The Mongol Empire
The largest land empire in history — from Genghis Khan's rise to the fall of the Yuan, every milestone sourced.
A timeline of the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous land empire the world has ever seen. It runs from Genghis Khan's unification of the steppe tribes in 1206 through the conquests that swept across Asia, the invasion of Europe, the sack of Baghdad, and Kublai Khan's conquest of China, to the Pax Mongolica that opened the Silk Road, the failed invasions of Japan, and the empire's fragmentation and fall. Every event is backed by content-verified sources.
Events
- 1206Reputable sourceWell documented
Genghis Khan Unites the Mongols
After a decade of warfare and diplomacy, in 1206 a great assembly of the Mongol nobility proclaimed the chieftain Temüjin their supreme leader, giving him the title Genghis Khan — 'universal ruler.' He welded the feuding tribes of the steppe into a single people and a disciplined army of fast, coordinated cavalry, and gave them a written script and a law code.
Why it matters: Genghis Khan's unification of the Mongols created the war machine and the state that would go on to build the largest contiguous land empire in history.
Sources- World History Encyclopedia. Genghis Khan · reference
- 1211–1227Reputable sourceWell documented
The Mongol Conquests Sweep Asia
From 1211 Genghis Khan turned his armies outward, conquering the Jin dynasty of northern China and then, provoked by the murder of his envoys, destroying the wealthy Khwarazmian Empire of Central Asia and Persia in a campaign of extraordinary devastation. By his death in 1227 the empire already stretched from the Pacific toward the Caspian.
Why it matters: In a single generation the Mongols overran much of Asia, their mounted armies and terror tactics overwhelming far larger and richer states.
Sources- World History Encyclopedia. Mongol Empire · reference
- 1237–1242Reputable sourceWell documented
The Mongol Invasion of Europe
Between 1237 and 1242 Mongol armies under Batu Khan and the general Subutai swept across the Rus' principalities and into Central Europe, crushing the armies of Poland and Hungary at Legnica and Mohi in 1241. Europe lay open before them — until news of the Great Khan Ögedei's death drew the Mongols back east.
Why it matters: The Mongol onslaught devastated eastern Europe and revealed to Christendom a terrifying power from the East; only a distant death, not any European army, halted the advance.
SourcesRelated timelines- The Middle Ages → — The terror it brought Europe
- from the 1240sReputable sourceWell documented
The Golden Horde and the Rus'
The western Mongol lands became the khanate of the Golden Horde, which for more than two centuries dominated the Russian principalities, exacting tribute and confirming or deposing their princes. Russian rulers had to travel to the Horde's court to secure the right to rule.
Why it matters: Mongol overlordship shaped Russian history for generations, and the eventual rise of Moscow grew in part from its role as the Horde's tribute-gatherer.
Sources- World History Encyclopedia. Golden Horde · reference
- 1258Reputable sourceWell documented
Hülegü and the Fall of Baghdad
In 1258 Genghis Khan's grandson Hülegü led a Mongol army against Baghdad, capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and a great centre of Islamic learning. After a short siege the city fell and was sacked, its libraries destroyed and the caliph and much of the population killed. Hülegü founded the Ilkhanate to rule Persia.
Why it matters: The sack of Baghdad ended the five-century Abbasid Caliphate and is often taken to mark the close of the Islamic Golden Age.
Sources- World History Encyclopedia. Ilkhanate · reference
- 1271Reputable sourceWell documented
Kublai Khan and the Yuan Dynasty
Genghis Khan's grandson Kublai Khan proclaimed the Yuan dynasty in China in 1271, and by 1279 had conquered the Southern Song to become the first non-Han ruler of all China. He built a capital at what is now Beijing and ruled as a Chinese emperor as well as Great Khan of the Mongols.
Why it matters: The Yuan dynasty placed the whole of China under Mongol rule for the first time and folded the country into a vast Eurasian empire.
Sources- World History Encyclopedia. Yuan Dynasty · reference
Related timelines- History of China → — The Mongols' rule of China
- c. 1271–1295Reputable sourceWell documented
Marco Polo and the Pax Mongolica
The Mongol peace, or Pax Mongolica, made the Silk Road safe to travel from one end to the other. Around 1275 the young Venetian merchant Marco Polo reached the court of Kublai Khan, entered his service, and spent some seventeen years in the empire. The book of his travels later amazed Europe with its tales of the riches of the East.
Why it matters: Under the Pax Mongolica, goods, people, and ideas crossed Eurasia as never before — and accounts like Marco Polo's would help inspire Europe's later age of exploration.
Sources- World History Encyclopedia. Marco Polo · reference
Related timelines- The Age of Exploration → — The road east that lured Europe
- 1274 & 1281Reputable sourceWell documented
The Mongol Invasions of Japan
Twice, in 1274 and 1281, Kublai Khan sent enormous fleets to conquer Japan. Both times the samurai defended fiercely, but it was violent typhoons — remembered by the Japanese as the kamikaze, or 'divine winds' — that wrecked the Mongol fleets and saved Japan from invasion.
Why it matters: The failed invasions were among the Mongols' rare defeats, and the legend of the 'divine winds' became a lasting part of Japanese identity.
Sources - 1368Reputable sourceWell documented
The Fall of the Yuan Dynasty
Weakened by factional strife, corruption, floods, famine, and the arrival of the Black Death, Mongol rule in China faltered in the 14th century. In 1368 a peasant-led rebellion drove the Yuan out of Beijing and founded the native Ming dynasty. The other khanates, too, had fragmented or been absorbed into the peoples they once ruled.
Why it matters: The fall of the Yuan ended the Mongol century in China, and across Eurasia the great empire dissolved — but it had linked the continent together as never before.
Sources- World History Encyclopedia. Yuan Dynasty · reference