SortStack #1656 — 2030-12-21

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. One swing of a grandfather clock's pendulum 1 sec

   A pendulum about one metre long swings in almost exactly one second — a coincidence so neat it was once proposed as the definition of the metre.

2. a-ha's 'Take On Me' 3.8 min

   The Norwegian band recorded it three times before it became a hit — the famous pencil-sketch video took 16 weeks of rotoscoping by hand.

3. The Wimbledon tennis championships 14 days

   The tournament's famous rest day, the 'Middle Sunday', was only abolished in 2022 after 145 years of tradition.

4. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe 25 days

   The world's largest arts festival stages over 3,000 shows — by ticket sales it trails only the Olympics and the football World Cup.

5. The record-winning Vendée Globe solo sail around the world 64.8 days

   Charlie Dalin's 2025 run was nonstop, alone, and unassisted — skippers sleep in 20-minute bursts for the entire circumnavigation.

6. 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.

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