SortStack #1955 — 2031-10-16

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Marco Polo sets out from Venice on his journey to Asia 1271

   He was away 24 years. His famous book was dictated to a romance writer while both were prisoners of war in a Genoese jail.

2. Christopher Columbus makes landfall in the Americas 1492

   Columbus never set foot on the North American mainland and insisted until his death that he had reached the edge of Asia.

3. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas 1963

   Abraham Zapruder's 26-second home movie of the motorcade became one of the most studied pieces of film ever shot.

4. Humans walk on the Moon for the first time 1969

   The Apollo guidance computer had less processing power than a modern pocket calculator — and alarms from it nearly aborted the landing.

5. Pac-Man arrives in arcades 1980

   Designer Toru Iwatani said the shape was inspired by a pizza with a slice missing. The game was renamed from 'Puck Man' to deter vandals altering the P.

6. The Human Genome Project is declared complete 2003

   The 'complete' genome actually covered about 92% — the trickiest gaps weren't fully sequenced until nearly two decades later.

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