J.K. Rowling documented 35 Ministers for Magic in her official Pottermore essay. Most readers know five. Here is every one, from Ulick Gamp in 1707 to Kingsley Shacklebolt, with everything Rowling wrote about each of them. Read More →
The number everyone quotes is twelve. Twelve Titans, twelve original gods, neat and clean. It is the kind of satisfying round number that mythology teachers write on whiteboards and tourists read on plaques at... Read More →
Most people know Ares. The brooding Olympian with the spear and the bad reputation - disliked by his own parents, repeatedly humiliated in battle, and somehow still managing to be one of the most... Read More →
On March 23, 1875, the survey ship HMS Challenger paused over an unremarkable stretch of the western Pacific and lowered a weighted rope. It paid out 4,475 fathoms – 8,184 meters – before touching... Read More →
Say “pyramid” and most people picture exactly one place: Egypt. Maybe they conjure the Great Pyramid of Giza, rising from the desert like a limestone mountain someone forgot to erode. It’s an understandable reflex.... Read More →
On March 10, 1956, a B-47 Stratojet left MacDill Air Force Base in Florida and headed east across the Atlantic, bound nonstop for an overseas base. Somewhere over the Mediterranean it simply failed to... Read More →
On June 2, 2010, Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga retired 26 consecutive Cleveland Indians batters. He needed one more out. Jason Donald hit a routine ground ball to first baseman Miguel Cabrera, who flipped... Read More →
Only 13 horses have done it. Out of the thousands of Thoroughbreds foaled each year, out of the hundreds that enter the Kentucky Derby, out of the handful good enough to win the first... Read More →
“I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death.” With those words in... Read More →
Between 1975 and 2005, exactly 42 basketball players did something that sounds, in hindsight, completely insane: they skipped college entirely and entered the NBA Draft straight from high school. No March Madness. No college... Read More →
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