SortStack #3089 — 2034-11-23

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Julius Caesar is stabbed to death in the Roman Senate 44 BCE

   He was stabbed 23 times on the Ides of March. A comet appeared months later, which Romans took as proof his soul had ascended to the gods.

2. Mount Vesuvius erupts and buries the Roman city of Pompeii 79

   The famous 'bodies' of Pompeii are plaster casts: excavators poured plaster into hollows left in the ash where victims' bodies had decayed.

3. Charlemagne is crowned Emperor of the Romans in St. Peter's Basilica 800

   Pope Leo III crowned him on Christmas Day, reportedly taking Charlemagne by surprise — reviving the idea of a Roman emperor in the west after three centuries.

4. The Aztecs found Tenochtitlan on an island in a lake 1325

   Legend says they built where an eagle perched on a cactus eating a snake — the image now at the center of Mexico's flag. Mexico City stands on the drained lakebed.

5. The Black Death arrives in Europe aboard Genoese trading ships 1347

   Within five years it killed somewhere between a third and half of Europe's population — the deadliest pandemic in recorded human history.

6. Britain passes the act abolishing slavery across most of its empire 1833

   The government borrowed a colossal sum to compensate slave owners — not the enslaved. The loan was so large it was only fully paid off in 2015.

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