SortStack #2564 — 2033-06-16

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Construction begins on the great stone circle at Stonehenge 3000 BCE

   Its smaller bluestones were hauled roughly 240 km from the Preseli Hills in Wales — how Neolithic builders moved them is still debated.

2. Leonardo da Vinci begins painting the Mona Lisa 1503

   It was a minor celebrity until 1911, when an Italian handyman stole it from the Louvre — the theft, and the two-year hunt, made it the most famous painting on Earth.

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. Germany invades Poland, beginning the Second World War 1939

   Britain and France declared war two days later — then months of eerie quiet followed on the Western Front, a period nicknamed the 'Phoney War.'

5. The Live Aid concerts are broadcast from London and Philadelphia 1985

   Phil Collins played both venues in one day, crossing the Atlantic by Concorde. Queen's twenty-minute set is widely ranked the greatest live performance ever.

6. The Philae probe makes the first-ever landing on a comet 2014

   Philae's harpoons failed and it bounced twice — the first bounce lasted nearly two hours in the comet's feeble gravity before it settled in a shadowy crevice.

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