February 10, 1258 - Baghdad Falls to Mongol Forces, Ending the Abbasid Caliphate

After defeating the Umayyad Dynasty, the Abbasid Caliphate established the city of Baghdad in a location that provided it control over the major trade routes of the Tigris River. Because of this, and the power the Abbasids held in the region, Baghdad became a center of Medicine, Science, Philosophy, and Education. At its height, the city had the largest collection of books in the world. This would end, however, when the Mongols invaded. Hulagu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, laid siege to the city and broke through the Iron Gates that formed the only entrance amidst walls that were thirty meters tall and forty-four meters thick. Once he took the city, Hulegu killed the Abbasid Caliph, massacred the city’s inhabitants, burned many of the city’s quarters, and destroyed the city’s irrigation. Less than two centuries later, Tamerlane, the last of the great Steppe-Conquerors, and the self-proclaimed heir of the Mongols, would destroy the city again and order each of his men to return bearing two severed heads.

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