SortStack #263 — 2027-02-27
By duration · Order from shortest to longest.
- A standard university lecture 50 min
Attention research suggests student focus starts lapsing after 10-15 minutes — which is roughly when most lecturers are just warming up.
- The 1900 Paris Olympic Games 167 days
Spread thinly through the World's Fair, the Games were so disorganized that some winners died never knowing they had been Olympians.
- The first circumnavigation of the globe (Magellan's expedition) 3 years
Magellan himself never made it — he was killed in the Philippines. Just 18 of the original ~270 crew limped home aboard one remaining ship.
- The Romanov dynasty's rule over Russia 304 years
It began with a 16-year-old reluctantly accepting the throne in 1613 and ended 304 years later with Nicholas II's abdication in 1917.
- The Ottoman Empire 622.7 years
Founded before the printing press, it ended after the airplane — the empire spanned 623 years and three continents at its height.
- Ancient Egyptian civilization, from unification to Cleopatra 3.1K years
It ran so long that Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid.