SortStack #277 — 2027-03-13

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. A single wingbeat of a hovering hummingbird 12.6 ms

   Up to 80 wingbeats per second lets hummingbirds hover, fly backwards, and even fly upside down — no other bird can do all three.

2. A car airbag inflating after a crash 30 ms

   The bag must fully inflate before your head arrives — roughly ten times faster than the blink of an eye, driven by a controlled chemical explosion.

3. The film 'Gone with the Wind', with overture and intermission 4 h

   Still the longest film ever to win Best Picture — and adjusted for inflation, it remains the highest-grossing film of all time.

4. One full rotation of Earth on its axis 23.9 h

   A true rotation takes 23 hours 56 minutes — the extra 4 minutes of our day come from Earth also moving along its orbit and needing to catch up to the Sun.

5. The Siege of Leningrad in World War II 2.4 years

   Through the blockade, scientists at the city's seed bank starved to death rather than eat their collection of edible seeds and potatoes.

6. The Western Roman Empire, from Augustus to its fall 501.9 years

   After the West fell in AD 476, the Eastern half carried on for nearly a thousand more years as the Byzantine Empire.

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