1206
Temujin proclaimed Genghis Khan at the Onon
At a great kurultai on the Onon River, the assembled Mongol tribes hailed Temujin as Chinggis, universal ruler. He abolished tribal distinctions, organized his followers into decimal units of ten, and set in motion the largest contiguous empire the world would ever see. His great yasa, a code of laws covering everything from adultery to water rights, bound the horde into a disciplined nation.
Muhammad of Ghor assassinated on the Indus
The Afghan sultan who had conquered northern India was murdered by Ismaili assassins while encamped on the banks of the Jhelum. His death shattered the Ghurid empire into fragments and left his Turkish slave-generals to fight over the Indian spoils, birthing the Delhi Sultanate from the wreckage. Without an heir, the empire he had built from Ghazni to Bengal dissolved overnight.
Bakhtiyar Khalji's invasion destroys Nalanda
The Turkish general's cavalry raid into Bihar burned the great Buddhist monastery-university of Nalanda, whose libraries had sheltered learning for seven centuries. Monks were slaughtered or scattered; palm-leaf manuscripts fed bonfires. The destruction marked the effective end of institutional Buddhism in its Indian homeland. Surviving scholars fled to Tibet and Nepal, carrying fragments of the knowledge that Nalanda had preserved.
Qutb Minar construction begins in Delhi
Qutb-ud-din Aibak ordered the building of a red sandstone victory tower next to the new Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque, itself built on the rubble of Hindu and Jain temples. At seventy-three meters when finally completed, the minaret would loom over Delhi as a monument to conquest. Its five tapered stories, each carved in different geometric patterns, remain the tallest brick minaret in the world.