SortStack #1843 — 2031-06-26

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Emperor Hadrian orders a great wall built across northern Britain 122

   The wall ran about 117 km from coast to coast and took roughly six years to build — soldiers' letters from its forts survive, including a birthday party invitation.

2. The Prophet Muhammad migrates from Mecca to Medina 622

   This journey, the Hijra, marks year one of the Islamic calendar — which is lunar, so it gains on the solar calendar by about eleven days per year.

3. The American colonies declare independence from Britain 1776

   Most delegates didn't sign the Declaration until August. John Adams predicted Americans would forever celebrate the second of July.

4. 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.

5. 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.'

6. The Philae probe makes the first-ever landing on a comet 2014

   Philae's harpoons failed and it bounced twice — the first bounce lasted nearly two hours in the comet's feeble gravity before it settled in a shadowy crevice.

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