Abstract: This talk will consist of two parts. In the first part, I will motivate the general interest in inhomogeneous phases of quantum matter and give a brief overview of some known mechanisms, leading to spatially nonuniform order. In the second part, I will then focus on the chiral soliton lattice, a new phase of dense nuclear matter, induced by the chiral anomaly in presence of strong magnetic fields. The basic properties of this phase can be understood using the mathematics of a simple pendulum. I will argue that similar solitonic states appear in the phase diagram of a range of QCD-like theories in a variety of thermodynamic regimes.