SortStack #548 — 2027-12-09

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Rome is founded, according to legend, by Romulus 753 BCE

   Romans dated their entire calendar 'ab urbe condita' — from the founding of the city — and the legend says Romulus killed his twin brother Remus over the city walls.

2. Hannibal marches his army and war elephants across the Alps 218 BCE

   He set out with around 37 elephants; nearly all died in the crossing or soon after, yet he rampaged through Italy for fifteen years.

3. 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.

4. The Penny Black, the world's first postage stamp, goes on sale 1840

   It bore Queen Victoria's profile and no country name — and because Britain invented the stamp, British stamps still omit the country's name today.

5. Christiaan Barnard performs the first human heart transplant in Cape Town 1967

   The first patient lived eighteen days. Barnard's second transplant patient lived more than eighteen months, proving the operation could work.

6. The World Health Organization declares COVID a global pandemic 2020

   Within weeks, roughly half of humanity was living under some form of lockdown — the largest coordinated shutdown of public life in history.

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