SortStack #114 — 2026-10-01

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Emperor Constantine dedicates Constantinople as the new Roman capital 330

   Built on the old Greek city of Byzantium, it remained an imperial capital for over a thousand years and is now Istanbul, Turkey's largest city.

2. Marco Polo sets out from Venice on his journey to Asia 1271

   He was away 24 years. His famous book was dictated to a romance writer while both were prisoners of war in a Genoese jail.

3. Johannes Gutenberg develops his movable-type printing press 1440

   Gutenberg was a goldsmith by trade. Of the roughly 180 Bibles he printed, 49 survive — and he died broke after losing his workshop in a lawsuit.

4. The Great Fire destroys most of the City of London 1666

   It consumed over 13,000 houses and St. Paul's Cathedral, yet the official death toll recorded only a handful of victims — almost certainly an undercount.

5. An armistice ends the fighting of the First World War 1918

   It took effect at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. The last soldier killed, Henry Gunther, died one minute before it began.

6. Disneyland opens its gates in Anaheim, California 1955

   Opening day was a fiasco insiders called 'Black Sunday': heat melted the fresh asphalt, fountains failed, and thousands entered with counterfeit tickets.

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