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On 5 May 1260, Kublai Khan was proclaimed Great Khan at Shangdu - the place Coleridge would later imagine as Xanadu. He went on to conquer all of China, found the Yuan dynasty, and invent fiat money. He also started the process that ended his grandfather's empire.
On 13 February 1258, Hulegu Khan ordered the sack of Baghdad. The caliph had called him young and ignorant. What followed was one of the most concentrated episodes of killing and destruction in human history.
On 23 January 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed himself the Hongwu Emperor and founded the Ming dynasty. He had been born to a destitute peasant family, orphaned by plague, and spent his teens wandering as a mendicant monk. He ended a century of Mongol rule over China.