SortStack #3056 — 2034-10-21

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. A standard university lecture 50 min

   Attention research suggests student focus starts lapsing after 10-15 minutes — which is roughly when most lecturers are just warming up.

2. Rio de Janeiro's Carnival, official festival period 5 days

   Around two million people hit the streets per day, and the samba school parade is a fierce contest judged on dozens of criteria.

3. The Berlin Wall standing, from construction to fall 28.2 years

   Since 2018, the Wall has been down longer than it ever stood — and more of it now sits in museums worldwide than in Berlin.

4. The Hundred Years' War between England and France 116.6 years

   Despite the name, it lasted 116 years (1337-1453), punctuated by long truces — and technically England and France stayed at war on paper even longer.

5. Ancient Egyptian civilization, from unification to Cleopatra 3.1K years

   It ran so long that Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid.

6. The time since the last woolly mammoths died out 4K years

   A dwarf population survived on Wrangel Island until about 2000 BC — meaning mammoths were alive while the Giza pyramids were already centuries old.

← All puzzles · Play today’s SortStack