Take a journey through time and history this December 18, exploring a 2017 Amtrak derailment, a 1932 NFL Championship, and other turning points across ages.
History Team
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This Day Through Time: December 18 Through the Ages
Today the rails of memory hum beneath our feet as we step into December and let time unspool in reverse. Our journey begins with a whisper from the recent past and quickly folds back toward the dawn of settled life.
In December 2017 a moment of tragedy reminded us how fragile progress can be. On December 18, near DuPont, Washington, an Amtrak Cascades passenger train derailed, taking three lives and injuring sixty-five others on the Seattle to Portland corridor. Why does this matter today? It sharpened the attention of investigators, engineers, and policymakers toward safer train operations and improvements in signaling and safety protocols across busy rail networks. For a broader sense of the route and its modern context, you can read about the Amtrak Cascades here: Amtrak Cascades.
Backward we move and feel the chill of a winter wind from a different era. On December 18, 1932 NFL Championship Game at Chicago Stadium, the Chicago Bears faced the Portsmouth Spartans under a sheltering roof on a shortened, modified field and emerged victorious with a 9 to 0 score. This moment helped crystallize the idea of a postseason for football fans and demonstrated how weather and venue could reshape the young league's trajectory. It links directly to the lore of the 1932 NFL Championship Game: 1932 NFL Championship Game.
A little farther back, around the turn of the first millennium, the world was entering a widening medieval era. A millennium ago, diverse societies knit themselves into broader patterns: kingdoms rose and fell, trade links stretched across deserts and seas, scholars in cities and courts exchanged ideas, and communities began to organize around shared labor, grain storage, and defense. The map of civilization was still being drawn, and every village or court added a thread to the larger tapestry.
Ten thousand years ago, as the Ice Age waned and climates warmed, wild grains were coaxed into crops and small herds of sheep and goats began to follow human care. In river valleys and sunlit plains, people settled in their first villages, built simple huts, and stored grain for lean seasons. Monuments like Göbekli Tepe rose as ceremonial centers while Jericho grew earthen walls, showing that communities were coordinating, sharing labor, and laying the groundwork for civilization. The earliest chapters of this story culminated in places like Göbekli Tepe, a testament to organized effort and symbolic thinking.
One hundred thousand years ago, in the cradle of humanity, Homo sapiens roamed Africa in small bands while Neanderthals persisted in Europe and western Asia as the Ice Age shifted and swirled around them. Stone and bone tools, scrapers, points, and blades sketched daily life, and tiny beads or pigments hinted at early symbolic thought and perhaps primitive language. The climate was harsh and changeable, but those early humans improvised, traded, and told stories by firelight in caves and open camps, laying the groundwork for the long arc of culture and civilization. For a broad view of our species, explore Homo sapiens.