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On 25 October 2017, Sophia, a humanoid robot developed by Hanson Robotics, was granted Saudi citizenship at a technology conference in Riyadh. She became the first machine in history to hold legal nationality, sparking immediate controversy. Critics pointed out the absurdity of granting personhood to a robot in a country where women’s rights remained severely restricted. AI researchers questioned whether Sophia’s capabilities justified the status, whilst legal scholars asked questions nobody had answers for: can a robot own property, vote, or be held responsible? The decision forced a global conversation about the legal status of artificial intelligence. Elsewhere on the same date in 2007, Chadian police stopped sixteen French nationals from Zoe’s Ark attempting to fly 103 children out of the country. The children were not orphans as claimed, most had living parents, and the incident became a landmark case in NGO regulation and child protection. And in 1616, Dutch sea captain Dirk Hartog made landfall on the west coast of Australia, nailed a pewter plate to a post, and sailed away, leaving one of the oldest European artefacts ever found on the continent.