SortStack #2578 — 2033-06-30

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. The Great Pyramid of Giza is completed for Pharaoh Khufu 2560 BCE

   It remained the tallest human-made structure on Earth for about 3,800 years, until Lincoln Cathedral's spire topped it in the 1300s.

2. The boy pharaoh Tutankhamun dies in Egypt 1323 BCE

   He died around age nineteen after a minor reign — yet his is the most famous tomb ever found, because grave robbers largely missed it for over 3,000 years.

3. Napoleon is finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo 1815

   Overnight rain delayed the French attack, buying time for Prussian reinforcements. Wellington called it 'the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life.'

4. Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo, triggering the First World War 1914

   The archduke's driver took a wrong turn and stalled directly in front of Gavrilo Princip, handing the assassin a second chance after the morning's bomb attempt failed.

5. Reactor four explodes at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant 1986

   The Soviet Union stayed silent until radiation set off alarms at a Swedish plant over 1,000 km away — workers' shoes triggered the detectors.

6. Lehman Brothers collapses, deepening the global financial crisis 2008

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

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