SortStack #1731 — 2031-03-06

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned Emperor of the French 1804

   At the ceremony in Notre-Dame, Napoleon took the crown from Pope Pius VII and placed it on his own head — a move planned in advance, not an impulsive snub.

2. The Penny Black, the world's first postage stamp, goes on sale 1840

   It bore Queen Victoria's profile and no country name — and because Britain invented the stamp, British stamps still omit the country's name today.

3. The Titanic strikes an iceberg and sinks on her maiden voyage 1912

   The lookouts had no binoculars — the key to the locker holding them left the ship with a reassigned officer in Southampton.

4. Howard Carter discovers the tomb of Tutankhamun 1922

   Peering through a small hole by candlelight, Carter was asked if he could see anything. His reply: 'Yes, wonderful things.'

5. Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin in a moldy petri dish 1928

   Fleming found the mold after returning from holiday to his messy lab. He later said he hadn't planned to revolutionize medicine — 'but I suppose that was exactly what I did.'

6. Christiaan Barnard performs the first human heart transplant in Cape Town 1967

   The first patient lived eighteen days. Barnard's second transplant patient lived more than eighteen months, proving the operation could work.

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