SortStack #1556 — 2030-09-12

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. Alexander the Great founds the city of Alexandria in Egypt 331 BCE

   It became home to both the Great Library and the Pharos lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders. Alexander never saw the finished city — he died eight years later.

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. Humans fly for the first time aboard a Montgolfier hot-air balloon 1783

   The first balloon passengers, weeks earlier, were a sheep, a duck, and a rooster — sent up before King Louis XVI to test whether the air aloft was breathable.

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. 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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