Video Game History
One of the first "console wars," competition between these two companies during the late '80s and early '90s established the use of aggressive advertising campaigns in an effort to dominate the home console market.
Sega and Nintendo
Several U.S. territories have petitioned for statehood, including this Caribbean island and former Spanish colony.
Puerto Rico
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was among the final nails in the coffin for this global superpower of the 20th century.
USSR
This form of government entails rule by a small elite.
Oligarchy
These extinct megafauna, relatives of elephants, still roamed the Earth when the first pyramids were constructed in Egypt.
Wooly mammoths
The International 2021, a tournament for this game developed by Valve, boasted the largest prize pool in esports history at over $40 million.
Dota 2
The U.S. purchase of the Alaskan territory was regarded by many as this, due to a prevailing belief that the land was useless.
Seward's Folly; Seward's Icebox; Walrussia
After the death of Josip Tito, this former European country dissolved in the midst of growing ethnic conflict and nationalist movements.
Yugoslavia
Statism is contrasted with this form of social organization which lacks defined systems of authority or hierarchy.
Anarchy
This Turkic empire, established in 1299, was still around when the Chicago Cubs won the World Series in 1907, and again in 1908.
Ottoman Empire
This 2006 console helped transform video games from a niche market to a household staple, widening the consumer base with its innovative motion controls and casual gameplay experiences.
Wii
This 1854 act of Congress repealed the Missouri Compromise and added two new territories, later states, to the Union, wherein popular sovereignty was to determine the legality of slavery.
Kansas-Nebraska Act
This centuries-old West African kingdom, associated with a collection of famous bronze sculptures, ceased to be when it was violently annexed by the British Empire in 1897.
Kingdom of Benin; Edo Kingdom
Translatable as "rule of offices" or "government of desks," this term generally refers to a system of government in which decisions are made by state officials rather than elected representatives.
Bureaucracy
The existence of this elite British university, which is still in operation today, overlaps with that of the Aztec Empire. In fact, it predates it by nearly 350 years!
Oxford University
The U.S. video game industry nearly collapsed in 1983 due to an oversaturation of poor quality games and consoles—most infamously this movie tie-in for the Atari 2600, often regarded as the worst game of all time.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
In the leadup to the annexation of Hawaii, King David Kalakaua was forced to sign this fittingly named 1887 document, which greatly reduced native Hawaiian sovereignty.
Bayonet Constitution
Occupying much of the territory that is today Germany, this Central European kingdom was mocked by Voltaire for being none of the things its name would imply.
Holy Roman Empire
The word "aristocracy" derives from the Greek concept aristoi, meaning this.
The best
Genghis Khan sacked what is now Beijing in 1215, the same year this king of England signed the Magna Carta.
King John
Proponents of video game preservation are no fans of EULAs, or these, which grant publishers the right to restrict or remove access to digital content.
End-user license agreements
Despite initial pushback by the New York legislature, this independent republic was the first to be annexed by the Union, becoming the fourteenth state overall.
Vermont; Vermont Republic
This former country in Southern Africa was created in an effort by its white ruling class to avoid black majority rule. It was later reconstituted as Zimbabwe, achieving internationally recognized independence in 1980.
Rhodesia
This form of government is characterized by corrupt leaders who use political power to expropriate the wealth of their domain, enriching themselves and their associates.
Kleptocracy
George Lucas' Star Wars released in this year, the same year that saw the last person guillotined in France.
1977