SortStack #1892 — 2031-08-14

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. The boy pharaoh Tutankhamun dies in Egypt 1323 BCE

   He died around age nineteen after a minor reign — yet his is the most famous tomb ever found, because grave robbers largely missed it for over 3,000 years.

2. The last Western Roman emperor is deposed, ending the empire in the west 476

   The final emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was a teenager. The Germanic general Odoacer didn't execute him — he pensioned him off to a villa.

3. Vikings raid the island monastery of Lindisfarne, shocking Europe 793

   The raid is the conventional start of the Viking Age. The scholar Alcuin wrote that 'never before has such terror appeared in Britain.'

4. 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.

5. Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo, triggering the First World War 1914

   The archduke's driver took a wrong turn and stalled directly in front of Gavrilo Princip, handing the assassin a second chance after the morning's bomb attempt failed.

6. Queen Elizabeth II dies after seventy years on the throne 2022

   She appointed her fifteenth prime minister, Liz Truss, just two days before her death — having started with Winston Churchill.

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