From the BBC "History" magazine and as extracted from the article "What was history's most dramatic year?".
Thanks to Nicholas Vincent, Professor of Medieval History at The University of East Anglia large portions copied almost in entirety without shame.
Dramatic in this instance within the context of the military dimension.
According to the Professor that year was: 1260!
Ain-Jalut. Mongol versus Mameluke. Jezreel Valley in what is now modern-day Israel.
"The battle of Ain-Jalut, fought in the Jezreel Valley north of Jerusalem on 3 September, 1260 marked a turning point in world history a great deal more significant than the little local difficulty of Hastings 200 years before." [William the Conqueror, the Norman Conquest of England, 1066.]
The Mongol having destroyed Baghdad and the Abbasid Caliphate [1258] their designs and intentions for further conquest moving westward toward the Mediterranean.
"The battle of Ain-Jalut, fought in the Jezreel Valley north of Jerusalem on 3 September, 1260 marked a turning point in world history a great deal more significant than the little local difficulty of Hastings 200 years before." [William the Conqueror, the Norman Conquest of England, 1066.]
The Mongol having destroyed Baghdad and the Abbasid Caliphate [1258] their designs and intentions for further conquest moving westward toward the Mediterranean.
"Instead at Ain Jalut, the Mongols were defeated by the rulers of Cairo. Against this resurgent power of Egypt, the few outposts of Christian rule in the Middle east stood little chance of survival. Within 30 years, what remained of the Crusader states had been swept away."
"From Ain Jalut flowed other consequences. The Mongol empire declined into civil war, and was never again to pose a serious threat to European stability. The regions south and east of the Mediterranean developed as an Arabic-speaking Islamic enclave, in rivalry with the Christian regions to the north and west. Rome's former empire was permanently cut in two. Christian dreams of conquest now shifted to the Baltic and Atlantic worlds"
Other English historians having their own perception of "history's most dramatic year" to include:
"From Ain Jalut flowed other consequences. The Mongol empire declined into civil war, and was never again to pose a serious threat to European stability. The regions south and east of the Mediterranean developed as an Arabic-speaking Islamic enclave, in rivalry with the Christian regions to the north and west. Rome's former empire was permanently cut in two. Christian dreams of conquest now shifted to the Baltic and Atlantic worlds"
Other English historians having their own perception of "history's most dramatic year" to include:
* 30 B.C. * 1492 * 1572 * 1956. I elaborate no further.
coolbert.