1210
Genghis Khan breaks tribute with the Jin
When Jin envoys demanded the customary kowtow, Genghis spat on the ground and rode away. The Mongol empire's first full-scale war against a settled Chinese state was declared. The vast northern Jin realm would absorb decades of steppe cavalry assault. Genghis reportedly told his generals that heaven had grown weary of Chinese luxury and had given the mandate to the Mongols.
Clare of Assisi takes the Franciscan veil
An eighteen-year-old noblewoman of Assisi slipped out of her father's house on Palm Sunday night and accepted the tonsure from Francis himself. Her Poor Clares, an enclosed order of women living in radical poverty, would spread across Europe within her lifetime. She fought the papacy for decades to preserve her order's right to own nothing at all, a privilege no pope wished to grant.
Cahokia begins its decline
Across the Mississippi from modern Saint Louis, the great mound city of Cahokia began shedding population as soils exhausted and floods recurred. Its largest earthen pyramid, Monks Mound, still towered above a contracting plaza where corn and tobacco had once paid tribute to paramount chiefs. By century's end the once-thriving metropolis, which had rivaled London in population at its peak, stood largely abandoned.
Yadava dynasty dominates the Deccan
From their rock-citadel of Devagiri, the Yadava kings of the Deccan ruled a prosperous Marathi-speaking kingdom at the peak of its power. Their court patronized Sanskrit grammarians and the mystical bhakti poetry that would later flower into the Varkari tradition. Gold coins bearing their bull crest circulated across the plateau, a measure of the commercial vitality their stable reign had fostered.
Drought accelerates Cahokia's decline
Extended drought conditions across the Mississippi floodplain stressed the maize agriculture that supported North America's largest pre-Columbian city. Cahokia's population, which may have peaked at twenty thousand, began dispersing into smaller settlements. The grand plaza fell silent and Monks Mound began its long erosion into the prairie. Archaeological evidence suggests increasing warfare accompanied the collapse, as competition for scarce resources turned neighbor against neighbor.