1221

Events

* January - The Mongol Army under Jochi captures the city of Gurganj (now Kunya-Urgench), and massacres the inhabitants, reported by contemporary scholars as being over a million killed, although probably only a fifth or a tenth of that in reality.
* February - Merv is sacked by the Mongols under Tolui at the orders of Genghis Khan. Contemporary scholars report over a million people are systematically killed in the aftermath.
* May 13 - Emperor Juntoku is briefly succeeded by Emperor Chūkyō on the throne of Japan.
* Former Emperor Go-Toba leads an unsuccessful rebellion against the Kamakura Shogunate.
* Emperor Go-Horikawa ascends to the throne of Japan.
* The Maya of the Yucatán revolt against the rulers of Chichen Itza.
* Nizhny Novgorod City (Russia) is founded.
* A large and highly efficient Mongol army, dispatched under Subutai by Genghis Khan to Georgia, defeats two Georgian armies around Tbilisi, but lacks the will or equipment to besiege the city.
* Genghis Khan enters the Indus Valley.
* Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II founds the University of Padua in Italy.
* Sultan Kamil, Saladin's nephew and successor, offers Palestine to the Crusaders in return for Damietta, which the Crusaders eventually give up in exchange for a safe retreat from the Nile Delta.

Births

* October 9 - Salimbene di Adam, Italian chronicler
* November 23 - King Alfonso X of Castile (d. 1284)
* Bonaventure, Italian theologian and saint (d. 1274)
* Boleslaus the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland (d. 1279)

Deaths

* August 6 - Saint Dominic, Spanish founder of the Dominicans (b. 1170)
* October 4 - William III Talvas, Count of Ponthieu (b. 1179)
* October 21 - Alix of Thouars, Duchess of Brittany (b. 1201)
* Roger Bigod, 2nd Earl of Norfolk