SortStack #2837 — 2034-03-16

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Hannibal marches his army and war elephants across the Alps 218 BCE

   He set out with around 37 elephants; nearly all died in the crossing or soon after, yet he rampaged through Italy for fifteen years.

2. Constantinople falls to the Ottoman army of Mehmed the Conqueror 1453

   The Ottomans breached walls that had stood for a thousand years using enormous cannons — built by Orban, a Hungarian engineer who had first offered his services to the Byzantines.

3. 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.

4. The Berlin Wall falls 1989

   A flustered official misread new travel rules at a press conference, saying they took effect 'immediately.' Crowds swamped the checkpoints within hours.

5. NASA's Curiosity rover lands on Mars 2012

   It was lowered to the surface on cables by a hovering rocket-powered 'sky crane' — a landing sequence engineers nicknamed the 'seven minutes of terror.'

6. Queen Elizabeth II dies after seventy years on the throne 2022

   She appointed her fifteenth prime minister, Liz Truss, just two days before her death — having started with Winston Churchill.

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