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[[Image:Khan.jpg|thumb|right|Genghis Khan]]

[[Image:Khan.jpg|thumb|right|Genghis Khan]]

'''Genghis Khan''' (ca. 1162 to 1227 A.D.), or Chingis Khan, was the first great military leader of the [[Mongols]], a barbaric nomadic people from Mongolia. He was born as Temujin, into the Kiyan clan of the Borjigin dynasty, the ruling family of the Mongol tribe.  

'''Genghis Khan''' (ca. 1162 to 1227 A.D.), or Chingis Khan, was the first great military leader of the [[Mongols]], a nomadic steppe people from Mongolia. He was born as Temujin, into the Kiyan clan of the Borjigin dynasty, the ruling family of the Mongol tribe.  

The Mongol elite abandoned Temujin's family when he was nine, after the rival Tatar clan poisoned his father, who was one of the chiefs of the Kiyan.  He along with his brothers gathered followers and allied with his father's ally, Ong Khan, the leader of the Kereyid tribe.  In the 1190's he had enough support among the Borjigin clans that they elected him the fifth Khan of the Mongol, and he took the name Chingis (meaning "Oceanic"), which came through Persian to English as Genghis.  Jamugha, a rival claimant to the Mongol leadership, then gathered the neighboring tribes of Mongolia, the Tatar, Kereyid, Naiman, and Merkid, into a series of wars against Genghis Khan.  He conquered them one by one, and incorporated them into his army, until in 1206 he proclaimed the Yeke Mongol Ulus, or Great Mongol Nation, which history came to know as the [[Mongol Empire]].<ref>Secret History of the Mongols, Paul Kahn, 1994</ref>

The Mongol elite abandoned Temujin's family when he was nine, after the rival Tatar clan poisoned his father, who was one of the chiefs of the Kiyan.  He along with his brothers gathered followers and allied with his father's ally, Ong Khan, the leader of the Kereyid tribe.  In the 1190's he had enough support among the Borjigin clans that they elected him the fifth Khan of the Mongol, and he took the name Chingis (meaning "Oceanic"), which came through Persian to English as Genghis.  Jamugha, a rival claimant to the Mongol leadership, then gathered the neighboring tribes of Mongolia, the Tatar, Kereyid, Naiman, and Merkid, into a series of wars against Genghis Khan.  He conquered them one by one, and incorporated them into his army, until in 1206 he proclaimed the Yeke Mongol Ulus, or Great Mongol Nation, which history came to know as the [[Mongol Empire]].<ref>Secret History of the Mongols, Paul Kahn, 1994</ref>