Golden Horde

State · 1294–1695 CE · at its largest around 1294 CE

Mongol and Turkic nomads under Jochi's heirs embraced Islam, and Sarai on the Volga became a crossroads for caravans linking Genoese Black Sea ports with Central Asia. Its tribute system shaped the rise of Muscovy, and its Tatar heirs lived on in Kazan and Crimea.

In the guided tours

The Mongol conquests: How the steppe tribes united under Genghis Khan built the largest contiguous land empire in history.

On its lands while it lasted

Silk Road (c. 130 BCE – c. 1450 CE): A network of overland caravan routes linking China with Central Asia, Persia and the Mediterranean, along which silk, spices, horses, religions, technologies and diseases travelled for more than 1,500 years.
Qarshi (c. 1294 CE): Capital of Chagatai Khanate (1294–1462).
Founding of the Ottoman state (c. 1299 CE): Osman I, leader of a Turkish principality in northwestern Anatolia, founded the dynasty whose state grew into the Ottoman Empire, which lasted until 1922.
Kütahya (c. 1305 CE): Capital of Germiyanids (1305–1429).
Balikesir (c. 1305 CE): Capital of Beylik of Karasi (1305–1343).
Sogut (c. 1305 CE): Capital of Ottoman Empire (1305–1329).
Kastamonu (c. 1309 CE): Capital of Beylik of Sinop (1309–1332), Beylik of Isfendiyar (1309–1398).
Trakai (c. 1321 CE): Capital of Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1321–1323).
Timur (1336 CE – 1405 CE): Turco-Mongol conqueror born near Kesh (Shahrisabz) who built an empire from Anatolia to India, sacked Delhi in 1398 and made Samarkand his capital.
Janissaries (c. 1363–1826 CE): Sultan Murad I created the Janissaries around 1363 as an elite Ottoman infantry corps, later filled through the devshirme levy of Christian boys. They grew into a powerful political force until Mahmud II abolished the corps in 1826.
Campaigns of Timur (1370–1405 CE): From Samarkand, Timur (Tamerlane) campaigned across Persia, the Golden Horde, India (sacking Delhi in 1398), Syria and Anatolia, where he captured the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I at Ankara in 1402. He died at Otrar in 1405 while marching on China.
Timurid Empire (1370–1507 CE): Empire founded by Timur in 1370; under his successors Samarkand and Herat became centres of a Persianate cultural flowering.
Fall of Constantinople (1453 CE): Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire; the city became the Ottoman capital.
Suleiman the Magnificent (1494 CE – 1566 CE): The longest-reigning Ottoman sultan (r. 1520–1566), under whom the empire reached the height of its power and its legal system was codified.
Ivan the Terrible (1530 CE – 1584 CE): Grand Prince of Moscow who in 1547 became the first to be crowned Tsar of all Russia. He conquered Kazan and Astrakhan and ruled through the terror of the oprichnina.