SortStack #3418 — 2035-10-18

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Emperor Hadrian orders a great wall built across northern Britain 122

   The wall ran about 117 km from coast to coast and took roughly six years to build — soldiers' letters from its forts survive, including a birthday party invitation.

2. The Taj Mahal is completed in Agra 1653

   Emperor Shah Jahan built it as a tomb for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, employing some 20,000 workers — and was later imprisoned by his own son within sight of it.

3. The Penny Black, the world's first postage stamp, goes on sale 1840

   It bore Queen Victoria's profile and no country name — and because Britain invented the stamp, British stamps still omit the country's name today.

4. Germany invades Poland, beginning the Second World War 1939

   Britain and France declared war two days later — then months of eerie quiet followed on the Western Front, a period nicknamed the 'Phoney War.'

5. The Space Shuttle Columbia makes the first shuttle flight 1981

   It was the first time NASA launched humans on a vehicle that had never flown an uncrewed test — commander John Young had already walked on the Moon.

6. Larry Page and Sergey Brin found Google 1998

   The company started in Susan Wojcicki's garage, and its name is a misspelling of 'googol' — the number one followed by a hundred zeros.

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