SortStack #240 — 2027-02-04

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Joan of Arc is burned at the stake in Rouen 1431

   She was about nineteen years old. A retrial cleared her name 25 years later, and she was made a saint nearly five centuries after her death.

2. England defeats the Spanish Armada 1588

   Storms did more damage than English guns — far more Spanish ships wrecked on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland than were sunk in battle.

3. Isaac Newton publishes the Principia, laying out his laws of motion 1687

   The Royal Society couldn't afford to print it — it had blown its budget on a lavish history of fish — so astronomer Edmond Halley paid out of his own pocket.

4. 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.

5. Richard Nixon becomes the first US president to resign 1974

   A month after he left office, his successor Gerald Ford granted him a full pardon — a decision many believe cost Ford the next election.

6. The world's first website goes online at CERN 1991

   Tim Berners-Lee's original site, info.cern.ch, explained what the web was and how to make your own page. A restored copy is still online today.

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