As first expounded by Matteo Ricci, a 16th/17th-century Jesuit missionary to China.
https://web.mit.edu/uricchio/Public/Documents/media-in-trans...
https://web.mit.edu/uricchio/Public/Documents/media-in-trans...
A couple modifications to the "memory palace" include (1) expanding each room to 10 numbered slots: each wall, wall meeting wall, and floor plus ceiling; (2) an entire hotel of rooms from the Dominic method.
There's also behavioral hacks, math tricks, and a bunch of others that I had never been exposed to.