gnostek1 / 11A tulip, known as "the Viceroy" ( viseroij ), displayed in the 1637 Dutch catalogue Verzameling van een Meenigte Tulipaanen ("Collection of a Crowd of Tulips"). Its bulb was offered for sale for between 3,000 and 4,200 guilders (florins)…
01The Semper Augustus, the most prized tulip, fetched 10,000 guilders in early 1637 — roughly 10 years of a skilled craftsman's wages.
02Futures contracts for tulip bulbs still underground were being traded in taverns; buyers never saw the actual bulb.
03By May 1637, Haarlem courts ruled tulip contracts unenforceable, effectively wiping out every outstanding futures position.
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01Antony left 19 legions stranded on the Greek coast when he abandoned his fleet to chase Cleopatra.
02Cleopatra's treasure ship — carrying the war chest for the entire eastern campaign — was on those 60 fleeing vessels.
03Octavian accepted Antony's surrendering legions, then used their manpower to become Augustus Caesar.
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01Federici traces the witch trial peak to the exact decades when European feudal commons were being legally enclosed and privatized.
02She argues contraceptive knowledge — held by women healers — was the specific threat that made midwives and herbalists targets for execution.
03'Caliban and the Witch' was rejected by major publishers for 15 years before Autonomedia released it; it is now assigned in over 200 universities.
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01Edison Manufacturing Company filmed Topsy's electrocution; the film, 'Electrocuting an Elephant,' was commercially distributed that same year.
02Topsy killed three men in three years, including an abusive trainer who fed her a lit cigarette.
03She was given cyanide-laced carrots, then 6,600 volts — organizers had originally planned to hang her publicly.
gnostek1 / 2A column of Bulgarian Comitadjis captured during WWI in Thessaloniki .
01Komitadji cells operated under a strict internal code: betrayal to the Ottomans meant death by the band's own hand.
02Rival Greek, Bulgarian, and Serbian komitadji murdered each other over village loyalty oaths throughout the 1890s–1900s.
03The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization used komitadji terror to provoke Ottoman reprisals and radicalize peasants deliberately.
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01Vlad impaled 20,000 Ottoman soldiers on stakes outside Târgoviște in 1462.
02Mehmed II, conqueror of Constantinople, retreated after seeing the forest of bodies.
03Vlad was imprisoned twice by Christian allies who feared him more than the Ottomans did.
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01Jones's documentary 'Trader' filmed him forecasting a 1987 market crash before Black Monday wiped 22% off the Dow.
02He reportedly tripled his money during Black Monday by holding massive short positions entering October 1987.
03The film was effectively withdrawn from circulation; Jones has never publicly explained why it must not be seen.
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01GoldenEye 007 sold over 8 million copies, making it the third best-selling N64 game of all time.
02The game's multiplayer was added in the final six weeks of development by a single programmer, Steve Ellis.
03Its analog stick aiming system established the twin-stick control standard that every console shooter still uses today.
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01Obiang publicly broadcast his uncle's execution on national television in August 1979.
02Equatorial Guinea struck oil in 1995; Obiang's family controls an estimated $600 million in offshore accounts.
03His son Teodorin bought a $38 million Malibu mansion and a $120 million private jet on a minister's salary.