John von Neumann (190 IQ) was smarter than Einstein (160 IQ)

Einstein called him "the smartest person I know."

Yet most people have never heard his name.

Here's the forgotten story of John von Neumann, one of history's most important geniuses: 🧵 He was born in Budapest in 1903.

By 6 years old, he could:

• Memorize entire pages of books at a glance
• Do complex division faster than adults with paper
• Speak fluent Greek and Latin

His father called him a “living calculator.” Teachers were in awe.

They called him the smartest con artist...

• Forged $2.5M before 21.
• Outsmarted the FBI for 4 years.
• Faked being a pilot, doctor, & lawyer.

Hollywood told his story to millions, but left out the best part...

These are his 3 best strategies to break any system: 🧵 In an interview with 60 Minutes , Frank Abagnale revealed something shocking:

"I wasn't brilliant. I wasn't a genius.
I was just a 16-year-old kid with no fear."

He understood systems better than the adults who built them.

Here're his 3 best strategies:

They said this man can't be human...

• Spoke 6 languages fluently by age 6
• Remembered every word he ever read
• Genius behind the Manhattan atomic bomb

If you think Einstein was smart, John von Neumann would blow your mind: 🧵
By age 6, most kids are learning their ABCs.

Johnny von Neumann was thought to be alien:

• Dividing 8-digit numbers in his head
• Memorizing phone books for fun
• Speaking 6 languages fluently

His parents thought something was wrong with him.

They were right...

The CIA is the top intelligence organization in the world.

But in 2015, ONE prank call from a 15-year-old kid in his bedroom almost made them trigger a global cyberwar.

Here's how it happened...🧵 Meet Cracka.

At 15, he was already a seasoned hacker.

His biggest hack? Wiping out millions in student debt from a medical school's servers with one click.

What a legend!

In 1955, Einstein died in Princeton Hospital.

7 hours later, his brain was stolen.

For 40 years, Einstein's brain sat in a cedar box under a beer cooler.

Here's the bizarre journey and 5 biggest discoveries behind Einstein's brain: 🧵 April 18, 1955. 1:15 AM.

Einstein takes his final breath.
By 8:00 AM, Dr. Thomas Harvey had already cut open his skull.

The brain was gone...

This 2-year-old kid once ruled 1/3 of the world's population...

• Kidnapped at 2.
• Worshipped as a living god
• Controlled an empire of 400 million people.

This is not clickbait. Not a metaphor. Not exaggerated.

Here's the bizarre story of China's last emperor:🧵 Beijing, 1908. Just after nightfall.

A mysterious group leaves the Forbidden City.

Guards. Officials.
An armed escort.

They arrive at a mansion and find a 2-year-old boy hiding in a cupboard.

He screams. He fights. He has no idea he just became emperor of China...

400+ cartoons.
3 years in the US secret military unit.
11 million soldiers manipulated for WWII.

Before teaching kids to read,
Dr. Seuss was training soldiers to kill.

This is how one man changed how America saw war, power, and influence: 🧵 1943. Hollywood goes to war.

Theodor Seuss Geisel reports for duty as Captain Geisel, U.S. Army.

His assignment: Frank Capra's propaganda unit, the First Motion Picture Unit.

Historians buried this story for centuries.

In 1518, an entire city lost control of their bodies...

The cause? Something far more mysterious than any disease.

Welcome to the Dancing Plague and its 500-year-old mystery: 🧵 July 14, 1518. Strasbourg, Holy Roman Empire.

Frau Troffea stepped into the cobblestone street and began to dance.

No music. No celebration. No reason.

Just uncontrollable movement.

What happened next would baffle medicine for 500 years...

The most courageous officer in military history:

Stanislav Petrov.

He defied Soviet protocol, ignored 5 missile alerts, and prevented WW3 with a single decision.

Here's how one man's judgment saved billions of lives:🧵 Midnight in a secret Soviet bunker, 100 meters underground.

Lieutenant Stanislav Petrov mans his station at Serpukhov-15, monitoring for nuclear attacks.

It's just another quiet night shift.

Until...

This is Arthur Conan Doyle.

Author of Sherlock Holmes.

Everyone thought the spy techniques used were fictional...

But for decades, they were studied by the CIA, MI6, and spies.

Here's the story behind the world's greatest detective
—with examples: 🧵
In 1927, Vernon Kell, founder of MI5, admitted that his agents studied Holmes stories for techniques.

But how did it start?

Let's travel back in time before diving into some of the techniques disguised in Sherlock Holmes:

In 1945, the US started kidnapping scientists from defeated Germany.

They were war criminals who built Hitler's rockets...

But overnight, they became America's heroes helping NASA put men on the moon.

Here's the full story: 🧵 US Army's Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) arrived in Germany before the war ended in May 1945.

Their mission:

Grab German rocket experts before the Soviets could...

This is John Nash.
He's the genius behind Game Theory.

His ideas influenced Einstein, Russell, and won him a Nobel Prize in 1994.

Sadly, his legacy is a heartbreaking tragedy.
Here's his story... 🧵 Born in Bluefield, West Virginia in 1928, John Forbes Nash Jr. was a math prodigy.

By 15, he read E.T. Bell's "Men of Mathematics" and could prove advanced theorems...

The most important but also most controversial archaeological discovery by far:

The Dead Sea Scrolls.

They've started wars, rewrote history books, and challenged humanity's deepest beliefs.

Here's what these ancient texts reveal: 🧵 Muhammad edh-Dhib was hunting for his lost goat near the shores of the Dead Sea.

He spotted a cave in the cliffs of Qumran.

Inside he found clay jars with leather and papyrus scrolls wrapped in linen...

In 1994, archaeologists found a 7,000-year-old temple so strange they almost buried it again.

The Göbekli Tepe was by prehistoric hunter-gatherers without metal, tools, or language.

If you think the Pyramid was impressive, this would blow your mind: 🧵 For centuries, locals in Anatolia called it "Potbelly Hill" - just a 50-meter mound where sheep grazed.

In 1963, researchers from the University of Chicago and Istanbul University dismissed it as a medieval cemetery.

Schmidt saw something in their reports that didn't look right...

A "cognitive bias" is a systematic error in thinking that ruins decision-making.

This took me years to learn—I'll teach you in 2 minutes.

11 most powerful cognitive biases I've found: 🧵 1. Parkinson's Law:

Work expands to fill the time given.

When we have more time, we tend to procrastinate and become inefficient.

A good reminder to track your tasks duration and energy level.

The single most valuable skill you can develop:

Thinking with Mental Models.

18 years of school destroyed our critical thinking & decision-making.

I've collected 12 of the most powerful mental models: 🧵
Second-Order Thinking

Most people only consider immediate effects.

Real strategists think 2-3 steps ahead.

When you make decisions, always ask: "What are the second and third-order consequences?"

A "cognitive bias" is a systematic error in thinking that ruins decision-making.

80% are useless—20% will change your life.

11 most powerful cognitive biases I've found: 🧵 1. Parkinson's Law:

Work expands to fill the time given.

When we have more time, we tend to procrastinate and become inefficient.

A good reminder to track your tasks duration and energy level.

Everyone talks about chess legends like:

Magnus Carlsen. Hikaru Nakamura. Garry Kasparov

But one man stands heads and shoulders above all.

Despite 11 World Championships, this prodigy died alone and was forgotten at 64. Here's his story: Bobby Fischer's was THE true chess prodigy:

• Won his first tournament at 9
• Became the youngest US Junior Chess Champion at 13
• Played the "Game of the Century" against IM Donald Byrne at 13

But that's not what makes him special...

In 1985, Stephen Hawking caught pneumonia in Switzerland.

The doctors gave his wife 2 options:
1. Let them end his life
2. Watch him die

So she chose option 3. Here's what she did instead: 🧵 At CERN in Switzerland, Hawking's condition deteriorated rapidly.

His ALS-weakened lungs couldn't fight the pneumonia. Every breath was a battle.

The ventilator kept him alive, but doctors said it was just prolonging the inevitable...

Leonardo da Vinci was the most creative person in history.

He left us over 7000 pages of sketches and notes that, 500 years later, historians yet to decode.

6 times Da Vinci correctly predicted and invented the future: 🧵
1/ Da Vinci's anatomical discoveries...

• First to describe the heart as a 4-chambered muscle
• Recognized coronary artery disease 150 years before physicians

He once dissected 30+ cadavers to understand anatomy:

This is Marie Curie.

• pioneer of radioactivity
• first woman to win a Nobel Prize
• first person to win Nobel Prizes in 2 fields

Sadly, her legacy was a heartbreaking tragedy. Here's How the Genius of Marie Curie Killed Her: (thread)🧵
In 1927, Marie Curie was the ONLY woman among 29 top physicists at the prestigious Solvay Conference.

On top of the world, but the tragic-devil was already waiting for her...