Golden silk orb-weaver
The golden silk orb-weavers are a genus of araneomorph spiders noted for the impressive webs they weave. The females usually eat their mate.
Daphne Guinness
Daphne Guinness is prominent in the fashion world as a style icon, journalist and noted collector of haute couture. The close relationship between her and married French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy has become something of an open secret known and acknowledged by most American society columnists.
William Buckland
William Buckland is famous for two things: he was the first man to write a full account of a fossil, and he was incredibly eccentric when it came to animals and food. Buckland’s love of natural history resulted in his house being something akin to a zoo. He filled it with animals of every kind and he then proceeded to eat them all (and serve them to guests). He claimed to have eaten his way through every animal. The creatures that he said tasted worst were bluebottle flies, and mole. Various guests to dinner describe being served panther, crocodile, and mouse.
Rafael Trujillo
Rafael Trujillo ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961. His 30 years in power, to Dominicans known as the Trujillo Era, is considered one of the bloodiest ever in the Americas, as well as a time of a classic personality cult, when monuments to Trujillo were in abundance. It has been estimated that Trujillo's rule was responsible for the death of more than 50,000 people. At the suggestion of Mario Fermín Cabral, Congress voted overwhelmingly in 1936 to rename the capital from Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo. The province of San Cristobal was created as "Trujillo," and the nation's highest peak, Pico Duarte, was renamed in his honor. Statues of "El Jefe" were mass-produced and erected across the Republic, and bridges and public buildings were named in his honor. The nation's newspapers now had praise for Trujillo as part of the front page, and license plates included the slogan "Viva Trujillo!" An electric sign was erected in Ciudad Trujillo so that "Dios y Trujillo" could be seen at night as well as in the day. Eventually, even churches were required to post the slogan, "Dios en cielo, Trujillo en tierra" (God in Heaven, Trujillo on Earth). Trujillo was recommended for the Nobel Peace Prize by his admirers, but the committee declined the suggestion. When he received (or summoned) a visitor, his four bodyguards would have submachine guns trained upon the "guest" during the meeting.
Adolfo Farsari
Adolfo Farsari was an Italian photographer based in Yokohama, Japan. He was one of the many foreign and Japanese commercial photographers who operated in Yokohama from the 1860s to the 1880s.
Gary Gilmore
Gary Gilmore was an American criminal, and murderer, who gained international notoriety for demanding that his own death sentence be fulfilled following two murders he committed in Utah.
Fernando de Noronha
Fernando de Noronha is an archipelago of 21 islands and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, 354 km offshore from the Brazilian coast. The archipelago's name is a corruption of the name of the Portuguese merchant Fernão de Loronha, to whom it was given by the Portuguese crown for services rendered regarding wood imported from Brazil. The islands of this archipelago are the visible parts of a range of submerged mountains. It consists of 21 islands, islets and rocks of volcanic origin.
Shad roe
Shad roe is the egg sac of the female American shad fish, a member of the herring family. Each female shad produces a pair of lobe-shaped egg sacs. Although the fish itself is quite bony, shad roe is full of rich flavor similar to sweetbreads.
Han van Meegeren
Han van Meegeren was a Dutch painter and portraitist, and is considered to be one of the most ingenious art forgers of the 20th century.
Sleeping Hermaphroditus
The Sleeping Hermaphroditus is an ancient marble sculpture depicting Hermaphroditus life size. In 1620, Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini sculpted the mattress upon which the statue now lies.