December 11

Genghis’s third son was chosen for his temper, not his generalship. He finished the Jin, sent Batu west, gave the empire a capital at Karakorum and the yam, a network of relay stations with fresh horses. Tolui acted as regent for the two years before his election.

The khan died after a night of heavy drinking. The news took months to cross Asia, and the army in Hungary pulled back the next spring. Whether his death was the reason is argued: historians also point to exhausted grazing and heavy losses.

Ambrose Burnside crossed the Rappahannock under fire on pontoon bridges and threw his army at Lee’s prepared lines. 17,929 casualties (NPS), 13,353 of them Union.

Meares and Dimitri took the two dog teams home from the foot of the glacier. Scott had never planned to take dogs to the Pole; everything south of here would be pulled by men.

Two days after the city surrendered, General Allenby walked in on foot through the Jaffa Gate, a gesture of respect for the holy city.

Hitler was under no obligation to do it: the Tripartite Pact bound him only if Japan was attacked. He announced it to the Reichstag, meeting in the Kroll Opera House, and so spared Roosevelt the need to ask Congress for a war in Europe.

In El Salvador’s civil war, the U.S.-trained Atlácatl Battalion killed the people of El Mozote and nearby hamlets. The UN Truth Commission identified more than 500 victims, many of them children. Washington dismissed the first press reports.

Industrialised countries agreed to cut their greenhouse gases to at least 5 per cent below 1990 levels over 2008–2012, each with its own target; developing countries had none. The United States signed but never ratified. The protocol came into force on 16 February 2005, after Russia ratified it.

Lower tariffs and guaranteed access to markets turned China’s coast into the world’s factory. Most of the world’s ten busiest container ports are now in China.

Rovio, a small studio near Helsinki, had made 51 games before it and was short of money. The iPhone game of birds flung at pigs was the first mobile game to become a brand, with toys, cartoons and two feature films.