The Teapot Dome scandal occurred during Warren G. Harding’s presidency and left a lasting stain on his legacy. His Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall leased petroleum reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming to private oil companies at bargain rates in exchange for over $400,000.

The investigation dragged on for two years, with no major evidence found. What proved to be Fall’s undoing was evidence of a no-interest loan of $100,000 from one of the oil tycoons who benefitted from the transaction.

This scandal wasn’t uncovered until after Harding’s death but the fact the president surrounded himself with a man like Fall was enough to cast a shadow on his time in office

At the outbreak of the Great War (WWI), Germany demanded Belgium allow them passage so they could invade France. Belgium, a neutral country, had the support of Great Britain. When Germany invaded and the Battle of Liege began, Belgian citizens found themselves in the midst of war. The German Army took their food and Great Britain imposed a blockade on the country, not allowing any aid to reach the neutral citizens.

Herbert Hoover had already been busy helping stranded Americans flee the war in Europe. Based on his success transporting 120,000 Americans back home, the American ambassador to Great Britain contacted Hoover to help transport food to the starving Belgians. Hoover created the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB).

In order to succeed he had to navigate British sentiments that the food would help the Germans and prolong the war. Hoover was able to work out a deal in which neutral CRB agents aboard neutral ships laden with relief could bypass the blockade. Based on his position at the head of the CRB, Hoover was one of a few men who were able to pass into territories occupied by both sides of the conflict.

Between 1914 and 1919 he was able to feed 11 million Belgians.

The Byzantine General Belisarius was Emperor Justinian’s best military mind. He lived from 500-565 A.D. Early in his career, as a Roman soldier, he served close to Emperor Justin I (Justinian’s uncle) where he impressed both the current and future Emperors. His pride and joy was his unit of heavy cavalry, men armed with a lance, a sword, and a bow.

Justinian, a Byzantine Emperor, is known in modern times for his attempted restoration and unification of the Roman Empire. Belisarius contributed to Justinian's vision with successful military campaigns which recaptured lost segments of the former empire in the west (the seat of power was Constantinople). Some of his accomplishments include suppressing a rebellion in Constantinople (modern day Istanbul, in Turkey), the defeat of the Vandals in North Africa, the defeat of the Goths in Italy (twice), and the defense of Syria against an army of Persians.

In Belisarius's last military campaign he defeated an army of Bulgars who threatened Justinian in the capital of Constantinople. The opposing force was 2,000 strong and Belisarius defeated them with only 300 men.

Belisarius and Justinian died within months of each other in the year 565.

The Varangian Guard were the best, most loyal members of the Byzantine Army. The unit was first employed by Emperor Basil II in the year 988. The first iteration of the group was made up of Rus’ people (an early group of vikings who ultimately gave their name to Russia and Belarus) afer Basil lost trust in native guardsmen. Over time other groups of people such as Norsemen and Anglo-Saxons became associated with this elite fighting force.

They were deployed at strategic times in war when the tide needed to be shifted or fighting was particularly heavy. Their weapon of choice was a heavy axe with which they would pummel the opposing force. There are records of members of the guard entering a trance and becoming berserkers, a state when they no longer cared about their wounds or their lives. The reputation of the guard, promoted by Byzantine authors, instilled fear in the hearts of the enemy, no doubt an attempt to weaken the will of opposing forces.

The Taiping Rebellion is estimated to have cost over 20 million lives at a minimum. For comparison, the Napoleonic Wars, conflicts between the French Empire and various European powers from 1803-1815, claimed over 5 million lives and the American Civil War, a conflict over the issue of slavery, claimed over one million lives.

The rebellion occurred in China from 1850-1864. The conflict was between the ruling Qing Dynasty and a group of christian forces called the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom led by Hong Xiuquan. Hong believed himself to be the brother of Jesus Christ and convinced his followers they were the future of the country. They believed it was their responsibility to bring about the transformation of the country.

The rebellion began in the south and over the next decade skirmishes extended into the rest of the country. An attempt by the Heavenly Kingdom to overtake Shanghai was thwarted by Qing forces with the help of French and British troops. The rebellion remained a threat to the Qing Dynasty until Hong’s death in 1864 but pockets of forces continued to fight until 1871.

The Berlin Conference was organized in 1884 in an effort to avoid conflicts between major European powers all scrambling for African colonies. Fourteen countries, none of which represented Africa, divided the continent over a three month period. They created arbitrary borders which ignored the history of African society. Ethnic groups and existing trade routes found themselves split among multiple countries if they happened to straddle a border between separately owned colonial powers. The member of the conference made traditional African rulers sign treaties of compliance, under force if necessary.

The results of these arbitrary borders, borders that only existed on paper, have bled into modern times. An example is the Rwandan Genocide. By forcing both tribes to exist within the same borders the Berlin Conference laid the groundwork for a power struggle between the two groups. This is an extreme example but an important one to understand the struggles some African countries must face as they try to modernize and join the rest of the developed world.

The Great Leap Forward occurred in China between 1958-1962 under Chairman Mao Zedong's plan to modernize China. Part of his initiative was to turn agriculture from a private enterprise to a collective institution. Groups of farmers were forced to work in groups to cultivate the land and any workers deemed superfluous were transitioned from grain production to steel production.

In an effort to please the ruling party and report on the successful implementation of new farming techniques, local officials exaggerated their results of increased production. In reality the new farming techniques, founded on faulty science, actually led to decreased production. This exaggeration continued at each rung up the ladder until the leadership, convinced they had more grain than they actually possessed, made deals to export the grain and left their own peasants without food to eat.

Other influences contributed to decreased production, such as floods from mismanaged irrigation projects and locust swarms from the removal of sparrows (a natural predator of locusts).

It is estimated that tens of millions of people died as a result of the famine.

Followers of Jainism, an ancient Indian religion, live according to five Great Vows:

To injur no living being in action or thought

To speak only truth

To take nothing unless it is given

Celibacy in action, word, and thought

Renunciation of worldly items

Jain monks carry their religion’s requirements to the extreme, even going so far as to cover their faces in order to avoid the accidental consumption of insects. They also avoid eating root vegetables because, as host to fellow living beings such as bugs and microbes, they are not to be disturbed.

In 1989 the leader of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, gave his annual speech in Bucharest just days after an anti-government protest in the city of Timisoara that left a number of people dead. The speech was broadcast live to the entire country. Thousands of people were transported into the square to give the impression the people supported the government. For the first few minutes the speech went off without incident until shots were fired in the distance. Shouting began and chants of "Timisoara" rose from somewhere in the crowd; in short, all hell broke loose. Ceausescu raised a hand to calm the crowd but once the people found their voice they couldn’t be silenced. The camera began filming the sky while audio continued to record.

This speech kicked off the Romanian Revolution, right in front of the dictator’s eyes. The next day he was evacuated by helicopter along with his wife. Within days the two of them were captured, put on trial, and executed. Only four days passed between the failed speech and the leader’s execution.

Scores of people tried to flee to the neutral country of Portugal when Nazi Germany began their takeover of Europe. In an effort to stem the flow of migrants, the Portugese government closed the border between France and Spain. The only way across the border was to have a government issued visa. The consul stationed in Bordeaux, France, Aristides de Souda Mendes, defied the orders of the Portuguese government and issued visas to thousands of fleeing refugees. His final count of issued visas numbered approximately 10,000 Jews (and ~30,000 people total) giving these displaced people the ability to cross the border and escape the spread of Nazism. His actions were the largest rescue of refugees by a single individual during WWII.