Genghis Khan

[riddler 0]

I give this thread a 50/50 shot of ending up in Speaker's Corner. But anyway:

The Denver Museum of Nature and Science has a special exhibit on Khan, which is pretty good. The whammy for me was at the very end, when they showed DNA evidence that about 16 million men living today (and probably as many women) are descendants of his. That's about one in every 220 living males (mostly Mongolian, of course).

I think about all the conquering rulers, many of them violent, some of them "prolific" , and I wonder how many of us have bloodlines to them.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[ryoder 1,590]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjd7L6txGLk

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[riddler 0]

I can see Shatner being a descendant of the real Genghis He has Polish and Hungarian roots, and Khan's children did conquer both countries.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[Andrewwhyte 1]

It's good to be king.

[masterblaster72 0]

Here's the best documentary I found on Genghis Khan, from BBC. Really worth watching and very well done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXt0KBNdKtA

Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

[happythoughts 0]

It probably helped that GK would kill most of the men
in the village.

Newsweek
Here is the modern technical equivalent.

Quote

Maxey, 51, happens to be one of the most prolific sperm donors in the country. Between 1980 and 1994, he donated at a Michigan clinic twice a week. He's looked at the records of his donations, multiplied by the number of individual vials each donation produced, and estimated the success of each vial resulting in a pregnancy. By his own calculations, he concluded that he is the biological father of nearly 400 children, spread across the state and possibly the country.

He is now the CEO of Cayman Chemical, a 300-person global pharmaceutical company.
Wait until his will goes through probate.

"Your honor, we have 400 petitioners for the division
of the estate."
"What?"

[BikerBabe 0]

This explains Shah!!!

Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

[riddler 0]

Quote

It probably helped that GK would kill most of the men
in the village.

I don't think he did. He was really a fairly progressive leader of his own people, just not nice to the other people. They say that he killed the few leaders of the tribes, but let all of the warriors live, as long as they pledged to serve him. Many of those underlings became great leaders of his own army, since he promoted based on talent, rather than favoritism.

OTOH, he did have first choice of the maidens in new areas he conquered, and he took many concubines. Sadly, women just didn't have as many rights then as they do now.

It's also a mystery what killed Khan - there is speculation that a noble woman killed him in revenge for killing her husband (who was one of the aforementioned tribal leaders).

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD