SortStack #1159 — 2029-08-11
By duration · Order from shortest to longest.
- A single wingbeat of a hovering hummingbird 12.6 ms
Up to 80 wingbeats per second lets hummingbirds hover, fly backwards, and even fly upside down — no other bird can do all three.
- A qualifying rodeo bull ride 8 sec
Riders must stay on with one hand for the full count to score at all — touching the bull or themselves with the free hand means instant disqualification.
- A typical national anthem performance at a sports event 1.5 min
Uruguay's full anthem runs about five minutes, while Japan's 'Kimigayo' has just four lines — the shortest lyrics of any anthem on Earth.
- A tiger's pregnancy 105 days
Cubs are born blind and helpless at around a kilogram — yet within two years they're apex predators ten times their mother's litter weight.
- The Holy Roman Empire, from Otto the Great to its dissolution 844 years
Voltaire quipped it was 'neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire' — yet it lasted 844 years before Napoleon finished it off in 1806.
- A photon's journey from the Sun's core to its surface 170K years
Energy ricochets through the dense interior for on the order of 100,000 years — then crosses the void to Earth in barely eight minutes.