Oxford is older than the Aztec Empire

We think of the Aztecs as an incredibly ancient empire and of European universities as something fairly modern. The timeline says otherwise.

Oxford was already teaching by around 1096, and the town cemented itself as a centre of learning from 1167 onwards. On the other side of the world, the Mexica didn't found Tenochtitlan until 1325, and their famous empire (the Triple Alliance) wasn't born until 1428.

Do the maths: when the Aztecs were barely raising their capital over a lake, Oxford had already spent more than two centuries training theologians, doctors and lawyers. The institution still standing today is, literally, older than one of the empires we picture as remote. The past isn't always where we imagine it.