SortStack #149 — 2026-11-05

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Hannibal marches his army and war elephants across the Alps 218 BCE

   He set out with around 37 elephants; nearly all died in the crossing or soon after, yet he rampaged through Italy for fifteen years.

2. A massive earthquake and tsunami destroy Lisbon 1755

   Striking on All Saints' Day while churches were full, it killed tens of thousands and shook European philosophy — Voltaire used it to attack the idea of a perfect world.

3. The Wall Street Crash wipes out the stock market boom 1929

   The market didn't permanently regain its pre-crash peak until 1954, a quarter of a century later.

4. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay become the first to summit Everest 1953

   News of the climb reached London on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation — billed by the press as a double celebration.

5. The Sydney Opera House officially opens 1973

   It opened ten years late and roughly fourteen times over budget. Architect Jorn Utzon resigned mid-project and never returned to see it finished.

6. Nelson Mandela walks free after twenty-seven years in prison 1990

   Four years after his release he was elected South Africa's president — and he later joked that he was 'a pensioner taking up a new job' at age 75.

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