Genghis Khan

From the high, windswept Gobi came one of history's most famous warriors. He was a Mongolian nomad known as Genghis Khan. With his fierce, hard-riding nomad horde, he conquered a huge empire that stretched through Asia from the Yellow Sea to the Black Sea.

Genghis Khan was born on the Gobi, in a yurt, or felt tent, on a bank of the Onon River in northern Mongolia. His father, Yesukai, was the chief of several desert tribes and had just slain a foe named Temujin. In triumph Yesukai named his newborn son Temujin.

Yesukai died when Temujin was about 13 years old. The boy succeeded him, but the fierce, restless nomads would not obey so young a chieftain. The chief of another tribe proclaimed himself leader of the Mongols and captured Temujin. Guards forced Temujin into a kang, a wooden yoke that shackled his shoulders and wrists. In the dark he slowly twisted himself to reach above a guard and smashed the kang down on his head. Then Temujin ra Temujin's bold courage and resourcefulness began to win followers. When he reached manhood, he conquered the Tatars and added them to his tribes. In 1203 he defeated the Keraits. Seizing their cities of mud and stone, he made Karakorum his capital.

In 1206 a council of his tribes named him Genghis Khan. It means "greatest of