The state of libraries in Baghdad.

From USAtoday.com:

In April 2003, in the chaotic days following the fall of Baghdad, looters broke into the library, Hussein says.

Her husband brought his gun from home and the two stood sentinel over the building, but not before looters made away with about 10,000 books and magazines, leaving about 5,000 volumes behind.

Reading that, all I could think of was the last stand of the Historians in Mortal Engines.  I loved them.  (I gave that book to one of my favorite middle school patrons recently--two days later he came barreling back into the library and demanded the sequel.  It totally made my day).