Mongolia's history is wonderfully colourful and even though by 1900 the country had only 1 million people the stories of nomadic fighting, clan rivalry and in the mid 13th century, near global domination all make it somewhat interesting! The History Museum in Ulaan Baatar is a good place to start your Mongolian journey though as an appetizer, here follows a potted history of Mongolia. As a point of clarification, the country has gone through a number of names including Outer Mongolia, The Mongolian People's Republic and today, just simply Mongolia.
Recent research has shown that human life in Mongolia existed as far back as the lower Palaeolithic era (some 50,000 years ago) and the country's oldest rock carvings date back to this period. Swiftly moving on .......... more recent early Mongolian history was not written down and instead it is learnt from countryside songs and Chinese manuscripts. We know that there were a Turkic speaking people living in Mongolia by the 4th century BC. It is understood that the Turkic's bad relations with the Chinese had them, as nomadic herdsmen, keep themselves primarily to themselves.

By the 7th century we know that it was the Uighurs (originating from the area around Kashgar and still Turkic speakers) that were the dominating clan in the country. The Uighurs were very civilized and living as Nomads they believed that everyone should help someone in need - a Mongolian tradition that lives on until this day with passing strangers being offered accommodation in Nomad's countryside Gers - the reasoning from the host family being, maybe they will need such assistance in return one day. The Uighurs also introduced Mongolia's original script (Aramaic based) that was in use until Lenin demanded, in 1940, that the Russian Cyrillic script be used instead. From the Uighurs' decline as the dominant tribe in the early 10th century, there were numerous clans bidding for domination and as the only commonality between the tribes was opposing Chinese oppression there was a minimal likelihood of any one tribe dominating. That was, however, only until 1189.

The year 1189 was a watershed for Mongolia and the start of what became known as the Mongol Empire as the famed Temujin had pulled together many of the arguing tribes and fought off the Tartars and other tribes opposing Mongolia. It was in this year that he gave himself the title, Chinggis Khan or 'Universal King'. Chinggis Khan and his grandson Kublai are without a doubt the most famous Mongolians of all time. By 1206 Chinggis felt that he had conquered enough territory and the Mongolian Empire should be established. Its capital was built in Kharkhorin and from here Chinggis led his conquering missions to the far corners of the Asian and European continents. He and his armies easily took Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and marched on towards the Caspian Sea, sadly causing terrible damage enroute with an almost total destruction of the great Central Asian cities of Bukhara, Samarkand and Heart. Chinggis returned to Kharkhorin in 1225 and died only two years later though as a bloodline had been established his sons took over the Chinggis legacy.
By 1241 the Mongolian troops had almost reached Kiev when the news of family deaths at home forced the soldiers of royal blood to return to Mongolia whilst in 1259 Egypt was spared for the same reason. The Khans were beginning to lose sight of their goals until Kublai Khan, Chinggis' grandson was appointed as the Khan in 1259 and was described by Marco Polo on his travels in China as 'the most powerful possessor of people, treasures and lands, that has ever been'. From then China wasn't to be spared as Kublai Khan's armies marched south easily taking Beijing and then the Capital of the Southern Song Dynasty in Hangzhou in 1276. Kublai Khan still wanted more land under his control though growth problems were beginning to be apparent - large chunks of the world were now run by a few nomadic Mongol tribesmen and when battles in Java and Japan went badly it was decided to consolidate the Empire at the size it was. Kublai's legacy in China was excellent and he was responsible for much of the early infrastructure including the extension of the Grand Canal system that allowed food stuffs to be shipped along inland waterways from the countryside to the large cities. Kublai was also friendly to foreign trade and China's Yuan Dynasty that the Mongols ran was an era of greatly increased global trade. Kublai also banned barter, introducing paper money for transactions whilst also establishing what is believed to be one of the world's earliest postal services.
The period of Chinggis and Kublai was Mongolia's absolute high point and with the death of Kublai in 1294 the Mongolian Empire almost immediately started to wane. The Mongolians were thrown out of China in 1368 with the beginning of China's Ming Dynasty and went running home to resume their previous nomadic lifestyle. Local civil wars between warring tribes also resumed. Until the 1730's there is little of much significance in Mongolia's development with the notable exception of Buddhism being introduced from Tibet in the mid 1570's and the building of Erdene Zuu Temple.
The beginning of Mongolia's painful recent history started in the mid 18th century when the Manchu army (Manchuria being in Northern China) was invited to help defeat aggressors from Central Asia. The Manchu's came but unfortunately for the Mongolians, stayed and it was only with the fall of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China in 1911, with the abdication of Pu Yi - China's 'Last Emperor', that Mongolia was able to declare Independence from the Chinese.

Over the next thirteen years Mongolia was put into a terrible state of flux:

1911 - Independence from Manchu China
1915 - Russia and China recognized Mongolia as an independent country
1917 - Russian revolution
1919 - A Chinese warlord occupied Ulaan Baatar
1921 - Anti-communist Russians 'liberated' Ulaan Baatar
1921 - Mongolian Communists and Russian Bolsheviks captured Ulaan Bataar
1921 - 'People's Government of Mongolia' was established
1924 - Death of the 8th Bogd Khan and The Mongolian People's Republic declared. Mongolia formally became a satellite state of the USSR.
1928 - Stalin took 'absolute power' over Mongolia and by the mid-1930's religion was declared illegal and over 17, 000 monks were tortured and killed and all the monasteries closed or destroyed.
Life for ordinary Mongolians was extremely tough - not only were they living under a devilish regime but they also still had to contend with the nomadic lifestyle (including livestock being forcibly taken by the government) as well as Mongolia's harsh winters. In the 1920's when the USSR 'took over' Mongolia the country's population was only about 1 million people, of which 20% were monks in over 800 monasteries. Mongolians had no choice but to make the most of the situation they found themselves in and certainly the fortitude of the Mongolians and their 'help thy neighbour' approach to life served them well during these difficult years.

As Communism crumbled in the USSR, Mongolia saw pro-democracy demonstrations in March 1990 and within a couple of months Soviet advisors were sent home and free elections were called, which perhaps not surprisingly elected the Communist Party. Although the Democratic Party had strong urban support those in the countryside hadn't been part of any organized democracy movement and they voted for the familiar. Very quickly Mongolia has emerged as one of the freest economies in the world and though it has not been an easy path, Mongolia is now a country with elected leaders and a market economy.