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29 Dec, 33 tweets, 11 min read
Want to be more interesting in 2022?

I spent half of 2021 tweeting important and hard-to-believe stories...stories you were probably never taught in school.

And now, they’re all available in one place...for you to read and share with your friends.

The collection:
Before we dive into this seemingly eternal rabbit hole, let's take a look at the Table of Contents:

I. ANTHROPOLOGY: 8 Stories About People

II. HISTORY: 8 Hard-To-Believe Historical Events

III. GEOGRAPHY: 13 Fascinating Places Around the World

Ready?

Let's get started:
ANTHROPOLOGY: Stories About People (1/8)

Who: Henry Johnson and the Harlem Hellfighters

Why it's important: It's a story of the worst and best of humankind; an African-American soldier shows heroic bravery in the face of both peril and hate during WWI:

ANTHROPOLOGY: Stories About People (2/8)

Who: D.B. Cooper

Known as: Being the mastermind behind the ONLY unsolved plane hijacking in US history:

ANTHROPOLOGY: Stories About People (3/8)

Who: Mansa Musa

Known as: Being perhaps the richest person in the history of the world (oh, and handing out gold like it was candy -- literally -- and causing a $1.5bn economic crash in the Middle East in 1324):

ANTHROPOLOGY: Stories About People (4/8)

Who: Juan Pujol García

Known for: Messing with the Nazis SO bad as a double agent spy, that he's referred to today as "the spy who saved D-Day":

ANTHROPOLOGY: Stories About People (5/8)

Who: Oobah Butler

Known for: Creating a fake restaurant and writing so many fake reviews about it...that it eventually became the #1 Restaurant in London on TripAdvisor..

Without ever serving a meal.

Seriously:

ANTHROPOLOGY: Stories About People (6/8)

Who: "Sir" Timothy Dexter

Known as: The luckiest millionaire to ever live.

Yep.

This dude got rich in the 1700s and 1800s in ways you just won't believe (and ridiculously gave himself the "Sir" title after):

ANTHROPOLOGY: Stories About People (7/8)

Who: The "Durable Michael Malloy"

Known as: The guy that just would. not. die.

No matter what.

It's an awfully strange, awfully sad, and awfully...unbelievable story:

ANTHROPOLOGY: Stories About People (8/8)

Who: Javad Rezabaksh

Who he is: Javad is my friend.

He's an Afghan gemologist who courageously fled Kabul after it fell to the Taliban in August.

His story is one of resilience, hope, and love for country:

II. HISTORY: Hard-To-Believe Historical Events (1/8)

What: The 6th largest navy in the world at one point belonged to....Pepsi.

Yeah. You read that right.

PEPSI.

When: 1989

II. HISTORY: Hard-To-Believe Historical Events (2/8)

What: The British invaded the Kingdom of Benin (in what is now Nigeria) and not only annexed their land, but also stole their art.

The worst part?

They still haven't returned it.

When: 1897

II. HISTORY: Hard-To-Believe Historical Events (3/8)

What: The US's "Secret War" on Laos...in which they dropped more bombs on Laos than they did in all of WWII combined.

When: 1964-1973

II. HISTORY: Hard-To-Believe Historical Events (4/8)

What: Perhaps the strangest war in the history of the world...the "Goat War" of the Galápagos Islands.

When: 1997-2006

II. HISTORY: Hard-To-Believe Historical Events (5/8)

What: The most mysterious book in the world...a book of puzzling drawings and uncrackable code.

When (it was written): Between 1404 and 1438 (we think)

II. HISTORY: Hard-To-Believe Historical Events (6/8)

What: There are loopholes...and then there are LOOPHOLES.

And this loophole?

It may have caused some of the catastrophic incidents at sea as of late.

A thread on the "Flag of Convenience":

II. HISTORY: Hard-To-Believe Historical Events (7/8)

What: The shortest war in history (38 minutes to be exact).

When: 1896

II. HISTORY: Hard-To-Believe Historical Events (8/8)

What: The 1904 Summer Olympics Men's Marathon

Likely the most absurd sporting event...ever:

III. GEOGRAPHY: Fascinating Places Around the World (1/13)

Where: The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norway)

What it's known for: Being "the ultimate insurance policy for the world’s food supply" in the event of...Doom's Day:

III. GEOGRAPHY: Fascinating Places Around the World (2/13)

Where: Lake Natron (Tanzania & Kenya)

Why it's fascinating: It's a lake that literally turns animals into stone:

III. GEOGRAPHY: Fascinating Places Around the World (3/13)

Where: The Darvaza Gas Crater in Turkmenistan (otherwise known as "the Door to Hell")

Why it's fascinating: It's a 5,350 square meter HOLE OF FIRE in the middle of a Turkmenistan desert:

III. GEOGRAPHY: Fascinating Places Around the World (4/13)

Where: San Pedro Prison (Bolivia)

What it's known for: Being the most interesting jail in the world

Why?

Because there are literally...no rules:

III. GEOGRAPHY: Fascinating Places Around the World (5/13)

Where: Jinwar (Syria)

What it's known for: Being a commune (read: oasis) built by women...for women...in the middle of what has been a devastating and oppressive war zone:

III. GEOGRAPHY: Fascinating Places Around the World (6/13)

Where: The Indiana Bell Building (Indiana, USA)

Why it's fascinating: In 1930, the building was literally rotated 90° over the course of 30 days.

The craziest part?

No one inside felt a thing:

III. GEOGRAPHY: Fascinating Places Around the World (7/13)

Where: The Nazca Lines (Peru)

What they are: Mysterious, HUGE geoglyphs scattered throughout southern Peru.

We still aren't sure where they came from...or why they're there:

III. GEOGRAPHY: Fascinating Places Around the World (8/13)

Where: Roopkund Lake (India)

Why it's fascinating: It's a lake hidden deep in the Himalayas that's inexplicably surrounded by 700 human skeletons:

III. GEOGRAPHY: Fascinating Places Around the World (9/13)

Where: Ao Island (Japan)

Why it's fascinating: Cats outnumber humans there 36:1

The (terrifying) photos and background:

III. GEOGRAPHY: Fascinating Places Around the World (10/13)

Where: Nagoro (Japan)

Why it's fascinating: DOLLS outnumber humans there 14:1

The (not as terrifying, I promise) photos and background:

III. GEOGRAPHY: Fascinating Places Around the World (11/13)

Where: Hallstatt See-Huizhou (China)

What it's known for: Being a literal copy-paste of the original Hallstatt in Austria:

III. GEOGRAPHY: Fascinating Places Around the World (12/13)

Where: Bhutan

Why it's fascinating: Take a look for yourself 👇

III. GEOGRAPHY: Fascinating Places Around the World (13/13)

Where: The Floating Schools of Bangladesh

What they're known for: Providing Bangladeshi children floating schools and playgrounds in areas that have been devastated by floods:

And...that's about it!

If you enjoyed any (or all) of these threads, be sure to follow @DavidZabinsky for LOTS more stories like these in 2022.
With the help of some remarkable entrepreneurs from all around the world, I also help tell stories of founders in emerging and frontier markets.

Check out "Not From Silicon Valley" wherever you get your podcasts:

Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/7DUVRxuNP…

Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/not…

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More from @DavidZabinsky

David Zabinsky Profile picture
27 Dec
In 1997, they declared war.

And it'd take a team of elite snipers, ruthless aerial assaults, and multi-million-dollar tracking technology in order to find and kill the enemy.

But who was the enemy, you ask?

Goats.

200,000 of them.

A thread on the "Goat War" of the Galápagos:
We start in the 1830s.

Charles Darwin shocked the world with his theories on evolution upon studying South American finches.

That is, Darwin saw 18 distinct types of finch throughout the Galápagos Islands, arguing each species had to evolve in order to survive its environment.
For Darwin, with the Galápagos Islands full of such unique and beautiful biodiversity, the archipelago was a "little world within itself."

A little world that boasts some of the universe's most stunning creatures, like the Marine Iguana...
Read 23 tweets
David Zabinsky Profile picture
19 Dec
In 1989, one navy had 17 submarines and 3 warships.

Quite an impressive fleet, huh?

But no, we're not talking about the French...or the Koreans...or even the Chinese.

Instead? We're talking about:

PEPSI

A story on how a SODA COMPANY became the world's sixth largest navy:
We start with some history.

It was 1959 in the midst of the Cold War, and Moscow was hosting the American National Exhibition as a means of cultural exchange.

It was pure Americana.

On display were things like American TVs, American cars, and of course...

American soda.
The US Vice President at the time?

Richard Nixon.

And when he came to Moscow for the event, he made it a priority to show Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev the true pride of the red, white, and blue:

Pepsi Cola.

Just look at Nixon's concern as Khrushchev gulped some down!
Read 14 tweets
David Zabinsky Profile picture
18 Dec
What do wool mittens, coal, whales, Bibles, and stray cats have in common?

They all made American businessman Timothy Dexter an absolute FORTUNE...in ways you just won't believe.

A story on the "luckiest millionaire to ever live":
Our (hilarious) tale begins in 1775 at the start of the American Revolutionary War.

The Continental Congress began printing its own currency to fund war efforts against Great Britain called the Continental.

The only problem?

The Continental was pretty much worthless.
Why was it worthless, you ask?

First, it wasn't backed by anything, like gold or the trust of a central bank.

Second, there were too many of them; Congress kept printing and printing...and printing.

Such drastic depreciation gave birth to the phrase "not worth a Continental."
Read 27 tweets
David Zabinsky Profile picture
15 Dec
It was written 600 years ago.

It's 234 pages long.

It's been studied by cryptographers and codebreakers alike.

And yet, we still have no idea what any of it means.

A thread on the the Voynich Manuscript, the most mysterious book in the world:
Let's start with what we DO know about the Voynich Manuscript:

The book seems to be divided into six sections of drawings and text, pertaining to:

1) Botany
2) Astronomy
3) Biology
4) Cosmology
5) Pharmacology (like medical herbs)
6) Strange recipes
We also know from a series of carbon dating, protein, and ink tests that:

• The book was put together between the years 1404 and 1438

• The author used 14 calfskins to make the pages

• The ink was made from a mix of nuts, eggs, fruit peels, and wine
Read 21 tweets
David Zabinsky Profile picture
12 Dec
1932.
The Great Depression.

Times were hard.

So to make a quick buck, three New Yorkers took out a life insurance policy on a mutual acquaintance, Michael Malloy...only to murder him.

The only issue?

Malloy. Just. Wouldn't. Die.

An INSANE story on "the Durable Mike Malloy":
Michael Malloy was a mysterious Irishman living in New York City, whose entire background, hell - even his birthday, were unknown.

Unable to keep stable work during the Great Depression, Malloy bounced from one odd job to another, be it cleaning the streets or polishing coffins.
Unfortunately, that meant Malloy spent most of his time at the New York speakeasy seen here, getting drunk on illegal, bootleg whiskey during the US’s Prohibition Era.

To onlookers, Malloy was, well... pitiful.

Homeless. Unemployed. Drunk.

And more often than not: passed out.
Read 28 tweets
David Zabinsky Profile picture
9 Dec
The first American solider to win the "Croix de Guerre" was Private Henry Johnson from New York in 1918.

So you ask: why did an American soldier earn a FRENCH military award during World War I?

Well, it's a story that illustrates both the best...and the worst of humankind:

👇
It was 1917.

World War I had been going on for three years, and both the French and British armies were in desperate need of American reinforcements to continue to fight off the German Empire.
So on April 6th, 1917, Congress decided to enter the "Great War" and US General John J. Pershing made it clear:

American soldiers wouldn't fight in French and German uniforms as mere replacements..no.

Instead, they'd fight as an American army together, in the American uniform.
Read 26 tweets

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