01Six emperors rose and fell in a single calendar year, 238 CE.
02Gordian I hanged himself with his own belt after his son died in battle.
03Pupienus and Balbinus, elected by the Senate, were tortured and dismembered by guards after just 99 days.
gnostek
01Morris's Everest dispatch reached London on June 2, 1953 — timed to coincide with Queen Elizabeth II's coronation morning.
02She underwent surgery in Casablanca in 1972, at a time when the procedure was unavailable in Britain.
03'Conundrum,' published in 1974, is still in print and regarded as a landmark work of autobiographical literature.
gnostek
01Acker's 'Great Expectations' (1982) plagiarized Dickens, Proust, and Harold Robbins in a single text without quotation marks.
02She had breast implants removed on camera in the 1990s and wrote about it as a theory of bodily authorship.
03Her novel 'Blood and Guts in High School' was banned in West Germany for explicit illustrations she drew herself.
gnostek1 / 3
01The original Xbox was bundled with Halo: Combat Evolved, selling 8 million units in its first two years.
02Bungie designed the ring's open landscapes specifically to make players feel dwarfed by alien architecture.
03The Flood parasite, introduced midgame without warning, pivoted the entire tone of the campaign in a single corridor.
gnostek
01He was officially listed in Guinness from 1980 until his death in 1986 as age 120.
02Japanese researchers found the 1865 birth record belonged to a grandfather of the same name.
03His likely true birth year of 1880 would still place him among the oldest verified humans.
gnostek1 / 4
01The Enigma machine and its current rotor settings were seized from the armed trawler Krebs before she sank.
02315 Norwegian volunteers chose to sail back to Britain with the raiding force to join the Free Norwegian forces.
03The rotor settings recovered on March 4, 1941 allowed Bletchley Park to read Naval Enigma traffic for weeks.
gnostek1 / 3
01Caesar's soldiers killed roughly 10,000 Pompeians and captured 15,000 at Thapsus; the lopsided toll suggests a rout, not a battle.
02Ancient sources including Plutarch record Caesar falling into a seizure at the onset, carried to a nearby tower to recover while his army fought without him.
03After the battle, Caesar's own veterans executed several surrendered enemy officers on the spot — Caesar was reportedly unable to stop them.
gnostek1 / 17
01Titus reportedly wept at dinner if he had performed no act of generosity that day.
02He commanded the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD, during which the Second Temple was destroyed.
03He reigned only 26 months before dying of fever at 41; his brother Domitian may have hastened his death.
gnostek
01The Tate Modern, MoMA, and the Pompidou each own at least one tin.
02Some tins have expanded over decades, suggesting fermentation is still occurring inside.
03Manzoni produced them in two months; he died of a heart attack at age 29, two years later.