SortStack #1264 — 2029-11-24

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. A lightning flash from start to finish 198 ms

   What looks like one bolt is usually several return strokes in a row, heating the air to around 30,000°C — five times hotter than the Sun's surface.

2. The film 'Gone with the Wind', with overture and intermission 4 h

   Still the longest film ever to win Best Picture — and adjusted for inflation, it remains the highest-grossing film of all time.

3. The Apollo 13 mission, launch to splashdown 6 days

   After the oxygen tank exploded, the crew used the lunar module as a lifeboat and slingshotted around the Moon — NASA's 'successful failure'.

4. An African elephant's pregnancy 1.8 years

   The longest gestation of any land mammal produces a 100 kg calf that can walk within hours — and is looked after by the whole herd.

5. The Cold War 43.9 years

   Historians call it 'the long peace' — the superpowers never fought each other directly, but proxy wars touched nearly every continent.

6. 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.

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