SortStack #296 — 2027-04-01

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Emperor Hadrian orders a great wall built across northern Britain 122

   The wall ran about 117 km from coast to coast and took roughly six years to build — soldiers' letters from its forts survive, including a birthday party invitation.

2. Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone 1876

   Bell's lawyer filed at the patent office mere hours before rival Elisha Gray filed a notice for a similar device — one of history's closest patent races.

3. Humans walk on the Moon for the first time 1969

   The Apollo guidance computer had less processing power than a modern pocket calculator — and alarms from it nearly aborted the landing.

4. Dolly the sheep becomes the first cloned mammal 1996

   She was cloned from a mammary gland cell, so the scientists named her after Dolly Parton.

5. The Human Genome Project is declared complete 2003

   The 'complete' genome actually covered about 92% — the trickiest gaps weren't fully sequenced until nearly two decades later.

6. Nations adopt the Paris Agreement on climate change 2015

   Negotiators from 196 parties agreed to pursue limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius — the gavel came down to a standing ovation in a Paris suburb.

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