Here is a timeline fact that breaks most people's brains: Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire. Teaching at Oxford began by 1096. The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán was not founded until 1325 — 229 years later. By the time the Aztecs were building their empire, Oxford had already been running for centuries.

How old is Oxford, really?

Oxford's exact founding date is unknown because it grew organically rather than being founded on a single day. What historians do know is that teaching was happening there by 1096, and the university expanded rapidly after 1167, when English students were barred from studying in Paris. It is the oldest university in the English-speaking world.

And the Aztecs?

The Mexica people founded Tenochtitlán — the city that became modern Mexico City — in 1325, on an island in Lake Texcoco. The Aztec Empire proper, the Triple Alliance, was not formed until 1428. At its height it ruled millions of people across central Mexico, with dazzling temples, markets and aqueducts.

So when the Aztec Empire was at its most powerful in the early 1500s, Oxford was already more than 400 years old — older than the United States is today.

Why does this feel so wrong?

Our brains file "medieval European university" and "ancient American empire" in the same mental drawer labelled "long ago", flattening centuries into one blurry past. But history is deep. The pyramids of Giza were already ancient when Cleopatra was born; Oxford was already old when the Aztecs rose. Time is stranger — and longer — than intuition suggests.