SortStack #821 — 2028-09-07
By year · Order from earliest to most recent.
- The Prophet Muhammad migrates from Mecca to Medina 622
This journey, the Hijra, marks year one of the Islamic calendar — which is lunar, so it gains on the solar calendar by about eleven days per year.
- 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.
- Parisians storm the Bastille fortress, igniting the French Revolution 1789
The dreaded fortress held just seven prisoners that day — including two men deemed insane. Its demolition stones were sold as souvenirs.
- Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space 1961
His single orbit lasted 108 minutes, and he parachuted to the ground separately from his capsule — landing in a field where a farmer and her granddaughter stared in disbelief.
- 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.
- Lehman Brothers collapses, deepening the global financial crisis 2008
With over $600 billion in assets, it remains the largest bankruptcy filing in American history.