SortStack #2046 — 2032-01-15

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Charlemagne is crowned Emperor of the Romans in St. Peter's Basilica 800

   Pope Leo III crowned him on Christmas Day, reportedly taking Charlemagne by surprise — reviving the idea of a Roman emperor in the west after three centuries.

2. Joan of Arc is burned at the stake in Rouen 1431

   She was about nineteen years old. A retrial cleared her name 25 years later, and she was made a saint nearly five centuries after her death.

3. Martin Luther publishes his Ninety-Five Theses, sparking the Reformation 1517

   Thanks to the new printing press, the theses spread across Germany in about two weeks — arguably history's first viral document.

4. The Wright brothers achieve the first powered airplane flight 1903

   The first flight lasted twelve seconds and covered about 37 meters — shorter than the wingspan of a modern jumbo jet.

5. The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show 1964

   An estimated 73 million Americans watched — roughly forty percent of the US population — launching the British Invasion overnight.

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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