SortStack #331 — 2027-05-06

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. The Parthenon is completed atop the Acropolis in Athens 432 BCE

   It contains almost no perfectly straight lines: the columns bulge and the base curves slightly upward, optical tricks that make it look flawless.

2. Julius Caesar is stabbed to death in the Roman Senate 44 BCE

   He was stabbed 23 times on the Ides of March. A comet appeared months later, which Romans took as proof his soul had ascended to the gods.

3. William the Conqueror defeats King Harold at the Battle of Hastings 1066

   The Bayeux Tapestry — actually an embroidery nearly 70 meters long — tells the story, including Harold's famous (and disputed) arrow in the eye.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo, triggering the First World War 1914

   The archduke's driver took a wrong turn and stalled directly in front of Gavrilo Princip, handing the assassin a second chance after the morning's bomb attempt failed.

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