7. The Siege of Baghdad
The Siege of Baghdad in 1258 ended the Abbasid Caliphate’s Golden Age. Hulagu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, led more than 100,000 Mongol soldiers to attack the city.
The caliph tried to negotiate peace, but the Mongols killed thousands of messengers. They destroyed much of Baghdad and killed hundreds of thousands of people. The nearby river ran dark with ink from lost books and red with blood.