Romanticism

Johann Rettenberger

In the 1980s the bank robber Johann Rettenberger was the most wanted criminal in Austria. Known as Pumpgun Ronnie due to his weapon and the Ronald Reagan mask he wore for his robberies, he sometimes robbed two or three banks on the same day. Unusually for a bank robber, he was also a keen amateur marathon runner and had won several races. He jumped out of a window during questioning and escaped by running into the Vienna Woods. He only seemed to feel truly alive, truly himself, truly free when he was running.

Batyr

Batyr (1969–1993) was an Asian elephant claimed to be able to use a large amount of meaningful human speech. Living in a zoo in Kazakhstan, Batyr was widely reported as having a vocabulary of more than 20 phrases. A recording of Batyr saying "Batyr is good","Batyr is hungry" and using words such as "drink" and "give" was played on Kazakh state radio in 1980.

D. B. Cooper

D. B. Cooper is the name attributed to a man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in the United States on November 24, 1971, received US$200,000 in ransom, and parachuted from the plane.

Juliane Köpcke

Juliane Köpcke was the sole survivor of 93 passengers and crew in the December 24, 1971 crash of LANSA Flight 508 in the Peruvian rainforest.

Philippe Petit

Philippe Petit is a French high-wire artist who gained fame for his unauthorized high-wire walks between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1971 and of Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1973, as well as between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on the morning of 7 August 1974.

Challenger Expedition

The Challenger expedition, the first worldwide oceanographic expedition, voyaged 127 663 km in the Atlantic, Southern, Indian and Pacific oceans between December 1872 and May 1876.

Opus

Encyclopædia of the sublime