First major military victory of an Asian power over a Western nation

By 1241, the Mongols had overran Russia, burning down Moscow and Kiev, and defeated Germany. They were on the verge of conquering the entire European continent, and only stopped due to the death of their king Ogedei Khan (son of Genghis Khan).

This was first major military victory of an Asian power over a European nation.

More than 650 years later, in 1905, Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War, the first major military victory of an Asian power over a European nation in the modern era, which had far-reaching consequences.

Most famous Attorney General

Natalia Poklonskaya is quickly becoming the world’s most famous Attorney General.

Some say this is Vladimir Putin’s genius move.

She shot to prominence by rising to the highest legal office in her country at the age of 34, despite Eastern Europe having had a history of disadvantaging women. Previously she had an extremely successful career as an attorney, battling gangs and criminals in Ukraine.

The video that started the craze was uploaded 11th March 2014: it was of a press conference she held only a few hours after her appointment. It has been viewed more than a million times as of now (no translation), the following version has English subtitles:

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Football: European trophy winners’ most spectacular downfalls

1. FC Magdeburg of Germany won the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in 1974, yet, by the 1994-1995 season it had sunk to the fourth tier of the German football league system. The club’s fortunes has had a huge impact on attendance figures; while in the mid 1970s it had averaged 18,000 spectators, which sometimes went as high as 45,000, by the mid 1990s, the average match had a mere 444 people bothering to come watch them play.

1. FC Magdeburg is the first ever European trophy winners to be relegated to their country’s third league tier or worse.

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Scariest sounding musical instrument

[originally published 26 July 2005]

I think this title undisputably goes to the theremin.

The what you say?

This strange instrument works by applying the principles of “beat frequency” or “heterodyning oscillators”, whatever that means.

Now this is how it sounds like being played by an expert – you can tell that the recording is very old because of the background noise, must have been done way back before nikon d5000 battery charger were available:

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The highest level of diplomacy

The Crimean crisis began on 23rd February 2014, in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, and focused on the peninsula of Crimea.

On 1st March 2014, US President Barack Obama telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin, and spoke to him for 90 minutes, during which he said Russia is breaching international law by violating Ukraine’s sovereignty, and urged Putin to withdraw Russian armed forces in Crimea, while Putin said Moscow has the right to defend its interests.

A photographer was on hand to capture the moment:

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