Absolutely Brilliant ....... I think............., I think you have found the key, which I thought was going to take quite a while to crack, YES 52 - Charles IV does go before Joan of Arc ........ would you like to explain why?
The numbers represent the number of years between the deaths of the people: Joan of Arc died in 1431; Richard III died 54 years later in 1485; Thomas Cromwell died 55 years later still in 1540 ...... Bolivar died 57+58+59+60=234 years after Drake ...... This challenge is really going to help me memorize history dates!
Well done ylj, Just one point that makes this challenge even more challenging is that if you SUM all the numbers between 1 - 52 you get 1378 which is the year of Charles IV death, likewise sum 1 to 53 and you get 1431, Joan of Arc death date , sum 1 to 54 = 1485 = Richard III death etc etc. and the formula I have for summing numbers is n x 1/2n + 1/2n eg. (20 x 10 + 10 = 210).