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Mongols

(Encyclopedia)Mongols mŏngˈgəlz, –gōlz [key], Asian people, numbering about 6 million and distributed mainly in the Republic of Mongolia, the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of China, and Kalmykia and the B...

Bukhara, emirate of

(Encyclopedia)Bukhara, emirate of, former state, central Asia, in Turkistan, in the Amu Darya River basin. Part of ancient Sogdiana, it was ruled (a.d. 709–874) by the Umayyad Arabs and played an important role u...

Boris I

(Encyclopedia)Boris I, d. 907, khan [ruler] of Bulgaria (852–89). Baptized in 864, he introduced Christianity of the Byzantine rite among the Bulgarians. There followed a rivalry between Rome and Constantinople f...

Polo, Marco

(Encyclopedia)Polo, Marco märˈkō pōˈlō [key], 1254?–1324?, Venetian traveler in China. His father, Niccolò Polo, and his uncle, Maffeo Polo, had made (1253–60) a trading expedition to Constantinople. A w...

Carpini, Giovanni de Piano

(Encyclopedia)Carpini, Giovanni de Piano jōvänˈnē dā pyäˈnō kärpēˈnē [key], c.1180–1252, Italian traveler and Franciscan monk, b. Pian del Carpini (now Piano della Magione), Umbria. He was a companion...

kamikaze

(Encyclopedia)kamikaze käˌməkäˈzē [key] [Jap.,=divine wind], the typhoon that destroyed Kublai Khan's fleet, foiling his invasion of Japan in 1281. In World War II the term was used for a Japanese suicide air...

Sarai

(Encyclopedia)Sarai sərīˈ [key], former city, S European Russia, near present-day Volgograd. Founded in 1241 by Batu Khan, it was (13th–15th cent.) the capital of the Tatar Golden Horde, to which the Russians ...

Karakorum, ruined city, Mongolia

(Encyclopedia)Karakorum käˌrəkōˈrəm [key], ruined city, central Republic of Mongolia, near the Orkhon River, SW of Ulaanbaatar. The area around Karakorum had been inhabited by nomadic Turkic tribes from the 1...

Shaki, city, Azerbaijan

(Encyclopedia)Shaki shĕkˈ– [key], city (1989 pop. 56,223), N Azerbaijan, on the southern slopes of the Caucasus. It is a silk and manufacturing center in a district that grows fruit and rice. Until its annexati...

Gaur, ruined city, India

(Encyclopedia)Gaur gour [key], ruined city, West Bengal state, India. Known also as Lakhnauti, the city was an ancient Hindu capital of Bengal. It was captured (c.1200) by the Islamic rulers of Delhi and remained a...