SortStack #2263 — 2032-08-19

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of Egypt, dies 30 BCE

   Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the construction of the Great Pyramid — the pyramids were already ancient to her.

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. The world's first public steam railway opens between Stockton and Darlington 1825

   George Stephenson's engine Locomotion No. 1 pulled the opening train. A man on horseback rode ahead waving a flag — the train soon outpaced him.

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. Lehman Brothers collapses, deepening the global financial crisis 2008

   With over $600 billion in assets, it remains the largest bankruptcy filing in American history.

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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