The Khmer Empire, at its greatest extent in the early thirteenth century, encompasses the regions of present Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and southern Vietnam.

After the death of Jayavarman VII in 1219, his son Indravarman II had ascended the throne.

Like his father, he is a Buddhist, and completes a series of temples begun under his father's rule.

As a warrior he is less successful.

Under mounting pressure from increasingly powerful Dai Viet, and its Cham allies, the Khmer had withdrawn in the year 1220 from many of the provinces previously conquered from Champa.

In the west, …

…Indravarman’s Thai subjects rebel, establish the first Thai kingdom at Sukhothai, and push back the Khmer.

The Tais, or Thais, wet rice cultivators who began migrating into the watery Chao Phraya basin from south China in the eleventh century to exploit the region’s agricultural potential, establish the state of Sukhothai (“Dawn of Happiness”) under Khmer suzerainty.

Tai kingdoms had existed prior to the thirteenth century, on the northern highlands including the Ngoenyang (centered on Chiang Saen; predecessor of Lanna) kingdom and the Heokam (centered on Chiang Hung, modern Jinghong in China) kingdom of the Tai Lue people.

Sukhothai had been a trade center and part of Lavo, which was under the domination of the Khmer Empire.

The migration of Tai people into upper Chao Phraya valley was somewhat gradual.

Modern historians state that the secession of Sukhothai from the Khmer empire began as early as 1180 during the reign of Po Khun Sri Naw Namthom, who was the ruler of Sukhothai and the peripheral city of Sri Satchanalai (now a part of Sukhothai Province as Amphoe).

Sukhothai had enjoyed a substantial autonomy until it was re-conquered around 1180 by the Mons of Lavo under Khomsabad Khlonlampong.

Two brothers, Po Khun Bangklanghao and Po Khun Phameung (Po Khun is a Siamese title of high nobility), the Thai governors of, respectively, Ban Yang and Rad, had rebelled against Khmer rule in 1238 to overpower the Mon kingdom of Dvaravati.

The brothers take Sukhothai, since the eleventh century a viceroyalty under the Khmer Empire, from Mon hands and in 1239 establish the Thais’ first truly independent kingdom in Sukhothai.

Bangklanghao rules Sukhothai as Sri Indraditya and begins the Phra Ruang Dynasty, soon expanding his primordial kingdom to the bordering cities.

In the following two hundred years, the Thais will become the chief rivals of the Khmer state.

General Meng defeats the Mongols in 1239 and retakes Xiangyang; he will contest for years with the Mongols over control of Sichuan.

Batu advances toward Novgorod in 1239 but is forced to turn back  after becoming bogged down in a muddy spring thaw.

He rests throughout the remainder of 1239 until fresh Mongol troops and horses replenish the heavy losses of the recent campaigns.

The Mongols and Turkic auxiliaries under Batu attack the Alans and the Cumans in the steppe to the north of the Black Sea in 1239, driving some two hundred thousand Cumans west of the Carpathian mountains.

Béla IV of Hungary grants asylum in 1239 to the Cumans and their prince Kuthen, who had earlier tried unsuccessfully to organize Russian resistance to the Mongols.

Béla accepts the Cumans' pledge of forty thousand warriors to the defense of Hungary.

Wenceslaus and Frederick find an additional ally in the person of Otto II Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria.

In June 1239, Wenceslaus and Otto leave the Reichstag at Eger, abandoning the service of excommunicated Emperor Frederick II.

Despite their intent to elect an antiking, no such election will take place until 1246.

Konrad I, Duke of Masovia in northeastern Poland, had in 1226, appealed to the Knights to defend his borders and subdue the pagan Baltic Prussians, allowing the Teutonic Knights use of Chelmno Land (Culmerland) as a base for their campaign.

This being a time of widespread crusading fervor throughout Western Europe, Hermann von Salza, grand master of the Teutonic Knights from 1210, had considered Prussia a good training ground for his knights for the wars against the Muslims in Outremer.

Accepting the invitation to settle, the Teutonic knights have moved north and established a stronghold at Thorn (Torun) on the Vistula River in northwestern Poland and begun the conquest and forced Christianization of the pagan Prussians to the east.

With the Golden Bull of Rimini, Emperor Frederick II had bestowed on the Order a special imperial privilege for the conquest and possession of Prussia, including Chelmno Land, with nominal papal sovereignty.

In 1235, the Teutonic Knights had assimilated the smaller Order of Dobrzyń, which had been established earlier by Christian, the first Bishop of Prussia.

Under von Salza’s leadership, the order has begun to carve out for itself the military-monastic state of Prussia, currently peopled by the original Prussians, pagan peoples who have thus far resisted outside control.

Hermann's subsequent visits with the Pope or the Emperor have brought new privileges and donations to the Order.

He was also able to obtain the incorporation of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword into the Teutonic Order in 1237.

Within the Teutonic Order, however, the knights had begun to grow dissatisfied at the absence of their Grand Master, so they had recalled him and had him withdraw from his political life.

However, he is less successful as a religious leader, and soon retired in 1238 to Salerno in 1238, where he dies the following year.

The importance of Hermann's role as mediator between Pope Gregory IX and the emperor can be seen by the fact that all communication between Frederick and the pope breaks off with Hermann's death.

At Salza’s death in 1239, the Poles attempt unsuccessfully to assert their claim to suzerainty over the Knights, who continue carving their state from the territory of the Prussians.

Razia is the first and last woman ruler of Delhi Sultanate.

(According to one source, Iltumish's eldest son had initially been groomed as his successor, but had died prematurely.)

As a child and adolescent, Razia had had little contact with the women of the harem, so she had not learned the customary behavior of women in the Muslim society that she was born into.

Even before she became Sultan, she was reportedly preoccupied with the affairs of state during her father's reign.

Almost immediately after his death, the Sultanate loses parts of Rajasthan.

Raziya attempts to recapture these areas, but her armies, faced with fierce resistance and guerilla warfare, fail in their efforts.

As Sultan, Razia prefers a man's tunic and headdress; contrary to custom, she will later show her face when she rides an elephant into battle at the head of her army.

A shrewd politician, Razia has managed to keep the nobles in check, while enlisting the support of the army and the populace.

Her greatest accomplishment on the political front is to manipulate rebel factions into opposing each other.

At this point, Razia seems destined to become one of the most powerful rulers of the Delhi Sultanate.

The Ayyubid dynasty is riven by internal quarrels following the death of Sultan al-Kamil in 1238.

The primary instigators are the slave army, the Mamluks (literally, “owned”), originally recruited as young boys from enslaved non-Arab people, first of Turkic and later of other ethnic groups, who are then converted to Islam, imported to serve various traditional Muslim rulers after training as soldiers and officials, and set free.