Tamerlane

Tamerlane, TIMUR-I-LENG ("Lame Timur"), or TIMUR-BEG (1336-1405), a Tatar chieftain who established a vast empire in Asia. He was born forty or fifty miles south of Samarcand, which he made his capital in 1370. From this centre he overran Persia, extending his conquests to the Tigris and the Euphrates; subdued the Kipchaks of Western Tartary, penetrating to the south-east of Russia, and added to his empire the north of India from the Indus to the Euphrates (13D8). After defeating the army of the Mamelukes at Aleppo, and sacking Damascus and Bagdad, he gained a brilliant victory over the Ottoman Sultan, Bajazet, at Angora in Asia Minor (1402). He died on the banks of the Syr Daria whilst marching to achieve the conquest of China.