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

11 most powerful (and dangerous) cognitive biases I've found:

1. Parkinson's Law: 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 task duration and energy level.

In the 1940s, Australia built a town on the deadliest dust in history:

They built a mine on newly discovered “blue gold.”

But what they created turned Wittenoom into the most toxic ghost town on Earth.

Welcome to Australia's Secret Chernobyl: 🧵 Wittenoom, Western Australia.

In the 1940s it looked like opportunity—a mining town built on “blue gold.”

Men came for work, families built homes.

What they didn’t know: the very air was laced with fibers that would one day kill them.

70 years ago, a woman discovered nuclear fission.

But her male colleague stole her work and won the Nobel Prize.

She fled Nazi Germany empty handed and died without a word.

Here's how the biggest theft in science buried Lise Meitner's name in history: 🧵
Born in Vienna in 1878, Lise Meitner fought to enter a field that actively excluded women.

Universities across Europe severely limited female students, especially in physics...

Everyone talks about the same geniuses:

Einstein, Tesla and Hawking...

But this forgotten man was the Da Vinci of his mathematics and was highly admired by Einstein, Hawking, and Feynman.

Sadly, his legacy was a true heartbreaking tragedy... (thread)
Born in 1887, India.

Srinivasa Ramanujan grew up poor but brilliant

By 13, he was asking questions no teacher could answer

He claimed the goddess Namagiri revealed formulas to him in dreams

But his obsession with math wrecked everything else

Failed exams, family without food

In 1969, this jet broke every rule of aviation.

• Faster than a rifle bullet.
• More luxurious than a palace.
• Everyone called it the future of traveling.

But disaster was written in its design from day one...

Here's the untold story of Concorde: 🧵
On July 13, 1985, Phil Collins did something impossible.

He performed at Live Aid in London at 3:50 PM.

Then hopped on Concorde.

And was drumming in Philadelphia by 7:38 PM.

This is what Mach 2 could do.

He was Japan's first and only Black samurai.

Outranking lifelong retainers, this 6'2" African warrior served the nation's most powerful warlord.

His story was hidden for 400 years.

The story of Yasuke will shatter everything you know about samurai: 🧵
In 1579, a towering African man arrived in Japan with Italian Jesuits.

6'2" in a land where men averaged 5'3".

Skin "like charcoal" in a nation that had never seen a Black person.

He was about to shatter every rule of feudal Japan.

In 1965, Vietnamese engineers pulled off the biggest feat in engineering history:

They built a 250 km underground city that withstands the US's army, B52 planes, and Mark 77 bombs.

But what they created next nearly destroyed physics forever.

Here's the full story: 🧵 The Cu Chi tunnels weren't just holes in the ground.

They were an underground city: hospitals, kitchens, weapons factories, living quarters.

Some sections went 3 stories deep...

Napoleon discovered how to win wars before they start.

Every military academy still teaches this 200-year-old strategy:

West Point. Sandhurst. Saint-Cyr.

They all study his plabook.

Here's the principle that changed warfare forever: 🧵 Napoleon wasn't born a conqueror.

He was a nobody from Corsica who spoke French with an accent.

But he discovered something other generals missed:

Wars aren't won on battlefields.

They're won before the first shot is fired.

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: 🧵 It started with one woman: Frau Troffea.

On a hot July day in Strasbourg, she stepped into the street and began to dance.

No music. No celebration. Just frantic, uncontrollable movement.

She danced for six straight days.

In 1980, when 6 Americans were trapped in Iran the CIA had a crazy idea:

Send in a CIA agent posing as a Hollywood producer to create a Star Wars ripoff called "Argo."

I swear this has to be the wildest rescue operation in espionage history: 🧵
November 4, 1979: Iranian revolutionaries storm the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

66 Americans are taken hostage.

But 6 diplomats slip out a back door during the chaos.

They're now fugitives in a city gone mad with anti-American rage.

This is 1983.

Soviet radars detected 5 US nuclear missiles heading to Moscow.

Humanity was SECONDS from extinction.

All Soviet protocols demanded immediate retaliation.

But then Stanislav Petrov noticed something strange: 🧵
September 26, 1983.

Past midnight.

Filling in for a sick colleague at Serpukhov-15 - the USSR's nuclear command bunker.

Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov wasn't even supposed to be there.

But then the unthinkable happened...

I used to think people were rational.

Then I found FBI files on Hanns Scharff's "weaponized kindness" technique.

He extracted secrets from 480 Allied pilots without breaking a sweat.

Learn his mind-boggling techniques (it's the ultimate lesson in human nature):
Picture this: 1943, Nazi Germany.

A captured American fighter pilot expects torture.

Instead, his interrogator offers homemade apple strudel and asks about his hometown.

The pilot relaxes. Fatal mistake.

Meet Hanns Scharff - the man who weaponized kindness.

He was the unkillable soldier.

Lost an eye, a hand, and threw grenades with his teeth.

He took 11 bullets across 3 wars, and Churchill called him "the bravest man I ever met."

Here's the forgotten real-life Terminator you have never heard of... 🧵 Adrian Carton de Wiart wasn't supposed to be a soldier.

Belgian-born, studying law at Oxford, too young to enlist.

So he lied about his age, used a fake name, and joined the British Army anyway.

What happened next defied all logic...

The Nazis' most effective WWII weapon wasn't tanks, guns, or bombs.

It was their infamous uniform.

Here's the psychology behind how fashion became the deadliest propaganda weapon...🧵 In 1931, Hugo Boss was just another struggling tailor in Germany.

Two years later, he joined the Nazi Party.

By 1938, his factory was producing uniforms that would terrorize the world.

But this isn't just about one company...

This man created every text, email, and video you've ever sent.

But he died forgotten while the world used his invention billions of times daily.

The tragic story of Claude Shannon—the genius who built the 21st century: 🧵
Growing up in 1920s Michigan, young Claude Shannon turned a barbed-wire fence into a telegraph system.

Using metal wire to carry electrical signals in Morse code, he glimpsed something others missed...

The idea that information itself could be transmitted.

In 1990, the woman with history's highest IQ (228) made a "stupid mistake" in the Monty Hall problem.

Everyone laughed and mocked her.

But she was right and everyone was wrong.

Once you understand what she saw, you can't unsee it: 🧵 Born Marilyn Mach in 1946, she tested at genius level by age 10—with the mind of a 22-year-old.

Her parents kept it quiet to protect her childhood.

They didn’t know she'd need every bit of that brilliance to survive what came next.

In 1462, a ruler faced 400,000 Ottoman soldiers with just 30,000 peasants.

Everyone knew he'd be crushed in days.

Instead, he terrorized the conqueror of Constantinople so badly, the Sultan retreated.

Here's how Vlad the Impaler rewrote military history: 🧵 Meet Vlad III, or Vlad the Impaler. Born in 1431, he ruled Wallachia, a small Romanian region between two empires.

His childhood was brutal: hostage of the Ottomans, witnessing his father's murder, and his brother's burial alive.

Trauma forged him into something terrifying.

In 1944, the U.S. Los Alamos atomic bomb project faced a security nightmare.

It wasn't a German spy or Soviet agent, but from one of their most trusted leader...

In 5 minutes, here's how Richard Feynman exposed over 20 years of fatal loopholes in the US security: 🧵
In 1943, the Army hired Richard Feynman.

He was only 24 years old.

His job: help build the atomic bomb and beat Hitler to the punch.

And despite his youth...

Feynman was already a Princeton math star.

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...