History Tap No. 18: October 16, 2026

Round 1: pop culture

2016 Boston Marathon

Happened in Massachusetts, on April 18, 2016.

• Atsede Baysa won the women's race with a time of 2:29:19.

Round 2: historic event, world

Siege of Jerusalem

Happened in Jerusalem, on June 7, 1099.

• After an initial unsuccessful attack on 13 June, the crusaders constructed several siege engines including a siege tower and a battering ram enable them to enter the city on 15 July 1099.
• The city had been out of Christian control since the Muslim conquest of the Levant in 637 and had been held for a century first by the Seljuk Turks and later by the Egyptian Fatimids.
• The siege was carried out by the Christian forces of Western Europe mobilized by Pope Urban II after the Council of Clermont in 1095.

Round 3: historic event, world

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Began in Poland, on April 19, 1943.

• It was the largest single revolt by Jews against the Nazis during World War II.
• The uprising started on 19 April when the ghetto refused to surrender to the police commander SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, who ordered the destruction of the ghetto, block by block, ending on 16 May.
• The Jews knew that victory was impossible and survival unlikely.

Round 4: historic event

Battle of the Little Bighorn

Happened in Little Bighorn River, Montana, on June 25, 1876.

• The fight was an overwhelming victory for the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho, who were led by several major war leaders, including Crazy Horse and Chief Gall and had been inspired by the visions of Sitting Bull (Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake).
• The Lakota were there without consent from the local Crow tribe, which had a treaty claim on the area.
• Most battles in the Great Sioux War, including the Battle of the Little Bighorn, were on lands those natives had taken from other tribes since 1851.

Round 5: landmark

Biosphere 2

Built in Arizona, in 1991.

• It remains the largest closed ecological system ever created.
• Its mission was a two-year closure experiment with a crew of eight humans.
• Constructed between 1987 and 1991, Biosphere 2 was planned to experiment with the viability of closed ecological systems to support and maintain human life in outer space as a substitute for Earth's biosphere.