SortStack #3439 — 2035-11-08
By year · Order from earliest to most recent.
- Christopher Columbus makes landfall in the Americas 1492
Columbus never set foot on the North American mainland and insisted until his death that he had reached the edge of Asia.
- Leonardo da Vinci begins painting the Mona Lisa 1503
It was a minor celebrity until 1911, when an Italian handyman stole it from the Louvre — the theft, and the two-year hunt, made it the most famous painting on Earth.
- Christiaan Barnard performs the first human heart transplant in Cape Town 1967
The first patient lived eighteen days. Barnard's second transplant patient lived more than eighteen months, proving the operation could work.
- Star Wars premieres in cinemas 1977
It opened in just a few dozen theaters because studios doubted it. George Lucas skipped the premiere and was vacationing in Hawaii with Steven Spielberg as it exploded.
- Steve Jobs unveils the first iPhone 2007
The demo units were so buggy that engineers mapped a single 'golden path' of actions for Jobs to follow on stage — deviating risked a crash.
- Fire engulfs Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris 2019
The spire fell, but the rooftop beehives survived — and the cathedral reopened five years later after a meticulous reconstruction.