SortStack #807 — 2028-08-24

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Socrates is condemned to death and drinks hemlock in Athens 399 BCE

   Convicted of corrupting the youth, he refused friends' escape plans. He never wrote anything down — everything we know comes via Plato and others.

2. The Wall Street Crash wipes out the stock market boom 1929

   The market didn't permanently regain its pre-crash peak until 1954, a quarter of a century later.

3. India and Pakistan gain independence from Britain 1947

   Independence came at midnight, and the hastily drawn border triggered one of history's largest migrations — some fifteen million people crossed in both directions.

4. The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show 1964

   An estimated 73 million Americans watched — roughly forty percent of the US population — launching the British Invasion overnight.

5. The Live Aid concerts are broadcast from London and Philadelphia 1985

   Phil Collins played both venues in one day, crossing the Atlantic by Concorde. Queen's twenty-minute set is widely ranked the greatest live performance ever.

6. The Bitcoin network launches with its first block 2009

   Satoshi Nakamoto embedded a newspaper headline about bank bailouts into the very first block — a permanent timestamp and a pointed message.

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