SortStack #72 — 2026-08-20

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Julius Caesar is stabbed to death in the Roman Senate 44 BCE

   He was stabbed 23 times on the Ides of March. A comet appeared months later, which Romans took as proof his soul had ascended to the gods.

2. The Penny Black, the world's first postage stamp, goes on sale 1840

   It bore Queen Victoria's profile and no country name — and because Britain invented the stamp, British stamps still omit the country's name today.

3. Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species 1859

   The entire first print run sold out to booksellers on the first day. Darwin had sat on the theory for some twenty years before a rival's letter forced his hand.

4. Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space 1961

   His single orbit lasted 108 minutes, and he parachuted to the ground separately from his capsule — landing in a field where a farmer and her granddaughter stared in disbelief.

5. Larry Page and Sergey Brin found Google 1998

   The company started in Susan Wojcicki's garage, and its name is a misspelling of 'googol' — the number one followed by a hundred zeros.

6. The Bitcoin network launches with its first block 2009

   Satoshi Nakamoto embedded a newspaper headline about bank bailouts into the very first block — a permanent timestamp and a pointed message.

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