The word kamikaze is over 660 years older than Japan's suicide pilots. "Divine wind" was the name given to the typhoons that scattered Kublai Khan's fleets off Japan in 1274 and 1281.

1281 · 1944 · apart: 663 years

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The event

• Kamikaze, the divine wind1281 · Takashima, Kyushu. In 1274 and 1281 Kublai Khan's fleets sailed against Japan, and both times storms scattered them. The typhoon of 1281 sank much of a vast armada off Takashima; the Japanese called it kamikaze, the divine wind.

13th century · 20th century

More amazing facts

• 1271 · 1661 Marco Polo marvelled that in Kublai Khan's empire people paid with paper.
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