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Hulagu Khan


Hulagu Khan, also known as Hülegü or Hulegu (MongolianHülegü Khaan, "Warrior"; Mongolian CyrillicХүлэг хаан;Kurdish: هۆلاکۆ; TurkishHülagû HanChagatai/Urduہلاکو HulakuPersianهولاکو خان‎; Arabic هولاكو خان/ هَلَاوُن; Chinese旭烈兀c. 1218 – 8 February 1265), was a Mongol ruler who conquered much of Southwest Asia. Son of Tolui and theKerait princess Sorghaghtani Beki, he was a grandson of Genghis Khan and brother of Ariq BökeMöngke Khan, andKublai Khan.
Hulagu's army greatly expanded the southwestern portion of the Mongol Empire, founding the Ilkhanate of Persia, a precursor to the eventual Safavid dynasty, and then the modern state of Iran. Under Hulagu's leadership, the Mongolsdestroyed the greatest center of Islamic power, Baghdad, and also weakened Damascus, causing a shift of Islamic influence to the Mamluks in Cairo. Under Hulagu's dynasty, Iranian historians began writing in Persian rather than Arabic...
Hulagu was born to Tolui, one of Genghis Khan's sons, and Sorghaghtani Beki, an influential Khereid princess. Sorghaghtani successfully navigated Mongol politics, arranging for all of her sons to become Mongol leaders. She was a Christian of the Church of the East (often referred to as "Nestorianism") and Hulagu was friendly toChristianity. Hulagu's favorite wife, Doquz Khatun, was also a Christian, as was his closest friend and general,Kitbuqa. It is recorded however that he converted to Buddhist as he neared death, against the will of Dokuz Khatun.

Hulagu had at least three children: Abaqa KhanTekuder, and Taraqai. Abaqa was second Ilkhan of Iran from 1265–82, Teguder Ahmad was third Ilkhan from 1282–84, and Taraqai's son Baydu became Ilkhan in 1295. Mīr-Khvānd mentions two more children, given as Hyaxemet and Tandon in an early translation; Hyaxemet initially served as governor of Armenia and Azerbaijan, while Tandon was given Diyarbakır and Iraq. The order of birth is listed as Abaqa, Hyaxemet, Tandon, Teguder, then Taraqai.

Hulagu's brother Möngke had been installed as Great Khan in 1251. In 1255, Möngke charged Hulagu with leading a massive Mongol army to conquer or destroy the remaining Muslim states in southwestern Asia. Hulagu's campaign sought the subjugation of the Lurs of southern Iran, the destruction of the Assassins, the submission or destruction of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, the submission or destruction of the Ayyubid states in Syria based in Damascus, and finally, the submission or destruction of the Bahri Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt. Möngke ordered Hulagu to treat kindly those who submitted and utterly destroy those who did not. Hulagu vigorously carried out the latter part of these instructions.
Hulagu marched out with perhaps the largest Mongol army ever assembled – by order of Möngke, two-tenths of the empire's fighting men were gathered for Hulagu's army. He easily destroyed the Lurs, and the Assassins surrendered their impregnable fortress of Alamut without a fight, accepting a deal that spared the lives of their people . 

Hulagu's Mongol army set out for Baghdad in November 1257. Once near the city he divided his forces to threaten the city on both the east and west banks of the Tigris. Hulagu demanded surrender, but the caliph, Al-Musta'sim, refused. The caliph's army repulsed some of the forces attacking from the west but were defeated in the next battle. The attacking Mongols broke dikes and flooded the ground behind the caliph's army, trapping them. Much of the army was slaughtered or drowned.
The Mongols under Chinese general Guo Kan laid siege to the city on January 29, 1258, constructing a palisade and a ditch and wheeling up siege engines and catapults. The battle was short by siege standards. By February 5 the Mongols controlled a stretch of the wall. The caliph tried to negotiate but was refused. On February 10 Baghdad surrendered. The Mongols swept into the city on February 13 and began a week of destruction. The Grand Library of Baghdad, containing countless precious historical documents and books on subjects ranging from medicine to astronomy, was destroyed. Survivors said that the waters of the Tigris ran black with ink from the enormous quantity of books flung into the river. Citizens attempted to flee but were intercepted by Mongol soldiers. 


n 1260 Mongol forces combined with those of their Christian vassals in the region, including the army of Cilician Armeniaunder Hetoum I and the Franks of Bohemond VI of Antioch. This force conquered Muslim Syria, a domain of the Ayyubid dynasty. They took the city of Aleppo and, under the Christian general Kitbuqa, took Damascus on March 1, 1260.A Christian Mass was celebrated in the Grand Mosque of the Umayyads, and numerous mosques were profaned. Many historical accounts describe the three Christian rulers Hetoum, Bohemond, and Kitbuqa entering the city of Damascus together in triumph,[16][17] though some modern historians such as David Morgan have questioned this story as apocryphal.[18]
The invasion effectively destroyed the Ayyubid Dynasty, theretofore powerful ruler of large parts of the LevantEgypt, andArabia. The last Ayyubid king An-Nasir Yusuf was killed by Hulagu in 1260. With the Islamic power center of Baghdad gone and Damascus weakened, the center of Islamic power transferred to the Egyptian Mamluks in Cairo.
Hulagu intended to continue south through Palestine towards Cairo to engage the Mamluks. He sent a threatening letter to Mamluk Sultan Qutuz in Cairo. He demanded that Qutuz open Cairo or it would be destroyed like Baghdad. At that moment Mongke Khan died, recalling Hulagu, as an heir and potential Great Khan, to Mongolia in order to elect a new Khan. Hulagu left behind only two tumens (20,000 men) under the leadership of his favorite general Naiman Kitbuqa Noyan, a Nestorian Christian. Upon receiving news of Hulagu's departure, Qutuz quickly assembled a large army at Cairo and invaded Palestine. Qutuz allied with a fellow Mamluk, Baibars, who wanted to defend Islam after the Mongols capture of Damascus, sacking of Baghdad, and subjugation of Bilad al-Sham.
The Mongols, for their part, attempted to form a Franco-Mongol alliance with (or at least, demand the submission of) the remnant of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, now centered on Acre, but Pope Alexander IV had forbidden this. Tensions between Franks and Mongols had also increased when Julian of Sidon caused an incident resulting in the death of one of Kitbuqa's grandsons. Angered, Kitbuqa had sacked Sidon. The Barons of Acre, contacted by the Mongols, had also been approached by the Mamluks, seeking military assistance against the Mongols. Although the Mamluks were traditional enemies of the Franks, the Barons of Acre recognized the Mongols as the more immediate menace. Instead of taking sides, the Crusaders opted for a position of cautious neutrality between the two forces. In an unusual move, however, they agreed that the Egyptian Mamluks could march north through the Crusader territories unmolested and even camp to resupply near Acre.



When news arrived that the Mongols had crossed the Jordan River, Sultan Qutuz and his forces mainly Egyptians proceeded southeast toward the 'Spring Of Goliath' at Ayn Jalut in the Jezreel Valley. They met the Mongol army of about 20,000 in the Battle of Ayn Jalut and fought relentlessly for many hours. Mamluk leader Baibars mostly implemented hit-and-run tactics in an attempt to lure the Mongol forces into chasing him. Baibars and Qutuz had hidden the bulk of their forces in the hills to wait in ambush for the Mongols to come into range. The Mongol leader Kitbuqa, already provoked by the constant fleeing of Baibars and his troops, decided to march forwards with all his troops on the trail of the fleeing Egyptians. When the Mongols reached the highlands, Egyptians appeared from hiding, and the Mongols found themselves surrounded by enemy forces as the hidden troops hit them from the sides and Qutuz attacked the Mongol rear. Estimates of the size of the Egyptian army range from 24,000 to 120,000. The Mongols broke free of the trap and even mounted a temporarily successful counterattack, but their numbers had been depleted to the point that the outcome was inevitable. When the battle finally ended, the Egyptian army had accomplished what had never been done before, defeating a Mongol army in close combat. Almost the whole Mongol army that had remained in the region, including Kitbuqa, were either killed or captured that day. The battle of Ayn Jalut established a low-water mark for the Mongol conquest. The Mongol invasion east and south came to a stop after Ayn Jalut

Hulagu sent multiple communications to Europe in an attempt to establish a Franco-Mongol alliance against the Muslims. In 1262, he sent his secretary Rychaldus and an embassy to "all kings and princes overseas". The embassy was apparently intercepted in Sicily by King Manfred, who was allied with the Mamluks and in conflict with Pope Urban IV, and Rychaldus was returned by ship.
On April 10, 1262, Hulagu sent a letter, through John the Hungarian, to the French king Louis IX, offering an alliance. It is unclear whether the letter ever reached Louis IX in Paris — the only manuscript known to have survived was in Vienna, Austria. The letter stated Hulagu's intention to capture Jerusalem for the benefit of the Pope and asked for Louis to send a fleet against Egypt:
"From the head of the Mongol army, anxious to devastate the perfidious nation of the Saracens, with the good-will support of the Christian faith (...) so that you, who are the rulers of the coasts on the other side of the sea, endeavor to deny a refuge for the Infidels, your enemies and ours, by having your subjects diligently patrol the seas."
—Letter from Hulagu to Saint Louis.
Despite many attempts, neither Hulagu nor his successors were able to form an alliance with Europe, although Mongol culture in the West was in vogue in the 13th century. Many new-born children in Italy were named after Mongol rulers, including Hulagu: names such as Can Grande ("Great Khan"), Alaone (Hulagu), Argone (Arghun), and Cassano (Ghazan) are recorded.



Hulagu Khan died in 1265 and was buried in the Shahi Island in Lake Urmia. His funeral was the only Ilkhanate funeral to feature human sacrifice.] He was succeeded by his son Abaqa, thus establishing his line

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Maya civilization

This article is about the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. For a discussion of the modern Maya, see Maya peoples. For other meanings of the word Maya, seeMaya.
 The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for Maya script, the only known fully developed writing system of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period (c. 2000 BC to AD 250), according to the Mesoamerican chronology, many Maya cities reached their highest state of development during the Classic period (c. AD 250 to 900), and continued throughout the Post-Classic period until the arrival of the Spanish.
The Maya civilization shares many features with other Mesoamerican civilizations due to the high degree of interaction andcultural diffusion that characterized the region. Advances such as writing, epigraphy, and the calendar did not originate with the Maya; however, their civilization fully developed them. Maya influence can be detected in HondurasBelizeGuatemala, and western El Salvador to as far away as central Mexico, more than 1,000 km (620 mi) from the central Maya area. The many outside influences found in Maya art and architecture are thought to have resulted from trade and cultural exchange rather than direct external conquest...
The Maya peoples survived the Classic period collapse and the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores and sixteenth-centurySpanish colonization of the Americas. Today, the Maya and their descendants form sizable populations throughout the Maya area; they maintain a distinctive set of traditions and beliefs resulting from the merger of pre-Columbian and post-Conquest ideas and cultures. Millions of people speak Mayan languages today. In 2005 the Rabinal Achí, a play written in the Achi language, was declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

Geographical extent

The Maya civilization extended throughout the present-day southern Mexican states of ChiapasTabasco, and the Yucatán Peninsula states of Quintana RooCampeche and Yucatán. The Maya area also extended throughout the northern Central American region, including the present-day nations of GuatemalaBelize, western Honduras and extreme northern El Salvador.
The Maya area is generally divided into three loosely defined zones: the southern Pacific lowlands, the highlands, and the northern lowlands. The Maya highlands include all of elevated terrain in Guatemala and the Chiapas highlands of Mexico. The southern lowlands lie just south of the highlands, and incorporate a part of the Mexican state of Chiapas, the south coast of Guatemala, Belize and northern El Salvador. The northern lowlands cover all of the Yucatán Peninsula, including the Mexican states of YucatánCampeche and Quintana Roo, the Petén Department of Guatemala, and all of Belize. Parts of the Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas are also included in the northern lowlands.

Preclassic period

Main article: Preclassic Maya
Scholars continue to discuss when this era of Maya civilization began. Discoveries of Maya occupation at CuelloBelize have been carbon dated to around 2600BCE. The people built monumental structures. The Maya calendar, which is based on the so-called Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, begins on a date equivalent to 11 August 3114 BC.
The most widely accepted view, as of 2010, is that the first clearly Maya settlements were established around 1800 BCE in the Soconusco region of the Pacific Coast. This period, known as the Early Preclassic , was characterized by sedentary communities and the introduction of pottery and fired clayfigurines .
Important sites in the southern Maya lowlands include NakbeEl MiradorCival, and San Bartolo. In the Guatemalan Highlands, Kaminaljuyu emerged around 800 BC. For many centuries it controlled the jade and obsidian sources for the Petén and Pacific Lowlands. The important early sites of IzapaTakalik Abaj, and Chocoláat around 600 BCE were the main producers of Cacao. Mid-sized Maya communities also began to develop in the northern Maya lowlands during the Middle and Late Preclassic, though these lacked the size, scale, and influence of the large centers of the southern lowlands. Two important Preclassic northern sites includeKomchen and Dzibilchaltun. The first written inscription in Maya hieroglyphics also dates to this period (c. 250 BCE).
Scholars disagree about the boundaries that define the physical and cultural extent of the early Maya and neighboring Preclassic Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmec culture of the Tabasco lowlands and the Mixe–Zoque- and Zapotec-speaking peoples of Chiapas and southern Oaxaca, respectively. Many of the earliest significant inscriptions and buildings appeared in this overlapping zone, and evidence suggests that these cultures and the formative Maya influenced one another. Takalik Abaj, in the Pacific slopes of Guatemala, is the only site where Olmec features have been clearly succeeded by Mayan ones.
Around 100 AD, a widespread decline and abandonment of Maya cities occurred – called the Preclassic Collapse. This marked the end of the Preclassic era.

Classic period



The Classic period (c. AD 250–900) was one of the peak of large-scale construction and urbanism, the recording of monumental inscriptions, and significant intellectual and artistic development, particularly in the southern lowland regions.
The people developed an agriculturally intensive, city-centered civilization consisting of numerous independent city-states – some subservient to others This includes the well-known cities of CaracolTikalPalenqueCopánXunantunich andCalakmul, but also the lesser known LamanaiDos PilasCahal PechUaxactunAltun Ha, and Bonampak, among others. The Early Classic settlement distribution in the northern Maya lowlands is not as clearly known as the southern zone, but does include a number of population centers, such as OxkintokChunchucmil, and the early occupation of Uxmal.
During this period the Maya population numbered in the millions. They created a multitude of kingdoms and small empires, built monumental palaces and temples, engaged in highly developed ceremonies, and developed an elaborate hieroglyphicwriting system.
The social basis of this exuberant civilization was a large political and economic intersocietal network (world system) extending throughout the Maya region and beyond to the wider Mesoamerican world. The political, economic, and culturally dominant ‘core’ Maya units of the Classic Maya world system were located in the central lowlands, while its corresponding dependent or ‘peripheral’ Maya units were found along the margins of the southern highland and northern lowland areas. But as in all world systems, the Maya core centers shifted through time, starting out during Preclassic times in the southern highlands, moving to the central lowlands during the Classic period, and finally shifting to the northern peninsula during the Postclassic period. In this Maya world system, the semi-peripheral (mediational) units generally took the form of trade and commercial centers..


The most notable monuments are the stepped pyramids they built in their religious centers and the accompanying palaces of their rulers. The palace at Cancuén is the largest in the Maya area, but the site has no pyramids. Other important archaeological remains include the carved stone slabs usually called stelae (the Maya called them tetun, or "tree-stones"), which depict rulers along with hieroglyphic texts describing their genealogy, military victories, and other accomplishments.[12]
The Maya civilization participated in long distance trade with many of the other Mesoamerican cultures, including Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, and other groups in central and gulf-coast Mexico. In addition, they had trade and exchanges with more distant, non-Mesoamerican groups, for example the Taínos of the Caribbean islands. Archeologists have found gold from Panama in the Sacred Cenote of Chichen Itza.Important trade goods included cacaosaltseashellsjade, andobsidian... 












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The Benefits of Walking

The Benefits of Walking

Walking Toward a Healthier You

There are countless physical activities out there, but walking has the lowest dropout rate of them all! It's the simplest positive change you can make to effectively improve your heart health.
Research has shown that the benefits of walking and moderate physical activity for at least 30 minutes a day can help you:
  • Reduce the risk of coronary heart disease
  • Improve blood pressure and blood sugar levels
  • Improve blood lipid profile
  • Maintain body weight and lower the risk of obesity
  • Enhance mental well being
  • Reduce the risk of osteoporosis
  • Reduce the risk of breast and colon cancer
  • Reduce the risk of non-insulin dependent (type 2) diabetes
There really are so many benefits for such a simple activity!

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garden city marrakech . morocco

















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Barbary lion












Museum specimens of male Barbary lion were described as having very dark and long-haired manes that extended over the shoulder and to the belly. Head-to-tail length of stuffed males varies from 2.35 to 2.8 m (7 ft 9 in to 9 ft 2 in), and females measure around 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in). A 19th century hunter described a large male allegedly measuring 3.25 m (10.7 ft) including a 75 cm (30 in) long tail. In some historic accounts the weight of wild males was indicated as very heavy and reaching 270 to 300 kilograms (600 to 660 lb). But the accuracy of the measurements may be questionable, and the sample size of captive Barbary lions were too small to conclude they were the biggest lion subspecies.
Before it became possible to investigate the genetic diversity of lion populations, the colour and size of lion manes was thought to be a sufficiently distinct morphological characteristic to accord a subspecific status to populations. Results of a long-term study of lions in the Serengeti National Park indicate that various factors such as ambient temperature, nutrition and level of testosterone influence the colour and size of lion manes. Sub-Saharan lions kept in a cool environment of European and North American zoos usually develop bigger manes than their wild counterparts. Barbary lions may have developed long-haired manes because of the temperatures in the Atlas Mountains that are much lower than in other African regions, particularly in winter. Therefore, the size of manes is not regarded as appropriate evidence for identifying Barbary lion ancestry. Results of mitochondrial DNA research published in 2006 support the genetic distinctness of Barbary lions in a unique haplotype found in museum specimens that are believed to be of Barbary lion descent. The presence of this haplotype is considered a reliable ..molecular marker for the identification of Barbary lions surviving in captivit

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The best PC games of 2014

STRATEGY

Welcome to the strategy section, the home of real-time and turn-based takes on conquest. The RTS bounced back in 2013 with StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, Company of Heroes 2 and Total War: Rome 2, and thanks to Kickstarter, the trend is set to continue. We want nothing more than for Planetary Annihilation to blossom into the epic SupCom sequel strategy fans deserve, but should that fail to pass, we can take comfort in the 64-bit embrace of a new GalCiv. Look out, though, for Prison Architect, Endless Legend and Defence Grid 2 - games built by small teams with huge potential.

Galactic Civilizations 3

Developer: Stardock
Publisher: In-house
Release date: 2014

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