Pre-nuclear steel
If you want to build a Geiger counter you need to first find a shipwreck from before 1945.
Hands of Perón
In 1987 the tomb of Argentinian president Juan Perón was broken into and his hands dismembered and stolen. A ransom note was received but never paid, and the hands were never seen again.
Secret war on malaria
As part of a secret government project begun in 1967, the Chinese scientist Tu Youyou discovered an ancient herbal remedy that would end up saving millions of lives.
Human letters
In 1909 two suffragettes mailed themselves to the the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Second human in orbit
Yuri Gagarin may have been the first person to orbit the Earth in space, but Gherman Titov was the first to orbit the Earth more than once, the first to pilot a spacecraft, and the first to throw up in space.
Law vs. tenement
The latter half of the 19th century saw an arms race between New York City legislators and the builders of slum-like tenements. The battleground: windows and fresh air.
Phantom killer
From 2007 to 2009, German authorities searched for a female serial killer whose DNA had been found at six separate murder scenes. Just one problem: she didn’t exist.
The endless break
At a dance party in 1972 Bronx New York, DJ Kool Herc mixed the breaks from James Brown, British rock music, and a bongo band – and in doing so, laid the foundations of hip hop.
Exploding lake
On August 21, 1986, seventeen hundred people who lived around Lake Nyos in Cameroon suffocated overnight – victims of an extremely rare and silent natural disaster.
Fascist jazz
Between 1941 and 1943 Germany broadcast propaganda jazz music with altered lyrics into Britain.
Locust extinction
In 1875, trillions (yes, trillions) of Rocky Mountain locusts swarmed over the western United States. Thirty years later, they were extinct.
Dog whistles and stochastic terrorism
How do politicians court the violent fringe? Dog whistles and scripted violence.
Shortest war
The Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 lasted around forty-five minutes, making it the shortest war in history.
Road of iron, road of hell
The Vatican City has the shortest national railway line in the world, but it almost had none at all.
Blackbirding
In 1862, between a third and half of the entire population of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) were kidnapped by Peruvian slavers.
