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Unilever was formed in 1930 when Dutch margarine maker Margarine Unie merged with British soapmaker Lever Brothers, two companies that had been bidding against each other for the same palm oil, whale oil and tallow. During the Second World War, profits trapped in the U.S. and U.K. were spent on local businesses such as Thomas J. Lipton tea and Batchelors peas. As margarine sales stagnated and Procter & Gamble's synthetic detergents gained ground, Unilever moved into Sunsilk, Dove and Good Humor, then bought Brooke Bond, Pond's and, in 2000, Ben & Jerry's, SlimFast and Bestfoods, which brought Hellmann's and Knorr. In 2004 it ran Dove's Real Beauty campaign alongside Axe body spray ads aimed at teenage boys.

Under CEO Paul Polman it sold its spreads business, including Flora and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, to KKR in 2017 for nearly 7 billion euros, the same year it fended off a $143 billion takeover bid from Kraft Heinz. A Reuters investigation found Unilever lobbying in India, the Philippines and Sri Lanka against bans on multilayer sachets it produces by the billions each year. It stayed in Russia after 2022, where profits doubled to about 108 million euros, before selling its Russian and Belarusian business to Arnest Group in late 2024. It then spun off the Magnum Ice Cream Company in November 2025, bought Dr. Squatch for $1.5 billion and agreed in March 2026 to combine most of its food arm with McCormick & Company.

• Unilever paid about $1 billion for Dollar Shave Club and also bought Seventh Generation after the Kraft Heinz bid.
• The company now works with a network of roughly 300,000 digital creators and influencers instead of top-down TV campaigns.
• The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority's greenwashing probe of Unilever did not close until late 2024.
• In 2021 Florida put Unilever on a scrutinized companies list after Ben & Jerry's stopped sales in Israeli-controlled territories.
• The McCormick deal created a sauces and spices business valued at over $65 billion and gave Unilever a $15.7 billion cash payout.

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Time Warner Cable grew from American Television and Communications, founded in 1968, and Warner Cable, founded in 1973. In 1977 Warner Cable began making its own channels, Pinwheel and Star Channel, which became Nickelodeon and The Movie Channel, and in 1981 it launched MTV. Time Inc. and Warner Communications merged in 1990, and in 1992 their cable units became the Time Warner Cable Group. In 1993 it sold a 25 percent stake to phone company US West to fund fiber optic upgrades, and in 1995 a cable modem pilot in Elmira, New York, first called the Southern Tier Online Community, became Road Runner High Speed Online.

In 2006 it joined Comcast to buy bankrupt Adelphia's assets for $17 billion and swapped subscribers to cluster its markets, taking most of Los Angeles and Dallas. Time Warner spun the cable company off in 2009 without super-voting stock. Data cap trials starting in Beaumont, Texas in 2008 drew a group called Stop the Cap and Congressman Eric Massa, and TWC ranked at the bottom of the American Customer Satisfaction Index from 2011 to 2014. Comcast's $45.2 billion bid, announced in February 2014, was abandoned in April 2015 as the Justice Department prepared to sue. Charter then agreed to pay $78.7 billion, closed in May 2016, and by 2017 had renamed the service Spectrum.

• TWC launched DVR service in the Houston area in 2004.
• Its 2009 TV Everywhere plan let subscribers stream video online only after logging in with an active cable account.
• On March 16, 2010, a glitch in eastern North Carolina put Playboy TV on two kids on-demand channels for two hours.
• A combined Comcast and TWC would have controlled an estimated 57 percent of U.S. broadband capacity, with Netflix among the opponents.
• Charter folded in Bright House Networks alongside TWC and let legacy customers keep their roadrunner.com email addresses.

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Russia's Sukhoi Su-57, called the Felon by NATO, drew mockery at the Zhuhai Air Show in China when visitors photographed ordinary visible screws on its panels. The jet began with the PAK FA program in 1999, when Russia could afford only one fifth-generation fighter to replace aging MiG-29s and Su-27s. Sukhoi beat Mikoyan's single-engine pitch partly because export sales of upgraded Su-27s to China and India had given it the cash. The resulting twin-engine design had to be a true multirole fighter with two tandem internal weapons bays, thrust-vectoring nozzles for moves like Pugachev's Cobra, and stealth focused on the front rather than all aspects, plus side-looking cheek radars that let it keep a lock while beaming.

India, which signed a 2007 joint venture for a variant called the FGFA and was to invest about $6 billion, walked away in 2018 over engines, stealth and cost. Early prototypes developed structural cracks, forcing a redesign that pushed normal takeoff weight to nearly 27 tons, and in December 2019 the first serial production jet crashed on a factory test flight; the pilot ejected. Sanctions cut off Western processors and gallium nitride radar modules. In Ukraine the jets mostly fire long-range missiles from Russian airspace, yet one was hit by a Ukrainian drone while parked in June 2024, and in October 2024 an Su-57 pilot shot down an S-70 Okhotnik drone after its data link failed.

• The episode explains that the screwed-together aircraft shown abroad were early test articles, not finished serial production jets.
• The Su-57 uses a quadruple redundant digital fly-by-wire system because its airframe is aerodynamically unstable by design.
• Russian doctrine expects the jet to operate under ground-based air defenses such as the S-400, covering its weak rear aspect.
• Two prototypes deployed briefly to Syria in 2018, firing cruise missiles in relatively permissive airspace.
• Algeria is reported to be receiving the first export Su-57s, aiming for operational status around 2026.

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Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport began in 1966 as Aéroport de Paris Nord, planned on open farmland 23 kilometers northeast of central Paris so it could grow without the suburban fights that boxed in Orly and Heathrow. It covers 32.38 square kilometers, about a third of the size of Paris, and spans three départements, Seine-et-Marne, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-d'Oise, plus six communes. Terminal 1, designed by Paul Andreu and opened in 1974, is a circular concrete drum linked by tunnels to satellite gates. Terminal 2, opened in 1981 for Air France, grew into seven sub-terminals, 2A through 2G, with 2G far enough away to require a shuttle bus, a layout the episode ties to CDG's lost-luggage reputation.

On May 23, 2004, shortly after it opened, part of the elliptical concrete roof of Terminal 2E collapsed near Gate E50 and killed four people; the concrete shell lacked sufficient steel reinforcement, and rebuilding that section cost about 100 million euros. A 9 billion euro Terminal 4 meant to add 30 to 40 million passengers a year was canceled in 2021 as incompatible with France's climate goals. Instead, the CDG Express rail link is due in early 2027, and on March 16, 2027 the terminals will be renumbered in sequence from 1 to 7.

• About 70 million passengers a year use CDG, and 105 airlines served it in 2025, second only to Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi.
• Bags connecting between sub-terminals can ride over a kilometer of conveyors and then cross active taxiways on driven carts.
• Operator Groupe ADP spent 250 million euros refurbishing Terminal 1 during the COVID-19 downtime, with a bistro-style lounge by Maxime Liautard and Hugo Toro.
• CDG handled over 1.9 million tons of cargo in 2024, second in Europe only to Frankfurt.
• Under the new scheme, Terminal 3 becomes Terminal 2, 2A and 2C become Terminal 3, 2B and 2D become Terminal 4, 2E becomes 5, 2F becomes 6 and 2G becomes 7.

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In September 1982 the Danish Navy accidentally fired a live Harpoon anti-ship missile into Lumsås, a quiet vacation housing area, an incident remembered in Denmark as the Hovsa or "Oops" missile. The weapon itself grew out of panic. In October 1967 an Egyptian missile boat sank the Israeli destroyer Eilat with a Soviet P-15 Termit, known to NATO as the Styx, and in 1970 Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt launched Project 60 to speed up an over-the-horizon anti-ship missile. McDonnell Douglas, now Boeing, delivered the first Harpoon in 1977: a sea-skimming missile that uses a radar altimeter to fly just above the waves and stay hidden below the radar horizon.

The Harpoon's combat record is tangled. Iran used U.S.-supplied Harpoons against Iraqi ships in Operation Morvarid in 1980, then the U.S. Navy used Harpoons to sink the Iranian frigate Sahand in Operation Praying Mantis in 1988. That same year, an inert Harpoon fired by an F/A-18 during an exercise off Hawaii locked onto an Indian merchant ship that had strayed into the range, killing one sailor. In June 2022 Ukraine sank the Russian Black Sea Fleet tug Vasily Bekh with two Harpoons despite a Tor air defense system on its deck, and U.S. Special Operations Command is now adapting the missile for the AC-130J Ghostrider gunship.

• Air-launched AGM-84s need no booster, ship-launched RGM-84s use a solid rocket booster, and submarine UGM-84s ride a buoyant capsule out of a torpedo tube to the surface.
• The rare Block 1D added a larger fuel tank so a missile that missed could fly a cloverleaf pattern and search again.
• Block II borrowed the inertial unit from the JDAM program and added GPS to navigate cluttered coastlines.
• In 2009 the U.S. accused Pakistan of modifying Harpoons for land attack; Pakistan denied it, and U.S. inspections resolved the issue.
• More than 7,500 Harpoons have been built, and the Block II Plus ER reaches over 167.5 nautical miles at roughly $1.2 million per missile.

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The Tomahawk cruise missile traces its guidance to the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in the 1970s, when engineers needed a low-flying subsonic missile that could slip under Soviet radar long before GPS was fully operational in the mid-1990s. Their answer was TERCOM, terrain contour matching, which used a radar altimeter to compare the ground below with stored elevation maps. Block II missiles added DSMAC, which photographed the ground with a camera and even a strobe light at night, then matched low-resolution contrast maps prepared on the ground from spy satellite photos. The Block IV Tactical Tomahawk, operational around 2004, added a two-way satellite link so controllers could make it loiter, switch to one of 15 alternate targets or take new coordinates in flight.

In February 2026, during Operation Epic Fury against Iran, the Center for Strategic and International Studies reported that more than 1,000 Tomahawks were fired, nearly emptying the U.S. stockpile. A Bellingcat investigation concluded that a U.S. Tomahawk struck an elementary school in Minab on February 28, about 100 meters from an IRGC facility; Iranian authorities reported 175 casualties, most of them children, and a preliminary U.S. military investigation found the strike was likely a U.S. Tomahawk that deviated. In August 2026 the Pentagon signed a $22.9 billion contract with RTX for more than 1,000 missiles a year for seven years.

• U.S. forces fired 288 Tomahawks in the 1991 Gulf War, 802 in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and 135 against Houthi targets in early 2024.
• A Block IV cost about $1.87 million in 2017, while modernized Block V missiles run about $2.5 million each, and RTX can retrofit older missiles to Block V standards.
• The Block VA Maritime Strike Tomahawk uses passive and active radar to hunt moving ships at sea.
• Los Alamos National Laboratory has explored turning leftover JP-10 fuel into a thermobaric blast, and corn ethanol as a JP-10 alternative.
• Japan bought 400 Tomahawks but was told deliveries would slip to 2028, and Russia's Vladimir Putin warned that U.S. Typhon launchers planned for Germany from 2026 risked a Cold War-style missile crisis.

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Krispy Kreme's yeast-raised recipe came from Joseph LeBeau, an Ohio River barge cook, by way of Ishmael Armstrong's general store in Paducah, Kentucky, where nephew Vernon Rudolph worked in 1933. They moved to Nashville in 1934, and in 1937 Rudolph chose Winston-Salem, North Carolina, because it was home to Camel, his favorite cigarette. He baked wholesale from midnight to 4 a.m., and passersby drawn by the smell knocked on the door until he cut a hole in the wall to sell on the sidewalk. Beatrice Foods owned the chain in the 1970s before franchisees bought it back in 1982.

Krispy Kreme went public in April 2000 at $21 a share and hit $50 by August 2003. After a May 2004 loss, CEO Scott Livengood blamed the Atkins diet, though Dunkin' Donuts did fine. Sales had shifted to grocery stores and gas stations, franchisees had to buy equipment and mix from headquarters at a markup, and franchisees accused corporate of shipping double orders at quarter end. In 2009 the SEC issued a cease and desist order, finding earnings had been managed to beat estimates by one cent, and net income was cut by over $10.5 million. JAB Holding bought the company for $1.35 billion in 2016, it returned to Nasdaq in 2021, and a 2024 plan to sell in all McDonald's ended in June 2025.

• The stock lost 75 to 80 percent of its value by 2005.
• JAB bought Insomnia Cookies for $175 million in 2018, and a majority stake sold in 2024 at a $350 million valuation.
• The world's most profitable Krispy Kreme is in Dublin, Ireland.
• A store in Hull, England promoted a Krispy Kreme Club Wednesday in 2015 that abbreviated to KKK, and the event was canceled.
• A 2021 free doughnut offer for vaccinated Americans drew criticism from Dr. Leana Wen and a defense from nutrition therapist Elyse Resch.

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Waffle House opened on Labor Day weekend 1955 in Avondale Estates, Georgia, with a 16-item menu, an open kitchen and 24-hour service. Founders Joe Rogers Sr., a former Toddle House short-order cook and regional manager, and Tom Forkner, the real estate agent who sold him a house, named it for its most profitable item. Rogers sold his share to Forkner in 1956 to avoid a conflict with Toddle House, then rejoined full time in 1960 after Toddle House refused to let him buy in. With three restaurants then, the chain grew to 27 by the late 1960s and now runs over 2,000 locations in 25 states, claiming to serve 2 percent of all U.S. eggs.

In the 1960s Waffle House sold S. Truett Cathy's chicken sandwich from his Dwarf House, then ended the deal when it began outselling Waffle House's own food, pushing Cathy to launch Chick-fil-A. In Indiana, locations used the name Waffle and Steak until 2005 because another company held the trademark. Rogers personally vetted songs for Waffle Records, its jukebox label. A 2004 Dateline NBC report found 1.6 critical violations per inspection, and the company cited its open kitchens in response. FEMA counts Waffle House among the top four companies in disaster response and uses the Waffle House Index, which reads green, yellow or red.

• Servers call orders to the grill in a standardized code before writing them down.
• Waffle Records released songs by Gary Garcia in 1995 and Alfreda Gerald in 2006, plus doo-wop by Eddie Middleton produced by Jerry Buckner.
• An early fan site called the Waffle House Shrine collected late-night stories from staff and customers.
• In 2019 a Goose Creek, South Carolina location closed after an employee exposed customers to hepatitis A.
• Before storms the company stages generators, ice and food and sends out-of-state jump teams so local staff can stay home.

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Dairy Queen's soft serve contains 5 percent butterfat, half the 10 percent minimum to be legally called ice cream. J.F. McCullough and his son Alex created the formula, and in 1938 friend Sherb Noble tested it at his Kankakee, Illinois store, selling over 1,600 servings in two hours. The first Dairy Queen opened in Joliet on June 22, 1940; the building is now a city landmark. Franchising took the chain from 10 stores in 1941 to 2,600 by 1955, with a Saskatchewan store by 1952. In 1958 Georgia operator Jim Cruikshank created the Brazier system, adding charcoal-broiled burgers, hot dogs and fries.

Texas runs its own Texas Country Foods menu with the Hunger-Buster, Belt Buster, the chicken fried steak sandwich called the Dude and T-Brand Tacos, overseen by the Texas Dairy Queen Operators Council and promoted by Bob Phillips of Texas Country Reporter. The 1985 Blizzard sold 100 million in its first year and is served upside down, while the 1990 frozen yogurt Breeze was phased out by 2001. International Dairy Queen bought Orange Julius in 1987, and Berkshire Hathaway bought the company for $585 million in 1998. It became DQ in 2001, launched Grill and Chill, redesigned its logo in 2007 and dropped Dennis the Menace in 2002.

• Franchisees invented the Dilly Bar in Moorhead, Minnesota in 1955, the Buster Bar in 1962 and the Peanut Buster Parfait in 1971.
• The upside down flip dates to a 1960s franchisee who sold a thick 50-cent shake also named the Blizzard.
• S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders and Larry McMurtry's Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen feature the chain.
• The largest U.S. store is in Bloomington, Illinois, and the largest anywhere is in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
• By 2014 Dairy Queen had over 6,400 stores in more than 25 countries.

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Chicago O'Hare's ORD code comes from Orchard Place, a German-American farming community that became a 2 million square foot Douglas plant during World War II. It built 655 C-54 Skymasters, more than half of all produced, and its test airfield was known as Orchard Field. In 1949 the city renamed it for Edward Butch O'Hare, the Navy's first flying ace and a Medal of Honor recipient, but IATA kept ORD. Planner Ralph H. Burke introduced split-finger concourses, separate arrival and departure roads and underground fueling, and O'Hare hosted the world's first jet bridge in 1958. Midway's one square mile could not handle Boeing 707s, and by July 1962 the last scheduled fixed-wing flight left Midway.

O'Hare was the world's busiest airport from 1963 to 1998, and in 2025 it handled over 84 million passengers and 857,392 aircraft movements on eight runways. After deregulation, United (47.1 percent) and American (33.1 percent) won the hub battle as TWA, Northwest and Delta pulled back. Crossing runways caused chronic delays until the $6.6 billion O'Hare Modernization Plan, begun in 2001, moved to six parallel runways. Expansion forced St. Johannes Cemetery to relocate, while Resthaven Cemetery remains beside the FedEx facility. The $8.5 billion O'Hare 21 plan replaces Terminal 2 with a Global Terminal designed by Jeanne Gang, reaching a compromise with the airlines in May 2024.

• Helmut Jahn designed United's Terminal 1, whose B-C tunnel features Michael Hayden's neon Sky's the Limit and Rhapsody in Blue.
• Runways were built with slip-form paving developed for the interstate highways.
• Since 2011 an apiary of up to 75 hives has been tended by former offenders from North Lawndale, selling goods under the Bee Love brand.
• After the April 2017 removal of Dr. David Dao from a United Express flight, aviation police lost their police titles and were disarmed.
• O'Hare 21 aims to raise gate count from 185 to about 235.