In the first century A.D, during the Jewish-Roman war, a group of 41 jewish rebels were trapped in a cave by the roman army. Knowing they were defeated, the rebels rathered death than surrender. While Josephus did not agree with their proposal, he was afraid to disagree. Instead he proposed that they arrange themselves in a circle, and counting in a clockwise direction, every man should be killed until there was only one survivor, who would then kill himself. Josephus wanted to be that man so that he could survive, he then, therefore, had to identify which position to stand in to survive.

Identifying that position for any number of soldiers and persons skipped when killing is our goal today. All in all a very pleasant tale.