The Incas lacked the use of wheeled vehicles. They lacked animals to ride and draft animals that could pull wagons and plows... [They] lacked the knowledge of iron and steel... Above all, they lacked a system of writing... Despite these supposed handicaps, the Incas were still able to construct one of the greatest imperial states in human history.

A company of 150 pairs of homosexual lovers, who were considered amongst the most elite soldiers of their time.

Spoiler alert : some are about sex, farts, and even "your mom" :-D

Quelques mots de passe un peu _simples_, tout de même :-D

Autre époque, autre vision de la sécurité !

This made History ;-)

Or "how a series of bad decisions (and refusing to admit it) leads to disaster". Corruptions (albeit possible) has not been proved, but bureaucracy together with "bad luck" is the most plausible explanation.
Still today, in a burst of pride, the M-16 has been modified... but not back to its original design...

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These emphases had little to do with the experience of jungle combat, in which most fire fights took place at ranges of no more than thirty to fifty yards, and in which speed and surprise were so important that it might often cost a soldier his life to take the time to aim his rifle instead of simply pointing it in the right direction and opening up on automatic.

(...)

The ordnance corps was small-time, insular, old-fashioned. Its technical experts were divided into a number of subspecialties: internal ballistics (which concern the bullet’s behavior before it leaves the weapon), external ballistics (the bullet in flight), wound ballistics, and other areas. Its organization was further fragmented among technicians at the arsenals and the research center ant he military bureaucrats at the Pentagon. Historically, its first instinct, when presented with a new technical possibility, had been to reject it and stick to traditional solutions. Twice since the Civil War, American Presidents had had to force the ordnance corps to adopt new rifles that had come from outside its own shop.

==> How ironic this describes some companies in 2019 !

(...)

Perhaps the truest explanation of why things happened as they did is the most ordinary: that human beings could not foresee the way that chance and circumstance could magnify the consequences of their acts. The military supply organization, like most other organizations, is always full of power plays and bureaucratic games, which distract attention from the goals that in a rational world would always be pursued. Only occasionally does chance make the effects of these games catastrophic.

What will happen to Earth, mankind, the universe in the next billions of years ?

TL;DR : l'ancêtre commun de l'homme et du chimpanzé avait des mains "humaines".

Avec un pouce relativement long et des doigts plutôt courts, ce genre de main permet une manipulation très fine des objets, puisque la pointe du pouce peut toucher la pointe de tous les autres doigts. A l'inverse, la main des chimpanzés, avec son pouce court et ses autres doigts très allongés, permet une meilleure saisie des branches pour de déplacer dans les arbres.

(...)

L'invention des outils, elle, n'aurait pas joué un rôle moteur dans l'évolution des mains : celles-ci avaient déjà la forme actuelle chez nos ancêtres les plus anciens, tels qu'Orrorin (5 millions d'années), à une époque où aucun outil n'est connu ! Plutôt que la main, les spécialistes pensent que l'évolution a davantage influencé le cerveau : progressivement, il aurait acquis une meilleure maîtrise des mouvements, qui nous a permis de développer des outils.