SortStack #2860 — 2034-04-08

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. Half-time in a football (soccer) match 15 min

   The break exists partly thanks to early English schools with different rules — teams switched codes at the interval when playing each other.

2. James Cameron's film 'Titanic' 3.2 h

   The movie runs longer than the actual sinking it depicts — the real ship went down faster than you can watch it go down.

3. An evening at Wagner's opera 'Götterdämmerung', intervals included 5.5 h

   It's only the finale: the full Ring cycle spans four operas over about 15 hours of music, and devotees attend all four nights in a row.

4. The Siege of Leningrad in World War II 2.4 years

   Through the blockade, scientists at the city's seed bank starved to death rather than eat their collection of edible seeds and potatoes.

5. A periodical cicada's life cycle, egg to final emergence 17 years

   They spend 17 years underground and mere weeks in the sun — the prime-numbered cycle may have evolved to dodge predators' breeding rhythms.

6. The Republic of Venice 1.1K years

   The 1,100-year republic elected 120 doges using a bizarre multi-round lottery system specifically designed to prevent vote-rigging.

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