SortStack #1831 — 2031-06-14
By duration · Order from shortest to longest.
- A Formula 1 pit stop to change all four tyres 2 sec
McLaren set the world record at 1.80 seconds in Qatar 2023 — around twenty mechanics working in a window shorter than a heartbeat-and-a-half.
- A chicken egg's incubation, laying to hatching 21 days
Chicks start cheeping to their mother through the shell a day or two before hatching — and she clucks back to encourage them out.
- An African elephant's pregnancy 1.8 years
The longest gestation of any land mammal produces a 100 kg calf that can walk within hours — and is looked after by the whole herd.
- The construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza 20 years
Herodotus and modern estimates agree on roughly two decades — meaning workers placed a multi-tonne block about every five minutes of daylight.
- 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.
- The age of the Lascaux cave paintings 17K years
Four teenagers and a dog named Robot found the caves in 1940 — visitor breath damaged the art so badly that today tourists see a replica.