These are the 5 rounds every player got on June 28, 2026, with the answers and the history behind them. This day is finished, so nothing here spoils a puzzle you can still play — today’s Daily Challenge is a different five events.
Not enough completed runs on this day to report an average without singling out an individual player’s score — we publish one from 5 finishers up.
Round 1
Battle of Karbala
Battle of Karbala · 680 · Medieval
Why there: The confrontation unfolded on the arid plain of Karbala near the Euphrates in Iraq because it lay on the route toward Kufa, whose partisans had summoned Husayn, and control of the riverbank let the caliphal forces cut his band off from water.
Why then: It came in 680 because the death of the caliph Mu'awiya and the disputed succession of his son Yazid forced Husayn to reject the new hereditary Umayyad rule, turning a brewing political crisis over legitimate leadership into open confrontation.
- This battle took place in October 680 CE on a plain near the Euphrates.
- Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of Muhammad, and his followers were killed by the army of the Umayyad governor Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad.
- The event (the Battle of Karbala) is central to Shia Islam and is commemorated annually during Ashura.
Round 2
Withheld from the archive
This round was played, but we do not republish it here. Recent events involving mass civilian casualties are excluded from our public archive under our content policy, whatever their place in the day’s puzzle.
Round 3
Withheld from the archive
This round was played, but we do not republish it here. Recent events involving mass civilian casualties are excluded from our public archive under our content policy, whatever their place in the day’s puzzle.
Round 4
Withheld from the archive
This round was played, but we do not republish it here. Recent events involving mass civilian casualties are excluded from our public archive under our content policy, whatever their place in the day’s puzzle.
Round 5
Battle of Ain Jalut
Battle of Ain Jalut · 1260 · Medieval
Why there: The spring of Ain Jalut in the hills of Galilee lay on the natural land corridor between Mongol-held Syria and Mamluk Egypt, making it the frontier where the Nile-based sultanate had to make its stand before the invaders reached the Nile valley.
Why then: The moment came when the death of the Great Khan Möngke had drawn the main Mongol army eastward, leaving only a reduced force in Syria just as the newly consolidated Mamluk state—slave-soldiers hardened into disciplined cavalry—was strong enough to strike back.
- The Battle of Ain Jalut (1260) saw the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt defeat the Mongol Ilkhanate, the first major check to Mongol expansion.
- The Mamluk commander Baibars used feigned retreat tactics and soon seized the sultanate himself.
- The site's name means 'Spring of Goliath' in Arabic.
Every Daily Challenge is five real events, one from each of five different eras, identical for every player, scored up to 10,000 points a round on how close you land in space and in time. Read how to play, see where the events come from, or play today’s.