At its height the Mongol Empire was almost one and a half times the size of modern Russia.
Around 1279 it covered some 24 million km², the largest contiguous empire in history.
The events
- Temüjin proclaimed Genghis Khan1206 · Onon River. An assembly of Mongol nobles at the headwaters of the Onon proclaimed Temüjin Genghis Khan, supreme ruler of all the Mongols. Within decades the state he created became the largest contiguous land empire in history.
- Kublai Khan founds the Yuan dynasty1271 · Khanbaliq. Genghis Khan's grandson Kublai proclaimed the Yuan dynasty, with its capital at Khanbaliq (Dadu), on the site of modern Beijing. In 1279 the Mongols completed the conquest of the Song, bringing all of China under foreign rule for the first time.
More amazing facts
- 1200 · 1215 While England was sealing Magna Carta, whole churches were being cut out of rock in Ethiopia.
- 1202 The Fibonacci numbers became famous through a puzzle about rabbits.
- 1204 · 1797 · 1815 The bronze horses of St Mark's in Venice are crusader loot.
- 1206 · 1227 The grave of Genghis Khan, founder of the largest contiguous empire in history, has never been found.
- 1206 · 1209 Cambridge University is as old as Genghis Khan's empire.
- 1206 Al-Jazari's elephant clock put a whole world into one machine: Greek waterworks, an Indian elephant, Chinese dragons, an Egyptian phoenix and the driver's Islamic turban.