SortStack #1136 — 2029-07-19

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Qin Shi Huang unifies China and declares himself its first emperor 221 BCE

   He standardized writing, currency, and axle widths — and was buried with an estimated 8,000 life-sized terracotta soldiers, no two faces alike.

2. Marco Polo sets out from Venice on his journey to Asia 1271

   He was away 24 years. His famous book was dictated to a romance writer while both were prisoners of war in a Genoese jail.

3. The Black Death arrives in Europe aboard Genoese trading ships 1347

   Within five years it killed somewhere between a third and half of Europe's population — the deadliest pandemic in recorded human history.

4. Johannes Gutenberg develops his movable-type printing press 1440

   Gutenberg was a goldsmith by trade. Of the roughly 180 Bibles he printed, 49 survive — and he died broke after losing his workshop in a lawsuit.

5. 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.

6. The Space Shuttle Columbia makes the first shuttle flight 1981

   It was the first time NASA launched humans on a vehicle that had never flown an uncrewed test — commander John Young had already walked on the Moon.

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