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1221

Events

• January - The Mongol Army under Jochi captures the city of Gurganj (now Kunya-Urgench), and massacres the inhabitants, reported by contemporary scholars as being over a million killed, although probably only a fifth or a tenth of that in reality.
• February - Merv is sacked by the Mongols under Tolui at the orders of Genghis Khan. Contemporary scholars report over a million people are systematically killed in the aftermath.
• May 13 - Emperor Juntoku is briefly succeeded by Emperor Chūkyō on the throne of Japan.
• Former Emperor Go-Toba leads an unsuccessful rebellion against the Kamakura Shogunate.
• Emperor Go-Horikawa ascends to the throne of Japan.
• The Maya of the Yucatán revolt against the rulers of Chichen Itza.
• Nizhny Novgorod City (Russia) is founded.
• A large and highly efficient Mongol army, dispatched under Subutai by Genghis Khan to Georgia, defeats two Georgian armies around Tbilisi, but lacks the will or equipment to besiege the city.
• Genghis Khan enters the Indus Valley.
• Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II founds the University of Padua in Italy.
• Sultan Kamil, Saladin's nephew and successor, offers Palestine to the Crusaders in return for Damietta, which the Crusaders eventually give up in exchange for a safe retreat from the Nile Delta.

Births

• October 9 - Salimbene di Adam, Italian chronicler
• November 23 - King Alfonso X of Castile (d. 1284)
• Bonaventure, Italian theologian and saint (d. 1274)
• Boleslaus the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland (d. 1279)

Deaths

• August 6 - Saint Dominic, Spanish founder of the Dominicans (b. 1170)
• October 4 - William III Talvas, Count of Ponthieu (b. 1179)
• October 21 - Alix of Thouars, Duchess of Brittany (b. 1201)
• Roger Bigod, 2nd Earl of Norfolk