Damnatio Memoriae
The ancient Romans had a practice called Damnatio Memoriae, which was to banish someone’s memory from public life. It was also sometimes known as oblivion. It called for the complete deletion of the p...
13 Aug 20209min
The Washington Generals
Sports history is littered with really bad teams. The 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers didn’t win a single game and wound up losing 26 in a row. The 2012 Charlotte Bobcats went 7-59 for a .106 winning percen...
12 Aug 20209min
Kayfabe
One of my dirty secrets is that I’m a fan of pro wrestling. Whenever I tell people this the first thing I inevitably hear is, “you know it's fake right?” This idea that people think professional wrest...
11 Aug 202011min
Drug Lord Hippos
Pablo Escobar was the biggest drug lord the world has ever known. At the height of his power, he had a near-monopoly on cocaine trade in the United States. He had a peak inflation-adjusted net worth o...
10 Aug 20208min
Grandmother of Europe
Traditionally, the royal families of Europe would arrange marriages amongst their children to establish alliances and bonds between their houses. While this really isn’t done that much anymore, it als...
9 Aug 20209min
Boxing's Alphabet Soup
Boxing used to be one of the most popular sports in the world. A world championship bout would draw millions of people to their radios or televisions and could pack the largest stadiums. Since then, i...
8 Aug 202010min
Lunar Orbit Rendezvous
Have you ever been told to follow the chain of command or else? In most organizations with a hierarchy or with a bureaucracy, there is a set way in which things have to be done. If you have a suggesti...
7 Aug 20209min
The Original Dow Jones Companies
For many people, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is the measure of the health of the overall stock market. In reality, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is really just the performance of a collection ...
6 Aug 202011min
