Tribal peoples in Mongolia who united in the 12th century and fought to expand their territory. They conquered China and established the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368). The Mongol armies invaded even further afield, reaching as far as the Danube River valley in Europe in 1241. After coming to dominate Korea, the Mongols mounted two invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281. The first invasion ended when bad weather forced the Mongol-Korean force to withdraw. The second invasion, of perhaps 140,000 Mongols, Chinese and Koreans, was broken up by a typhoon. The typhoon’s winds were called divine winds (“kamikaze”) and were fondly remembered in Japan both in myth and fact.
