1206-1368 CE
From 1206 to 1368 CE, the Mongols built the largest contiguous empire humanity has ever known — Genghis Khan forging the steppe tribes into an army that toppled dynasties from Beijing to Baghdad, his grandsons ruling from the Pacific to Poland. They drowned cities in blood and made deserts of gardens, yet also reopened the Silk Road, enforced a peace across continents, and carried gunpowder and plague to worlds that had never imagined such horrors.