00:00Did you know the most feared army in history was stopped by soldiers who were once sold as slaves?
00:04By 1260, the Mongols had burned Baghdad to the ground.
00:08They killed the caliph.
00:10They ended five centuries of Islamic civilization in a single week.
00:13Every army that stood against them had been destroyed.
00:16Nobody stopped the Mongols, until the Mamluks did.
00:19The Mamluks were slave soldiers.
00:21Captured as boys, mostly from the steppes of Central Asia,
00:24trained from childhood to fight,
00:26and forged into the most disciplined cavalry force the Islamic world had ever produced.
00:30On September 3rd, 1260, they met the Mongol army at Ain Jalu in Palestine.
00:36The Mamluks didn't run.
00:37They held the line, drew the Mongols into a trap, and shattered them in open battle.
00:42It was the first time in history the Mongols had been decisively defeated in the field.
00:46Here is the part that stays with you.
00:48The Mongols built their enemies better than themselves.
00:50They displaced entire peoples, scattered warriors across the world,
00:54and one of those peoples turned around and broke them.
00:57What you create to serve, you can become the thing that stops you.
