SortStack #1052 — 2029-04-26

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Joan of Arc is burned at the stake in Rouen 1431

   She was about nineteen years old. A retrial cleared her name 25 years later, and she was made a saint nearly five centuries after her death.

2. Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin in a moldy petri dish 1928

   Fleming found the mold after returning from holiday to his messy lab. He later said he hadn't planned to revolutionize medicine — 'but I suppose that was exactly what I did.'

3. Jesse Owens wins four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics 1936

   Owens credited a tip from his German rival Luz Long for saving his long jump qualification — the two stayed friends and exchanged letters until Long died in the war.

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. Humans walk on the Moon for the first time 1969

   The Apollo guidance computer had less processing power than a modern pocket calculator — and alarms from it nearly aborted the landing.

6. Queen Elizabeth II dies after seventy years on the throne 2022

   She appointed her fifteenth prime minister, Liz Truss, just two days before her death — having started with Winston Churchill.

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