SortStack #2818 — 2034-02-25
By duration · Order from shortest to longest.
- A single sneeze, from sharp inhale to achoo 1.5 sec
A sneeze can launch droplets several metres, and you can't sneeze with your eyes open without effort — the blink is part of the reflex.
- Usain Bolt's 100 m world record run 9.6 sec
Bolt ran 9.58 in Berlin 2009, hitting a top speed of 44.7 km/h — faster than the speed limit on many city streets.
- An average swim across the English Channel 13.5 h
Fewer people have swum the Channel than have climbed Everest — and rules forbid wetsuits, allowing only goggles, a cap, and grease.
- The era of the Crusades, from the first to the fall of Acre 194.9 years
Nine major crusades spanned 195 years — and the Fourth never reached the Holy Land at all, sacking Christian Constantinople instead.
- The Holy Roman Empire, from Otto the Great to its dissolution 844 years
Voltaire quipped it was 'neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire' — yet it lasted 844 years before Napoleon finished it off in 1806.
- The age of the oldest known figurative cave painting (Sulawesi) 51.1K years
The Indonesian rock art depicts wild pigs and human-like figures — painted tens of thousands of years before Lascaux's famous bulls.