SortStack #1437 — 2030-05-16

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. The Parthenon is completed atop the Acropolis in Athens 432 BCE

   It contains almost no perfectly straight lines: the columns bulge and the base curves slightly upward, optical tricks that make it look flawless.

2. 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.

3. The Great Fire destroys most of the City of London 1666

   It consumed over 13,000 houses and St. Paul's Cathedral, yet the official death toll recorded only a handful of victims — almost certainly an undercount.

4. Disneyland opens its gates in Anaheim, California 1955

   Opening day was a fiasco insiders called 'Black Sunday': heat melted the fresh asphalt, fountains failed, and thousands entered with counterfeit tickets.

5. The Live Aid concerts are broadcast from London and Philadelphia 1985

   Phil Collins played both venues in one day, crossing the Atlantic by Concorde. Queen's twenty-minute set is widely ranked the greatest live performance ever.

6. The Berlin Wall falls 1989

   A flustered official misread new travel rules at a press conference, saying they took effect 'immediately.' Crowds swamped the checkpoints within hours.

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