Mongols Destroy Baghdad
1258 CE · The Abbasid Caliphate & Golden Age
Hulagu Khan's Mongol armies besiege Baghdad for 12 days. The last Abbasid caliph, Al-Musta'sim, is killed. The Mongols kill between 200,000 and 800,000 people. The Tigris River runs black with the ink of burned books and red with blood for days. The House of Wisdom and its centuries of knowledge are destroyed.