The Mongol Empire in 3 minutes
How a steppe confederation reached from China to Hungary in half a century, split into khanates, and how Horde rule over Rus' ended on the Ugra.
The globe flies from place to place and the timeline from year to year. Every step has its own link — handy for showing it in class.
Tour steps
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1206 Assembly on the Onon
Mongol nobles at the headwaters of the Onon proclaim Temüjin Genghis Khan, supreme ruler of all the Mongols. This is the birth of what will become the largest contiguous land empire in history.
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1219–1221 The fall of Khwarazm
Genghis Khan goes to war with Khwarazm, the greatest power in Central Asia. Within two years the Mongols take Bukhara, Samarkand and Urgench.
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1223 Battle of the Kalka
Jebe and Subutai's army, after skirting the Caspian, meets the princes of Rus' and the Cumans for the first time and crushes them on the Kalka. Many princes die, among them Mstislav of Kiev.
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1227 Death of Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan dies while campaigning against the Tangut kingdom of Western Xia. His realm is divided among his sons, but the conquests go on under the Great Khan Ögedei.
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1237–1240 Batu's invasion
Genghis Khan's grandson Batu sacks Ryazan, Vladimir and many other towns, and in 1240 takes Kiev. The Rus' principalities fall under the Horde's overlordship for almost two and a half centuries.
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1241 Into Europe
In spring 1241 the Mongols defeat Poles and Germans at Legnica and the Hungarians on the Sajó river. The death of the Great Khan Ögedei at the end of the year halts the drive west.
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1242 The Golden Horde
Back from Europe, Batu builds his capital, Sarai, on the lower Volga. His ulus, later called the Golden Horde, rules the steppe from the Danube to the Irtysh; Rus' princes travel there for patents to rule.
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1258 The fall of Baghdad
Hulagu's army storms and sacks Baghdad, and the last Abbasid caliph is executed. The destruction of the caliphate's capital and its libraries becomes the symbolic end of the Islamic Golden Age.
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1260 Ain Jalut
The Mamluks of Egypt under Qutuz and Baybars defeat a Mongol army in Palestine. It is the Mongols' first major defeat in open battle, and their advance in the Middle East is stopped.
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1271–1279 Kublai and the Yuan
Genghis Khan's grandson Kublai proclaims the Yuan dynasty with its capital at Khanbaliq, today's Beijing. By 1279 the Mongols have conquered the Song, putting all of China under foreign rule for the first time.
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1281 The “divine wind”
Kublai's fleets sail against Japan twice, in 1274 and 1281, and both times storms scatter them. The Japanese will call the typhoon of 1281 kamikaze, the “divine wind”.
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1368 The end of the Yuan
By now the empire has long since broken up into independent khanates. In China a rebellion drives the Mongols out, and Zhu Yuanzhang founds the Ming dynasty.
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1480 The Stand on the Ugra
The armies of Ivan III and Khan Akhmat of the Great Horde face each other across the Ugra for weeks, and Akhmat withdraws without a battle. This is traditionally seen as the end of Horde rule over Rus'.