SortStack #3376 — 2035-09-06

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Construction begins on the great stone circle at Stonehenge 3000 BCE

   Its smaller bluestones were hauled roughly 240 km from the Preseli Hills in Wales — how Neolithic builders moved them is still debated.

2. Socrates is condemned to death and drinks hemlock in Athens 399 BCE

   Convicted of corrupting the youth, he refused friends' escape plans. He never wrote anything down — everything we know comes via Plato and others.

3. 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.

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 Eiffel Tower opens to the public in Paris 1889

   It was meant to stand for only twenty years. Its usefulness as a giant radio antenna saved it from demolition.

6. The Wright brothers achieve the first powered airplane flight 1903

   The first flight lasted twelve seconds and covered about 37 meters — shorter than the wingspan of a modern jumbo jet.

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