Within a span of less than ten years, from 1215, Genghis Khan and the Mongols plunder from China to eastern Europe

A Japanese potter, returning from China, makes Seto the centre of ceramic production in Japan

Kublai Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, is elected Great Khan of the Mongols

Kublai defeats his brother Ariq Böge and thus establishes his position as Great Khan of the Mongols

The Mongol leader Kublai Khan chooses a name for his new dynasty in China, calling it Ta Yuan ('Great Origin')

The Mongol invasion of Japan in 1274 seems to confirm the doom and disaster foretold by the Buddhist prophet Nichiren

Kublai Khan moves his administrative capital from Karakorum to what is now Beijing

Marco Polo is presented to Kublai Khan in Xanadu, and according to his own account makes a very good impression

With the fall of Hangzhou, the Song imperial capital, Kublai Khan's new Yüan dynasty is secure

Resistance from the last adherents of the Song dynasty is finally brought to an end, giving Kublai Khan control of a united China

Beijing (known to the Mongols as Khanbaliq, 'city of the khan', and to the Chinese as Dadu, 'great capital') becomes for the first time the capital of China

The Tibetan link with the Mongols brings Tibet within the Chinese empire of Kublai Khan

For the second time Japan is saved from Mongol invasion by powerful storms - which are given the name kamikaze, or 'divine wind'

Kublai Khan dies and is succeeded, as second emperor of the Yuan dynasty, by his grandson Temür

The plague which later becomes known as the Black Death makes its first appearance in China

The classic Chinese underglaze blue is perfected in the imperial ceramic factory at Jingdezhen

Chu Yüan-chang, leader of a peasant band, makes his headquarters in a town which he renames Nanking - 'southern capital'

Zhu Yuanzhang, a one-time Buddhist novice now leading a major rebellion against the Yuan dynasty, captures Nanjing and makes it his capital

Chu Yüan-chang drives the Mongols out of Beijing and declares a new dynasty - the Ming (meaning 'brilliant')

On the fall of the Yuan dynasty, replaced by the Ming, Tibet declares its independence from China

The third Ming emperor moves the capital from Nanjing to Beijing and begins laying out the Forbidden City

The Temple of Heaven in Beijing is built for the third emperor of the Ming dynasty

Zheng He, a Muslim eunuch, makes voyages of trade and exploration with a fleet of Chinese junks

Ptolemy's concept of the world, with the Atlantic stretching to China and India, is printed in Bologna – fifteen years before Columbus sails west

John Cabot, searching for a trade route to China, probably reaches Newfoundland