SortStack #2018 — 2031-12-18

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Hannibal marches his army and war elephants across the Alps 218 BCE

   He set out with around 37 elephants; nearly all died in the crossing or soon after, yet he rampaged through Italy for fifteen years.

2. Emperor Constantine dedicates Constantinople as the new Roman capital 330

   Built on the old Greek city of Byzantium, it remained an imperial capital for over a thousand years and is now Istanbul, Turkey's largest city.

3. Tokugawa Ieyasu becomes shogun, beginning Japan's Edo period 1603

   The Tokugawa shogunate brought over 250 years of internal peace and isolation — and its capital Edo, later renamed Tokyo, grew into one of the world's largest cities.

4. Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species 1859

   The entire first print run sold out to booksellers on the first day. Darwin had sat on the theory for some twenty years before a rival's letter forced his hand.

5. The first modern Olympic Games are held in Athens 1896

   Just 14 nations and 241 athletes competed — all men — and winners received silver medals, not gold.

6. The World Health Organization declares COVID a global pandemic 2020

   Within weeks, roughly half of humanity was living under some form of lockdown — the largest coordinated shutdown of public life in history.

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