SortStack #3075 — 2034-11-09

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Emperor Constantine dedicates Constantinople as the new Roman capital 330

   Built on the old Greek city of Byzantium, it remained an imperial capital for over a thousand years and is now Istanbul, Turkey's largest city.

2. Vikings raid the island monastery of Lindisfarne, shocking Europe 793

   The raid is the conventional start of the Viking Age. The scholar Alcuin wrote that 'never before has such terror appeared in Britain.'

3. William the Conqueror defeats King Harold at the Battle of Hastings 1066

   The Bayeux Tapestry — actually an embroidery nearly 70 meters long — tells the story, including Harold's famous (and disputed) arrow in the eye.

4. Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone 1876

   Bell's lawyer filed at the patent office mere hours before rival Elisha Gray filed a notice for a similar device — one of history's closest patent races.

5. Queen Victoria dies after the longest reign in British history to date 1901

   She reigned for 63 years and her children married into so many royal houses she was called 'the grandmother of Europe.'

6. 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.'

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