Daily archive
Terra Tempus Daily #78 — August 17, 2026
These are the 5 rounds every player got on August 17, 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 Hohenlinden
Battle of Hohenlinden · 1800 · 19th Century
Why there: Hohenlinden sat astride the forested Bavarian corridor between the Rhine frontier and Vienna, so the Austrians had to defend this narrow-road chokepoint to shield their capital, while the dense woods let Moreau conceal and concentrate his columns.
Why then: By 1800 the French Revolutionary armies had mastered fast-moving divisional maneuver and mass conscription, and the Second Coalition was fraying, so a single decisive December blow could break Austria's will and end the campaign.
- This was the Battle of Hohenlinden (3 December 1800), east of Munich in Bavaria.
- General Moreau's victory effectively ended the War of the Second Coalition.
- It led to the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801.
Round 2
Battle of Panipat
Battle of Panipat · 1526 · Early Modern
Why there: Panipat sits on the flat plain north of Delhi astride the classic invasion corridor into the Gangetic heartland, forcing any power entering India through the northwestern passes to fight for the road to the capital there.
Why then: By 1526 gunpowder field artillery and matchlock tactics had spread from the Ottoman world into Central Asia, letting a small mobile force like Babur's defeat far larger cavalry armies that older sultanates still relied on.
- This battle (1526) saw the invader defeat the reigning sultanate's ruler on a plain north of the capital.
- The victory established a new empire that ruled northern India for centuries.
- Effective use of gunpowder artillery was decisive against the larger army.
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 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.
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.
