most of the city was leveled in the process.

Placenta cake

A segment of new parents encapsulate and swallow their own placenta, citing hormonal benefits; no peer-reviewed evidence supports the claim. One Oregon infant contracted group B streptococcus from a contaminated capsule.

Peregrine falcon

At 240 mph, the peregrine falcon folds into a teardrop and becomes the fastest thing alive — its specially baffled nostrils managing airflow a jet engineer would envy. No animal on Earth has ever been clocked faster.

Parmalat

Parmalat's CFO produced a Bank of America account statement confirming €4 billion — it was a photocopied forgery. The dairy company behind your supermarket milk had a $14 billion hole in its books. Europe's Enron, assembled with a scanner.