SortStack #156 — 2026-11-12

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. The Black Death arrives in Europe aboard Genoese trading ships 1347

   Within five years it killed somewhere between a third and half of Europe's population — the deadliest pandemic in recorded human history.

2. Tokugawa Ieyasu becomes shogun, beginning Japan's Edo period 1603

   The Tokugawa shogunate brought over 250 years of internal peace and isolation — and its capital Edo, later renamed Tokyo, grew into one of the world's largest cities.

3. The Taj Mahal is completed in Agra 1653

   Emperor Shah Jahan built it as a tomb for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, employing some 20,000 workers — and was later imprisoned by his own son within sight of it.

4. Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned Emperor of the French 1804

   At the ceremony in Notre-Dame, Napoleon took the crown from Pope Pius VII and placed it on his own head — a move planned in advance, not an impulsive snub.

5. Reactor four explodes at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant 1986

   The Soviet Union stayed silent until radiation set off alarms at a Swedish plant over 1,000 km away — workers' shoes triggered the detectors.

6. Queen Elizabeth II dies after seventy years on the throne 2022

   She appointed her fifteenth prime minister, Liz Truss, just two days before her death — having started with Winston Churchill.

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