SortStack #3635 — 2036-05-22

By year · Order from earliest to most recent.

1. Galileo points a telescope at the night sky for the first time 1609

   With a telescope magnifying about twenty times, he saw mountains on the Moon and four moons of Jupiter — direct evidence that not everything orbits Earth.

2. Isaac Newton publishes the Principia, laying out his laws of motion 1687

   The Royal Society couldn't afford to print it — it had blown its budget on a lavish history of fish — so astronomer Edmond Halley paid out of his own pocket.

3. Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned Emperor of the French 1804

   At the ceremony in Notre-Dame, Napoleon took the crown from Pope Pius VII and placed it on his own head — a move planned in advance, not an impulsive snub.

4. Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo, triggering the First World War 1914

   The archduke's driver took a wrong turn and stalled directly in front of Gavrilo Princip, handing the assassin a second chance after the morning's bomb attempt failed.

5. Howard Carter discovers the tomb of Tutankhamun 1922

   Peering through a small hole by candlelight, Carter was asked if he could see anything. His reply: 'Yes, wonderful things.'

6. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay become the first to summit Everest 1953

   News of the climb reached London on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation — billed by the press as a double celebration.

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