Don't be surprised if Count von Count shows up to ponder such a big number.

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Before his death in 1917, Count von Zeppelin, inventor of the airship, was hailed as the greatest German of the 20th century.

ECONOMIST: Monitor

Except for the tapered electric bulbs in the sconces, we could easily have been sitting there in 1849, listening to the sound of young Count Otto von Bismarck clanging sabers in the next room.

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First comes Giovanni Punto, an 18th-century Bohemian who became the subject of an aristocratic fatwa requiring the removal of his front teeth when he had the temerity to leave his boss Count Joseph von Thun's employment without permission.

ECONOMIST: Playing the French horn

The idea that his bodies might count as art, Mr von Hagens says, never cropped up until they left Japan for Europe.

ECONOMIST: Anatomy as art