Daily archive
Terra Tempus Daily #117 — September 25, 2026
These are the 5 rounds every player got on September 25, 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 Red Cliffs
Battle of Red Cliffs · 208 · Antiquity
Why there: The battle unfolded along the Yangtze, the wide southern river that formed a natural defensive barrier where the southern warlords could exploit their naval strength and force Cao Cao's northern, land-based army to fight on unfamiliar water.
Why then: With the Han dynasty's central authority collapsed in 208, rival warlords carved up the realm, and Cao Cao's bid to conquer the south before consolidation could set in made this the decisive moment that fixed the coming Three Kingdoms division.
- The Battle of Red Cliffs (208 CE) saw the allied forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei defeat the much larger army of Cao Cao.
- Cao Cao's ships were reportedly linked together, making them vulnerable to a devastating fire attack.
- The battle paved the way for the Three Kingdoms period and is dramatized in the novel 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms.'
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
Battle of Stamford Bridge
Battle of Stamford Bridge · 1066 · Medieval
Why there: The clash occurred at a river crossing near York because that Anglo-Scandinavian northern hub was the natural target for a Norse invasion arriving via the Humber estuary, forcing Harold to defend the exposed north of his kingdom.
Why then: 1066 was a succession crisis year: Edward the Confessor's heirless death left rival claimants—Norwegian, English, and Norman—able to press competing claims, and Viking-age longship raiding still made a Scandinavian bid for the English throne feasible.
- This battle was fought in 1066 in Yorkshire, England.
- King Harold Godwinson defeated and killed the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada (the Battle of Stamford Bridge).
- The exhausting victory came just before Harold's defeat at Hastings later the same year.
Round 5
Battle of Kunersdorf
Battle of Kunersdorf · 1759 · Early Modern
Why there: Kunersdorf lay east of the Oder near Frankfurt, on sandy ridges and marshy terrain that guarded the approaches to Berlin, so the combined Austro-Russian army entrenched there to threaten the Prussian capital and force Frederick to attack on ground favoring the defenders.
Why then: The clash came during the Seven Years' War, when a continent-spanning coalition against Prussia and the era's linear musket-and-cannon tactics made frontal assaults on prepared positions ruinously costly, exposing an overstretched Frederick to disaster in 1759.
- This 1759 battle was Frederick the Great's worst defeat, against Russian and Austrian armies.
- Frederick had two horses shot from under him and was saved by a snuffbox in his coat stopping a bullet.
- The allies' failure to march on Berlin afterward became known as the 'Miracle of the House of Brandenburg'.
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.
