1259
Mongke Khan dies besieging Diaoyu in Sichuan
The fourth Great Khan died of dysentery, or perhaps a Song crossbow bolt, during the long siege of Diaoyu fortress. His death halted Mongol offensives on four fronts and set in motion the succession war between his brothers Kublai and Ariq Boke. The fortress of Diaoyu, perched on a cliff above the Jialing River, had defied Mongol siege for six years and altered the course of world history.
Treaty of Paris settles Anglo-French lands
Louis IX and Henry III signed a treaty at Paris in which Henry renounced Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Poitou, while retaining Gascony as a French fief. The settlement set the terms of Anglo-French quarrels for a century and planted the seeds of the Hundred Years War. The complex feudal relationship created by the treaty, in which England's king was simultaneously France's vassal, guaranteed future conflict.
Hohenstaufen loyalists make final stand in Apulia
Manfred of Sicily, illegitimate son of Frederick II, consolidated Hohenstaufen holdings in southern Italy against papal pressure. He revived Palermo as a court of poets, falconers, and Arab scholars, a last gasp of cosmopolitan Sicilian kingship before Angevin conquest. Dante would place Manfred in Purgatory rather than Hell, praising his penitent death at Benevento with a sympathy unusual for a Guelph poet.
Nichiren exiled after predicting Mongol invasion
The fiery Japanese monk Nichiren submitted his Rissho Ankoku Ron to the Kamakura shogunate, warning that foreign invasion would follow unless Japan embraced the Lotus Sutra exclusively. The government exiled him to the Izu Peninsula. When the Mongols arrived fifteen years later, his followers claimed prophetic vindication. His combative theology and willingness to denounce other Buddhist sects set him apart from every other religious figure of the era.