SortStack #3558 — 2036-03-06

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. King John seals the Magna Carta at Runnymede 1215

   John never intended to honor it — the Pope annulled the charter within ten weeks — yet it became a foundation stone of constitutional law anyway.

2. Marco Polo sets out from Venice on his journey to Asia 1271

   He was away 24 years. His famous book was dictated to a romance writer while both were prisoners of war in a Genoese jail.

3. 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.

4. The volcanic island of Krakatoa explodes in Indonesia 1883

   The blast was heard nearly 4,800 km away — likely the loudest sound in recorded history — and its ash turned sunsets blood-red worldwide for months.

5. The Empire State Building opens in New York 1931

   It went up in just 410 days, ahead of schedule and under budget — then sat so vacant during the Depression that locals dubbed it the 'Empty State Building.'

6. The World Health Organization declares COVID a global pandemic 2020

   Within weeks, roughly half of humanity was living under some form of lockdown — the largest coordinated shutdown of public life in history.

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