SortStack #1808 — 2031-05-22

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Athenian soldiers defeat the Persians at the Battle of Marathon 490 BCE

   The legend of a messenger running about 40 km to Athens with news of victory — then dropping dead — inspired the modern marathon race.

2. Abraham Lincoln is shot at Ford's Theatre 1865

   General Grant declined an invitation to join Lincoln in the box that night. Booth, a famous actor, knew the play well enough to time his shot to a big laugh line.

3. 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.

4. Reactor four explodes at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant 1986

   The Soviet Union stayed silent until radiation set off alarms at a Swedish plant over 1,000 km away — workers' shoes triggered the detectors.

5. Nelson Mandela walks free after twenty-seven years in prison 1990

   Four years after his release he was elected South Africa's president — and he later joked that he was 'a pensioner taking up a new job' at age 75.

6. Larry Page and Sergey Brin found Google 1998

   The company started in Susan Wojcicki's garage, and its name is a misspelling of 'googol' — the number one followed by a hundred zeros.

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