SortStack #942 — 2029-01-06

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. a-ha's 'Take On Me' 3.8 min

   The Norwegian band recorded it three times before it became a hit — the famous pencil-sketch video took 16 weeks of rotoscoping by hand.

2. The construction of the Empire State Building 1.1 years

   Crews added roughly four and a half storeys per week, finishing ahead of schedule and under budget during the Great Depression.

3. Voyager 1's journey from launch to interstellar space 35 years

   It carries a golden record with greetings in 55 languages and Chuck Berry — and it still phones home daily on a 1970s 8-track-era computer.

4. The time since humans invented the wheel 5.5K years

   Potter's wheels came before wheels for transport — and the oldest wooden wheel ever found, near Ljubljana, is about 5,150 years old.

5. The age of the Lascaux cave paintings 17K years

   Four teenagers and a dog named Robot found the caves in 1940 — visitor breath damaged the art so badly that today tourists see a replica.

6. The age of the oldest known figurative cave painting (Sulawesi) 51.1K years

   The Indonesian rock art depicts wild pigs and human-like figures — painted tens of thousands of years before Lascaux's famous bulls.

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