https://www.facebook.com/108719508248141/

Historical Chronicles, El Segundo, CA (2026)

01/11/2026

Hidden beneath a grassy hill in Puebla, Mexico, the Great Pyramid of Cholula (known locally as Tlachihualtepetl, “man-made mountain”) is the largest pyramid in the world by volume. While the Great Pyramid of Giza stands taller (146.6 m), Cholula’s massive base measures approximately 450 × 450 meters (about 202,500 square meters), making it four times larger in footprint and containing an estimated 1.8 million cubic meters of material—far exceeding Giza’s 2.58 million cubic meters in volume when accounting for its terraced, multi-layered construction.

Built in phases starting around 300 BC by the pre-Columbian peoples of Cholula (and expanded by later cultures), the pyramid reached a height of about 66 meters with a base covering 18 hectares. It was topped by a temple to Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent god. Over centuries, the structure was abandoned, covered by earth, vegetation, and eventually a colonial church (Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios) was built on its summit in the 16th century—completely concealing the ancient pyramid beneath what now appears as a natural hill.

The pyramid’s true scale was only fully realized in the 20th century through excavations. Tunnels dug into the hill revealed seven nested construction layers, showing continuous rebuilding over 1,500 years. Today, visitors can walk through the 8 km of underground tunnels, marveling at the sheer size and engineering of this forgotten giant.

Cholula’s pyramid is a testament to Mesoamerican ambition: a sacred mountain built by human hands, so massive that nature and time disguised it as a hill—hiding the world’s largest pyramid in plain sight.

01/11/2026

On March 16, 1621, just months after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, a lone Native American man walked boldly into their half-built settlement. The colonists, still weak from a devastating first winter that killed nearly half their number, froze in shock as he approached unarmed and unafraid.

Then he spoke—clear English words: “Welcome, Englishmen!”
This was Samoset, a sachem (leader) of the Abenaki people from what is now coastal Maine. He had learned basic English from fishermen and traders who frequented the Maine coast for years before the Pilgrims arrived. Samoset stayed the night, shared knowledge of the land, and ate with the settlers. He even asked for beer—a request they happily granted from their dwindling supplies.

His calm confidence and willingness to communicate broke the ice. Samoset returned days later with Squanto (Tisquantum), a Patuxet man who spoke fluent English after years among Europeans. Through Samoset’s introduction, the Pilgrims met Massasoit, sachem of the Wampanoag Confederacy. This led to the famous peace treaty that lasted over 50 years and helped the colony survive.

Samoset’s simple, fearless walk into Plymouth on that March day was the first bridge between two worlds—built on a word of greeting and a shared drink of beer.

01/11/2026

Babylon, the ancient Mesopotamian metropolis on the Euphrates River, reigned as the world’s largest city for approximately 400 years, especially during the Neo-Babylonian Empire under kings like Nebuchadnezzar II (604–562 BC). At its zenith, estimates place its population between 200,000 and 250,000—likely the first city in human history to surpass 200,000 inhabitants.

This colossal urban center covered more than 900 hectares, enclosed by double walls so wide that chariots could pass on top. The Processional Way, lined with glazed blue bricks and striding lions, led to the magnificent Ishtar Gate, while the Etemenanki ziggurat (the biblical Tower of Babel) towered over the city as a symbol of cosmic order. Babylon was a cosmopolitan hub of trade, scholarship, astronomy, and law, drawing merchants, priests, and captives from across the known world.

Its size and splendor were unmatched until the rise of imperial Rome centuries later. Babylon’s grandeur—palaces, hanging gardens (possibly legendary), temples, and bustling markets—reflected the peak of ancient urban civilization, a city where power, faith, and culture converged on a scale never seen before.

01/10/2026

In 585 BC, on a battlefield in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), the armies of the Lydian king Alyattes and the Median king Cyaxares had been fighting a bitter war for six long years. The two great powers of the Near East clashed fiercely—until the sky itself intervened.

A total solar eclipse suddenly plunged the day into darkness. The sun disappeared behind the moon, stars appeared in broad daylight, and the world turned to eerie twilight. Both sides froze in terror. To the ancient armies, this was no natural event—it was a divine sign, a warning from the gods to cease the bloodshed.

The fighting stopped instantly. In the stunned silence that followed, the two kings seized the moment. They negotiated a peace treaty right there on the battlefield, ending the long war. The border was set along the Halys River, and the peace was sealed with a marriage alliance between the royal families.

The eclipse had been predicted by the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus, who reportedly warned the Ionians of the coming darkness. Whether the armies knew of the prediction or not, the effect was the same: nature’s sudden intervention forced humanity to make peace.

The Battle of the Eclipse (also called the Battle of Halys) became one of history’s most famous examples of astronomy shaping destiny—a war ended not by swords, but by the shadow of the moon.

01/10/2026

In 480 BC, King Leonidas I of Sparta—already past 60 years old—led one of history’s most iconic last stands at the Battle of Thermopylae. Facing Xerxes’ massive Persian invasion force (estimated 100,000–300,000 strong), Leonidas chose to hold the narrow coastal pass with just 300 elite Spartan hoplites, plus several thousand Greek allies.

Despite his advanced age, Leonidas showed no sign of frailty. He stood at the front, spear and shield in hand, embodying the Spartan ideal: fight until death, never retreat. For three days the small force blocked the Persian advance, inflicting heavy casualties. On the final day, betrayed by Ephialtes who revealed a mountain path, Leonidas dismissed most allies and stayed with his 300 Spartans and a few Thespians and Thebans.

They fought to the last man. Leonidas fell, but the delay gave Greece time to prepare and ultimately win at Salamis and Plataea.

His age made the feat even more extraordinary: a 60+ year-old king choosing certain death over surrender, proving courage and leadership know no expiration date. The 300 became immortal, a symbol of defiance against impossible odds.

01/10/2026

Oymyakon, a remote village in Russia's Sakha Republic (Yakutia) in the Far East, holds the title of the coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth.

The officially verified record low is −67.7 °C (−89.9 °F), measured on February 6, 1933. Some older unofficial reports mention temperatures as low as −71.2 °C (−96.2 °F), though these are not considered fully confirmed by modern standards.

Even today, winter temperatures regularly plunge below −50 °C for weeks, with January averages around −50 °C and extremes frequently reaching −60 °C and lower.
Daily life in extreme cold

Population: ~500 people (mostly Yakut/Sakha ethnic group)
January average: ≈ −50 °C (wind chill makes it feel even colder)
School closure threshold: Classes canceled below −55 °C for younger students
Cars: Engines must be left running or constantly heated (many use electric block heaters plugged in 24/7). If a car is turned off for more than a few hours in deep winter, it usually won't start again until spring.
Everyday life: People keep freezers outside (food never spoils), wear multiple layers of reindeer fur, use specially insulated houses with triple-glazed windows and thick walls.
Animals: Horses and cattle live in heated barns; dogs are bred with extremely thick double coats.

Why it's so cold
Oymyakon sits in a deep valley at ~700 m elevation, surrounded by mountains that trap cold air. During winter, the powerful Siberian High creates clear, windless conditions that allow heat to radiate away rapidly into space, leading to extreme temperature inversions (cold air gets trapped at the bottom of the valley).
Fun facts

The local school has a “thermometer museum” showing past record lows.
Residents joke that “summer lasts from July 14 to July 15.”
The village has a small hotel for extreme tourists who want to experience −60 °C for fun (and Instagram).

Oymyakon is not just the coldest place people live — it's a living demonstration of human adaptability in one of the harshest environments on the planet. Generations have turned extreme cold into home.

01/09/2026

In Germany’s dense Hürtgen Forest, along the narrow Kall Trail linking Vossenack and Schmidt, lies a rusted WWII relic: an original M4 Sherman tank track section, abandoned since November 1944. On November 3, the U.S. 28th Infantry Division’s 112th Regiment launched a surprise assault, swiftly capturing Schmidt and catching German defenders off guard.

Yet victory proved illusory. The steep, muddy Kall Trail—barely passable—blocked reinforcement, supply, and evacuation. Isolated amid relentless counterattacks in rain-soaked pines, the regiment was nearly annihilated over days of brutal fighting.

This heavy steel track, likely from a Sherman, was laid to firm the quagmire for vehicles and troops—a desperate improvisation against terrain that swallowed men and machines. It failed; the trail remained a deathtrap.

Eighty years on, moss-cloaked and overgrown, the track endures in forest silence—a quiet testament to ingenuity in impossible odds, and the unforgiving cost of a path that could not be saved.

01/09/2026

From Mesopotamia’s Ubaid period (c. 5500–4000 BC), enigmatic clay figurines depict humanoid lizards—elongated heads, almond eyes, slender bodies, sometimes with infants or poses suggesting ritual. Excavated at sites like Eridu, Ur, and Tell al-‘Ubaid, these statuettes—often female—stand 10–30 cm tall, baked or sun-dried, with incised details for scales and features.

Their meaning eludes certainty. Some see fertility symbols—lizard regeneration echoing rebirth—or shamanic spirits bridging human and animal realms. Others propose elite status markers or household guardians. The mother-and-child motif hints at protection or lineage.

Ubaid culture predates Sumerian cities, its pottery and irrigation laying foundations for civilization. These figurines, scattered in graves and homes, reflect a worldview blending human and reptilian—perhaps reverence for nature’s resilience in harsh riverine lands.

Unique to Ubaid, they vanish in later periods, leaving questions: mythic beings, stylized humans, or evidence of lost beliefs? In museums today, these poised lizard-people gaze across 6,000 years, silent witnesses to humanity’s earliest flirtation with the strange and sacred.

01/09/2026

Zoroaster—known to Greeks as Zarathustra, to Persians as the prophet—emerged in eastern Iran around the early 6th century BC, likely near the Caspian’s fringes. His revolutionary teaching upended ancient Indo-Iranian polytheism: from myriad ahuras (lords or gods), he elevated one supreme Ahura Mazda—the Wise Lord—as sole creator and moral arbiter.

This monotheistic pivot framed existence as cosmic struggle: Ahura Mazda’s truth, order (asha), and light against Angra Mainyu’s lie, chaos (druj), and darkness. Humans, gifted free will, choose sides through thought, word, deed—good rewarded in paradise, evil punished.

Zoroaster’s hymns, the Gathas, preserve his voice—poetic, urgent calls to righteousness. Fire and water became sacred emblems of purity; rituals honored creation without idols.

His faith spread across Achaemenid Persia, influencing kings like Cyrus and Darius, who invoked Ahura Mazda on inscriptions. Dualism, judgment after death, and savior figures echoed in Judaism, Christianity, Islam.

From steppe prophet to world-shaper, Zoroaster’s vision—one god, moral choice, ultimate justice—lit ethical paths still walked today.

01/08/2026

In 1992, paleontologists excavating near San Diego unearthed a 130,000-year-old mastodon skeleton with unmistakable signs of human butchery—spiral fracture patterns on bones, stone tool impact marks, and hammerstone percussion scars. Published in 2017, the Cerutti Mastodon site challenges the consensus that humans first reached the Americas around 15,000–20,000 years ago via the Bering land bridge.

The bones—femurs, tusks, ribs—show deliberate breaking consistent with marrow extraction, not carnivore gnawing. Cobble stones nearby bear use-wear as hammers and anvils. No Clovis points or later artifacts appear; dating via uranium-thorium on bone and teeth confirms ~130,000 years.

If human, the find implies pre-sapiens hominins—perhaps Homo erectus or Denisovans—crossed oceans or coasts far earlier, perhaps during low sea levels. Critics argue natural processes (trampling, weathering) mimic tool marks, but experimental replication supports human agency.

This solitary site doesn’t rewrite migration overnight, yet it demands reevaluation: were there forgotten pulses of exploration long before Clovis hunters? The Cerutti mastodon stands as provocative outlier—bones whispering of hands that shaped them when ice gripped the north.

01/08/2026

In a revelation reshaping samurai lore, Kyoto University’s DNA analysis of 105 skeletons from the 1467 Battle of Senbon Matsubaru—part of the Ōnin War—uncovered that 35 belonged to women warriors. Excavated near Kyoto, these remains challenge the male-dominated image of feudal Japan’s battlefields.

The Ōnin War ignited Kyoto’s streets, pitting rival daimyo in a decade-long struggle that weakened the shogunate. Senbon Matsubaru saw fierce clashes; mass graves preserved victims in armor fragments and weapons. Initial assumptions labeled all as male samurai, but advanced genomic testing—examining s*x chromosomes and ancestry—proved otherwise.

These women weren’t auxiliaries; they bore arms alongside men, dying in combat with similar wounds and gear. Their presence reflects a more fluid gender role in warfare than later Edo-era norms allowed—perhaps ashigaru conscripts or onna-bugeisha from warrior families defending kin.

The find illuminates women’s active roles in medieval Japan’s chaos, when survival demanded all hands—sword in grip, not just hearth. It reframes samurai not as exclusive caste but broader fighters, gender bending under war’s pressure.

Kyoto’s discovery restores forgotten voices to history’s battlefield chorus.

01/08/2026

The claim refers to the Archimedes Palimpsest, a 10th-century manuscript of Archimedes’ works overwritten in the 13th century by a monk creating a Christian prayer book. Parchment was scarce and expensive, so reusing old texts (palimpsesting) was common practice—not targeted destruction of science.

The palimpsest contained unique treatises, including The Method of Mechanical Theorems, where Archimedes used techniques resembling integral calculus—computing areas and volumes via infinitesimals and exhaustion methods—over 2,000 years before Newton and Leibniz formalized calculus in the 17th century. He also grappled with actual infinity, ideas once thought modern.

However, the “set back progress 1,000 years” idea is overstated. Archimedes’ other works circulated in medieval Europe and Islam, influencing later mathematicians. The palimpsest’s loss was unfortunate, but not a singular catastrophe delaying calculus—multiple factors, including conceptual gaps, contributed to the delay.

Modern imaging (X-rays, multispectral) recovered the text in the 1990s–2000s, revealing Archimedes’ brilliance. Ironically, the monk’s overwriting helped preserve the underlying ink traces.

So yes, a monk erased a key Archimedes text with early calculus-like ideas—but scarcity, not suppression, drove it. We’re lucky technology let us read it again.

Historical Chronicles

01/11/2026

01/11/2026

01/11/2026

01/10/2026

01/10/2026

01/10/2026

01/09/2026

01/09/2026

01/09/2026

01/08/2026

01/08/2026

01/08/2026

Address

Website

Alerts

Shortcuts

Share