The Mongols in Baghdad

On January 29, 1258, the Mongols began a siege of Baghdad. The Abbasid caliph had refused the Mongol call to surrender and insulted Hulagu Khan, who determined to make an example of him. On February 10, the city surrendered; the Mongols spent the next week massacring the citizens and destroying the city. They slew at least 90,000 people--men, women, children--and piled the heads in four pyramids around the city; the Caliph himself was rolled in a carpet and trampled to death. The Mongols also destroyed the irrigation canals that supported the farms around the city. Baghdad was depopulated and took centuries to recover.