On This Day in History: August 18

Genghis Khan

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Genghis Khan was one of the most successful conquerors in history. He did all sorts of amazing shit while spraying his DNA all over creation. Approximately 16 million men are alive today because of his profligate penis. But he killed at least that many in his campaigns of mass extermination.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: August 18, 1227--

Was he a great ruler? Depends on who you ask. Mongolia reveres him as its founding father. He brought the Silk Road under solitary control, improving trade with the west. He was a fan of meritocracy and religious tolerance. But he wasn’t tolerant of anyone who stood in the way of his empire building. Any region that resisted him was subject to brutal reprisals and destruction. Entire cultures were totally obliterated, and those that survived were often enslaved. Dude was a murderous motherfucker. And you don’t have thousands of children because everyone willingly goes to your bed. Genghis was a rampant rapist. 

He was successful in his conquests for a number of reasons. One was that when tribesmen were recruited into his army, he split them up to ensure loyalty was only to him; they were a highly disciplined fighting force. These men were practically born on horseback, and at an early age learned to use a powerful composite recurve bow that could punch holes through armor. They could steer their horses with their legs and fire their bows at the same time. They slaughtered much larger armies because they were highly mobile, sometimes traveling a hundred miles in a day, and could run circles around slower and heavily armored forces and shoot them full of arrows and dash away. 

Genghis conquered much of Asia, depopulating those areas by the tens of millions along the way, making him one of the most ruthless killers of any era. Then, on August 18, 1227, he died. But that wasn’t the end. His third son Ögedei Khan was named his successor, and Ögedei carried on with the conquest all the way to what is now Poland, and reached well into the Middle East, growing the Mongol holdings to create what was the largest contiguous empire in world history. 

The death toll from the Mongol invasions is estimated between 40 and 60 million, representing approximately 10% of the world population at that time. The regions that now comprise Ukraine and Hungary saw approximately half their populations killed by Mongol invaders. 

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