1. Tamerlane’s Body Count
Tamerlane is estimated to have killed about 17 million people, amounting to 5 percent of the world’s population at the time. Extrapolated to current global population of 7.7 billion, Tamerlane’s rampage would be the equivalent of killing 385 million people today. His decades-long warpath finally came to an end in 1405 as he was preparing to invade China, but he took ill while encamped, and died before launching the campaign. He would prove to be history’s last major Steppe conqueror.
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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading
Burgan, Michael – Empire of the Mongols (2005)
Encyclopedia Britannica – Genghis Khan
Hildinger, Erik – Warriors of the Steppe: Military History of Central Asia, 500 BC to 1700 AD (1997)
Morgan, David – The Mongols (2007)
Saunders, John Joseph – The History of the Mongol Conquests (2001)
Weatherford, Jack – Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (2004)