SortStack #2557 — 2033-06-09

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Rome is founded, according to legend, by Romulus 753 BCE

   Romans dated their entire calendar 'ab urbe condita' — from the founding of the city — and the legend says Romulus killed his twin brother Remus over the city walls.

2. Emperor Hadrian orders a great wall built across northern Britain 122

   The wall ran about 117 km from coast to coast and took roughly six years to build — soldiers' letters from its forts survive, including a birthday party invitation.

3. Isaac Newton publishes the Principia, laying out his laws of motion 1687

   The Royal Society couldn't afford to print it — it had blown its budget on a lavish history of fish — so astronomer Edmond Halley paid out of his own pocket.

4. The Soviet Union launches Sputnik, the first artificial satellite 1957

   The beach-ball-sized satellite weighed 83 kg and beeped for three weeks. Anyone with a shortwave radio could hear it pass overhead.

5. The world's first website goes online at CERN 1991

   Tim Berners-Lee's original site, info.cern.ch, explained what the web was and how to make your own page. A restored copy is still online today.

6. The first video is uploaded to YouTube 2005

   'Me at the zoo' is nineteen seconds of co-founder Jawed Karim standing in front of elephants in San Diego, noting they have 'really, really long trunks.'

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