Terra Tempus Daily #146 · October 24, 2026

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 the Maureaco Fields

451 CE · Antiquity

• The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (451 CE) pitted the Roman general Aetius and his Visigothic allies against Attila the Hun.
• The Visigothic king Theodoric I was killed during the battle.
• The clash halted Attila's westward advance into Gaul.

Round 3

Battle of Agincourt

1415 · Medieval

Why there: Henry V's English army was retreating toward the safe port of Calais through Picardy when the French intercepted them at a narrow gap between two woods, whose tree-lined flanks funneled the French into a bottleneck and prevented their numerical advantage from spreading out.

Why then: By 1415 the recurring dynastic disputes of the Hundred Years' War had reignited English claims to France, while the mass-trained English longbow and rain-soaked plowed fields let disciplined archers negate the still-dominant but slow, heavily armored feudal cavalry that defined medieval warfare.

• The Battle of Agincourt (1415) was a decisive English victory under Henry V during the Hundred Years' War.
• English and Welsh longbowmen devastated the French heavy cavalry and men-at-arms mired in the mud.
• The battle was later immortalized in Shakespeare's play Henry V.

Round 4

Battle of Naseby

1645 · Early Modern

Why there: Naseby lay in the open Midlands of central England where the two armies converged as the Royalists, marching from their Oxford heartland, were intercepted on rolling terrain that suited the Parliamentarian cavalry's disciplined charges.

Why then: By 1645 Parliament had reorganized its forces into the New Model Army (a professional, salaried, centrally commanded force) whose superior discipline and funding finally tipped a years-long deadlock between crown and Parliament decisively.

• The reformed Parliamentarian army under its general and his cavalry commander decisively beat the king in 1645.
• It was a battle of the First English Civil War.
• Captured royal letters revealed attempts to bring in foreign and Catholic troops, damaging the king's cause.

Round 5

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.