The following list idea was provided by generous Top Tenz patron Dorian. If you would like to have one of your own, please visit our Patreon page. According to a 2016 report, Evangelical Protestants compose about 17% of the Christian population in the United States of America. On their way to such prodigious (if also…
Author: Dustin Koski
Dustin Koski
Dustin Koski is the proud co-writer and producer of the anthology podcast The Vanishing Point with his brother Adam. He still hopes to escape from Wisconsin someday.
In this age of controversies over the police and the militarization thereof, controversies over youth culture, and responses to mass shootings, we in America often think that the early 20th century was a relatively peaceful time. We haven’t seen the images of questionable police shootings from the beginning of the 1900s or anything of the…
It’s not generally considered a pleasurable experience to be part of the armed services, even during the best of times. Still, there are particular military units you wouldn’t want to be part of even by the cruel standards of historical hardship. You’d almost certainly not want to be a member of any army making a…
On July 20, 1944, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg placed a case filled with explosives as close as he could to Adolf Hitler in his military headquarters known as the Wolf’s Lair. It was the crux of a coup that became known as Operation Valkyrie. The bomb would mangle the Fuhrer’s arm to the point of…
From WatchMojo.com to preshows in movie theaters to… well, TopTenz, everyone wants to provide small novelty pieces of information about beloved movies. Unfortunately, the high demand means that the product has gotten a bit diluted over time. Misunderstandings or even outright lies now permeate the pop culture landscape. We’re inclined to believe a lot of…
For awhile, it was a cliche to portray screen actors who played tough characters as effete people behind the scenes. That’s not what this list is about. No, we’re going so far in the other direction that we’re going to highlight people who made movies with pulse-pounding, high octane action, and yet it was still…
The narrative we’re usually fed is that people achieve fame and fortune through passionately pursuing the future of their dreams. That might be true in the majority of cases. But the world of celebrities is filled with eccentrics and oddly-charmed people, so perhaps in some way it makes sense that the people who go farthest…
For most of our audience, the last time the French Foreign Legion came up was likely in a context related to old movies or stories from the ’30s or ’40s. Movies like Beau Geste, based on a 1924 novel by P.C. Wren, parodies on Looney Toons, Disney cartoons, Laurel & Hardy or Abbott & Costello…
By this point, regular readers and viewers of TopTenz have surely been made so wealthy by the knowledge we’ve provided that they have some money to save. But no matter how much cash they have available, what they always seem to have more of is investment options. Lucrative options. Safe options. Options that make investors…
The specter of the American government declaring bankruptcy gets trotted out particularly often any time there’s a change in the majority party. Because we’ve been told for decades what a large, scary number America’s National Debt is, the populus fears that the time when it causes another Depression could come at any time. It couldn’t…
If there’s something to be learned from the enduring popularity of shows such as Rick & Morty and South Park, it’s that there’s a large and loyal audience for programs that push the envelope. Inevitably it’s a tempting prospect for many shows to try, but it’s a tricky prospect. There’s the risk of riling up…
Between a post-World War II habit of exaggerating the military prowess of the Third Reich, the amazing performance of Finnish soldiers during the 1939-1940 Winter War, and the fact the Soviet Union eventually collapsed, there’s a tendency to believe that the Russian military was a badly run and worse-equipped rabble. They were given inferior weapons…
Combining the inherent contradiction of “Warrior Buddhists” with the legendary grand scale of Chinese military history, Shaolin monks have gotten some very interesting stories associated with them since the emperor of China made the order official circa 496 A.D. Some of which are so interesting you just know they’re not quite true, but can’t resist…
The 2017 TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale didn’t seem like the sort of thing that would take the media landscape by storm. After all, your first instinct probably wouldn’t be for the story for a 1985 novel about a dystopian future where the few fertile women are raped to produce offspring for the elite…
As of November 2016, 205,000 women were enlisted in the United States Armed Services. Over the course of America’s involvement in World War II, 350,000 American women took part in active duty service in non-combat capacities. As it turns out, America is not leading the world in that area. 800,000 women were part of the…
Other than Ramses, whom most people know from the Book of Exodus, King Tutankhamun is the most famous pharaoh in Egyptian history. That’s probably more due to the desecration of his tomb by Howard Carter’s 1922 archeological expedition than because of his accomplishments during his 1334 BC to 1324 BC reign. Even that expedition owes…
There’s something that seems to continue to please audiences and critics about the thought that, at some point in a film, TV show, or other production, something that normally would be faked to make it easier and safer for the actors was notsimulated. Real danger because the actors got too into performing the scene. Stunts gone…
It remains perhaps the single most famous event from the largest war in human history. D-Day was the largest combined effort of naval, air, and land military power ever… and hopefully it will remain so forever. The Allies alone sent 11,590 planes, 6,939 ships, and over 150,000 troops into battle on the Normandy beaches on…
Two of the main economic philosophies of the modern Republican Party are to support American businesses with trade deals and tariffs (i.e. protectionism) and to aid companies in their expansion by lowering their taxes and regulations (Supply-Side economics). It’s supposedly the one-two punch that will bring an estimated two to three trillion dollars in corporate…
At 5:00 p.m. on January 28, 1986, President Ronald Reagan delayed his State of the Union Address to give a heartfelt speech on the Challenger Shuttle Disaster. He had insisted that newcomer Peggy Noonan write it. Reagan began by impressing on the audience, particularly the children, that such “painful things” were “part of the process…
Can you imagine serving under a general who, until recently, was commanding soldiers who wanted to capture or kill you? Would you ever trust that person to be at all concerned for your safety or loyal to the cause at all? Well, thousands and thousands of soldiers have had to put up with that situation.…
It might seem hard to believe for many people, but commercials are a cherished part of the pop culture landscape. As much as viewers are willing to pay extra fees to stream movies and television shows without ad breaks, commercial compilations are still extremely popular on YouTube and catchphrases from them are as likely to…
Slavery remains one of the most uncomfortable subjects in the history of the United States of America. Indeed, it can hardly be relegated to being only American “history” as we’ll soon see in greater depth. There are large groups of historical revisionists that have a vested interest in trying to downplay it or reshape it…
What elementary school student in America couldn’t tell you about Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, two of the most famous signers of one of the three most momentous documents of American history? Most middle school students could go a little further and tell you about second president John Adams or John Hancock, President of the…