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In 1836, a Qing official argued for legalising opium to save the empire. The emperor said no. Twenty-two years later, the empire was required by British treaty to permit it.

In July 1324, Mansa Musa — king of Mali and holder of more gold than anyone had ever seen in one place — arrived in Cairo with 12,000 servants, 80 camel-loads of gold dust, and no apparent intention of leaving with any of it.

On 15 March 1638, Fulin was born — the ninth son of the Qing ruler Hong Taiji, and a child no one expected to matter. He was crowned emperor at five, began ruling at thirteen, died at twenty-two, and left behind a dynasty that lasted another 251 years.

In 1096, a woman set out for Jerusalem from France with a goose from her farm. Peasant crusaders took it as divine guidance. The goose died in northeastern France and never got close to the Holy Land. The people who followed it left a different kind of trail.

On 14 March 1794, Eli Whitney received a patent for his cotton gin — a crude wooden machine he hoped would reduce slavery. It did the opposite.

On 13 March 624, Muhammad set out to intercept a merchant caravan. The caravan escaped. An army three times his size came out to meet him instead. He had 313 men, 2 horses, and 70 camels.

On 12 March 1088, a French monk named Odo was elected pope in a small gathering in Terracina — unable to enter his own city. Seven years later, he launched the First Crusade. He died before he knew it had succeeded.

Born to a rabbinical Jewish family in what is now Ukraine, Leopold Weiss converted to Islam, became a confidant of Ibn Saud, and ended up as one of the intellectual architects of Pakistan. The life is almost too improbable to believe. It is all true.

On 10 March 1876, Alexander Graham Bell spoke six words into a device above a Boston theatre and Thomas Watson heard them from another room. The telephone had just worked for the first time.

On 9 March 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations — not the final word on economics, but the first coherent one. The discipline has been arguing with it ever since.