SortStack #1563 — 2030-09-19

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Socrates is condemned to death and drinks hemlock in Athens 399 BCE

   Convicted of corrupting the youth, he refused friends' escape plans. He never wrote anything down — everything we know comes via Plato and others.

2. England defeats the Spanish Armada 1588

   Storms did more damage than English guns — far more Spanish ships wrecked on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland than were sunk in battle.

3. The volcanic island of Krakatoa explodes in Indonesia 1883

   The blast was heard nearly 4,800 km away — likely the loudest sound in recorded history — and its ash turned sunsets blood-red worldwide for months.

4. Germany invades Poland, beginning the Second World War 1939

   Britain and France declared war two days later — then months of eerie quiet followed on the Western Front, a period nicknamed the 'Phoney War.'

5. 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.

6. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas 1963

   Abraham Zapruder's 26-second home movie of the motorcade became one of the most studied pieces of film ever shot.

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