SortStack #2979 — 2034-08-05

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. Yuri Gagarin's entire Vostok 1 spaceflight 108 min

   The first human spaceflight was a single orbit — and Gagarin ejected and parachuted down separately from his capsule, landing in a potato field.

2. 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.

3. The Apollo 13 mission, launch to splashdown 6 days

   After the oxygen tank exploded, the crew used the lunar module as a lifeboat and slingshotted around the Moon — NASA's 'successful failure'.

4. Munich's Oktoberfest 17 days

   Despite the name, most of it happens in September — and visitors drink roughly six to seven million litres of beer before it ends.

5. The 1900 Paris Olympic Games 167 days

   Spread thinly through the World's Fair, the Games were so disorganized that some winners died never knowing they had been Olympians.

6. The Cold War 43.9 years

   Historians call it 'the long peace' — the superpowers never fought each other directly, but proxy wars touched nearly every continent.

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