SortStack #270 — 2027-03-06

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. A single blink of the human eye 348 ms

   We blink around 15-20 times a minute, and the brain edits out the darkness — you're effectively blind for about 10% of your waking hours.

2. A Eurostar train journey from London to Paris 2.3 h

   Only about 20 minutes of the trip is actually under the sea — the Channel Tunnel remains the longest undersea rail tunnel in the world.

3. The Apollo 11 mission, launch to splashdown 8.1 days

   Of the whole voyage, Armstrong and Aldrin spent barely 22 hours on the lunar surface — and only about two and a half walking on it.

4. A chicken egg's incubation, laying to hatching 21 days

   Chicks start cheeping to their mother through the shell a day or two before hatching — and she clucks back to encourage them out.

5. The main construction of Notre-Dame de Paris 97 years

   The medieval build ran from 1163 to 1260 — yet after the 2019 fire, the cathedral was restored and reopened in just five years.

6. The Republic of Venice 1.1K years

   The 1,100-year republic elected 120 doges using a bizarre multi-round lottery system specifically designed to prevent vote-rigging.

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