Terra Tempus Daily #134 · October 12, 2026

These are the 5 rounds every player got on October 12, 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

My Lai Massacre

1968 · 20th Century

Why there: My Lai lay in Quang Ngai province, a rural coastal region of South Vietnam long considered a Viet Cong stronghold, so U.S. forces treated its hamlets as hostile territory during search-and-destroy operations.

Why then: By 1968 the frustration of a guerrilla war with no clear front lines, combined with the shock of the Tet Offensive, had eroded discipline and blurred the line between combatants and civilians for American troops.

The My Lai Massacre occurred in March 1968 during the Vietnam War.
U.S. troops killed an estimated 347-504 unarmed civilians.
Lieutenant William Calley was the only person convicted.

Round 2

Battle of Adrianople (324)

324 CE · Antiquity

Why there: Adrianople sat astride the Thracian roads guarding the land approaches to the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, so whoever held it controlled access to the eastern capital and the vital straits between Europe and Asia.

Why then: Decades of the Tetrarchy's shared rule had collapsed into rivalry between Constantine and Licinius, and by 324 their uneasy division of the empire had reached the point where only a decisive military clash could reunify Roman authority under one ruler.

The Battle of Adrianople (324 CE) was the decisive clash between Constantine I and Licinius.
Constantine's victory here, followed by the Battle of Chrysopolis, ended the Tetrarchic civil wars.
It left Constantine as sole ruler of the entire Roman Empire.

Round 3

Battle of Kolín

1757 · Early Modern

Why there: Kolín sat on the road east of Prague along the Elbe, so an Austrian relief army moving to break Frederick's siege of the Bohemian capital had to be intercepted there, on the rolling ridges that let the Austrians entrench uphill on strong defensive ground.

Why then: The Seven Years' War had erupted in 1756 as Austria sought to reclaim Silesia lost to Prussia, and mid-18th-century warfare of linear infantry, massed artillery, and siege-based campaigns meant Frederick's aggressive uphill assault could be decisively broken by disciplined entrenched defenders.

This 1757 battle saw Frederick the Great defeated by Austrian Field Marshal Daun during the Seven Years' War.
The loss forced Frederick to lift his siege of Prague and withdraw from Bohemia.
Empress Maria Theresa founded her highest military order on the very day of the battle, 18 June 1757.

Round 4

Siege of Constantinople

1204 · Medieval

Why there: Constantinople straddled the Bosphorus at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, its immense wealth and control of Black Sea and Mediterranean trade making it both the prize the crusaders coveted and a target reachable by the Venetian fleet ferrying them.

Why then: By 1204 the Fourth Crusade was bankrupt and indebted to Venice, and a Byzantine dynastic dispute offered a pretext, allowing commercial ambition and a weakened, faction-ridden empire to redirect the expedition against its own Christian ally.

This 1204 event by the Fourth Crusade ended with the brutal sack of the Eastern empire's capital.
The crusaders established the Latin Empire, fracturing the Byzantine state for decades.
The city is modern Istanbul, Turkey.

Round 5

Alaska Purchase

1867 · 19th Century

Why there: Russia's remote North American colony was costly to defend and nearly indefensible against British Canada next door, so selling it to the neighboring United States made more strategic sense than losing it in a future war.

Why then: Russia, weakened and cash-strapped after the Crimean War, wanted to offload the territory before Britain could seize it, while a post-Civil War United States had the treasury and expansionist appetite to buy it in 1867.

This was the Alaska Purchase, agreed in 1867, when the United States bought Alaska from the Russian Empire for $7.2 million.
Secretary of State William Seward negotiated the deal, derided as 'Seward's Folly' and 'Seward's Icebox.'
The territory later proved enormously rich in gold, fish, and oil.

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.