Johnson County War

A barrel-type butter churn

Plot of Weierstrass function over the interval [ − 2, 2]. Like some other fractals , the function exhibits self-similarity : every zoom (red circle) is similar to the global plot.

Johnson County War

In April 1892, Wyoming cattle barons hired twenty-five Texas gunmen and invaded Johnson County to assassinate two men on a hit list. They killed both, then got pinned down at the KC Ranch until the U.S. Army rescued them.

Valerie Solanas

Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol in 1968, then handed a manifesto to anyone who would read it: the SCUM Manifesto called for men's biological elimination. Warhol survived; the manifesto outlived them both.

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.

Butter churn

A wooden dasher plunged up and down by hand for forty unbroken minutes to produce one pound of butter. The task fell to whoever was smallest — usually the children.

Weierstrass function

Weierstrass wrote down a function in 1872 that draws a continuous curve — no gaps, no jumps — yet has no defined slope at any single point. Every zoom reveals more jaggedness. It shouldn't exist; it does.

Fabio Casartelli

An Olympic gold medalist struck his unprotected skull on a stone culvert at 88 km/h on Stage 15, 1995. Teammates crossed the finish line the next day holding his bicycle above their heads.

Toys "R" Us

KKR, Vornado, and Bain Capital bought Toys 'R' Us in 2005 for $6.6 billion, immediately saddled it with $5 billion in debt, and spent 13 years watching 33,000 employees lose jobs as the debt ate the stores.

Tim Donaghy

NBA referee Tim Donaghy bet on games he was assigned to officiate, then fed picks to a mob-connected gambler. He called 3–4 more fouls per game when he had money on the line.

John Gotti

John Gotti beat three federal cases through witness intimidation and jury tampering — then his underboss Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano wore a wire, gave 19 murder admissions, and walked free in five years.