SortStack #765 — 2028-07-13

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Alexander the Great founds the city of Alexandria in Egypt 331 BCE

   It became home to both the Great Library and the Pharos lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders. Alexander never saw the finished city — he died eight years later.

2. Humans fly for the first time aboard a Montgolfier hot-air balloon 1783

   The first balloon passengers, weeks earlier, were a sheep, a duck, and a rooster — sent up before King Louis XVI to test whether the air aloft was breathable.

3. The world's first public steam railway opens between Stockton and Darlington 1825

   George Stephenson's engine Locomotion No. 1 pulled the opening train. A man on horseback rode ahead waving a flag — the train soon outpaced him.

4. Star Wars premieres in cinemas 1977

   It opened in just a few dozen theaters because studios doubted it. George Lucas skipped the premiere and was vacationing in Hawaii with Steven Spielberg as it exploded.

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. 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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