History Daily - Emperor Timur Captures Delhi

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

December 17, 1398. The mighty nomadic warlord Timur captures and sacks the Indian city of Delhi, causing the deaths of 100,000 people. This episode originally aired in 2024. Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more. History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.

It's 1363, somewhere in Khorasan, a territory in what is now southwest Afghanistan. Timor, a 27-year-old warrior, crouches behind a boulder. He glances to his side, making sure that the two men with him are also out of sight. They're about to launch a surprise attack, but Timor's intended targets today aren't other soldiers, they're sheep. A hundred yards away, a flock raises on the short stubble grass. Sheep rustling isn't how Timor wants to make ends meet. He can trace his ancestry back to the founder of the Mongol Empire, Genghis Khan. But Genghis died more than a century ago, and his realm fragmented after his death.

It's now controlled by dozens of warlords and distant relatives of the Khan like Tumor must survive in any way they can. Keeping his eyes on the sheet, Tumor gives his men a pre-range signal. The three rise in a low crouch and make their way toward the unsuspecting animals. But Tumor's only covered half the distance when there's a shower. from behind him in the startled sheep bolt. Amor whiffs his head around to see who made the noise. It's a shepherd running toward them, waving his hands.

Timor angrily pulls his sword from his belt, determined to punish the shepherd for disturbing his hunt. But before he can take more than a few steps, the shepherd drops to one knee and frees a bow from around his shoulders. With a practice hand, he quickly notches and releases an arrow. It shoots past Timor's head, and only seconds later another thumps into the ground near. his feet. The shepherd is obviously a skilled archer, so Tumor signals his companions to retreat.

But as he turns his back, Tumor feels an excruciating pain in his hand. An arrow has hit him. Tumor grits his teeth and starts to run. But another arrow buries itself in the flesh by his hip. Tumor sinks to one knee breathing hard. Pain is excruciating, but he's determined not to lose his life to a lowly shepherd. He forces himself up and hobbles away as quickly as he can. blood coursing down his leg and his face burning with humiliation. This encounter with a bow-wheeling shepherd will leave Timor with a lifelong limp. That will see him become known as Timor the Lane or Tamerlane to some. But Timor will overcome this setback, and his encounter with a shepherd will be one of the last times he's ever defeated by a foe.

Over the next four decades, Timor will rise to become a powerful warlord. City after city will fall to his armies, but none of his conquers. requests will be more famous or more bloody than his sack of Delhi on December 17, 1398. A quick word before we get to the rest of the episode. The first show of my live tour will be in Dallas, Texas on March 6th at the Granada Theater. We'll be exploring the days that made America through storytelling and music, and they aren't the days you might think. Sure, everyone knows July 4th, 1776, but there are many other days that are maybe even more influential. So come out to see me live in Dallas. For more information on tickets and upcoming dates, go to historydailylive.com.

That's historydaily live.com. Come see my Days That Made America Tour, live on stage. Go to Historydailylive.com. From Noisor in Airship, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily. History is made every day. On this podcast, every day, we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world. Today is December 17, 13, 19th, 1398. Emperor Timor captures Delhi. It's 1370 in Balk, a city ruled by Mongol warlords, seven years after Timor was wounded while trying to steal sheep. Timor is now 34 years old.

Ignoring the constant ache in his leg, he stands as tall as possible, trying to look regal and powerful. Shackled before him as Timor's brother-in-law Hussein, a rival warlord that Timor has just bested in battle. Over the last few years, Timor has carved out a reputation as a skilled fighter and general. And as word spreads of his prowess, more and more warriors flocked to his banner. Timor then married the sister of rival warlord Hussein, and for a while,

the two men formed an alliance, raiding neighboring territories and carrying off the plunder together. But the two men soon fell out over the question of how to deal with their defeated enemies. Hussein favored mercy for the vanquished, but Timor thought that was just weakness. The partnership between the two warlords became increasingly strained, but outright conflict was avoided thanks to the family ties between them. But a few months ago, Timor's wife died, and that freed Timor from any pretense of family loyalty. He marched his army into Hussein's territory and laid siege to the city of Balch. Now, after two days of fierce fighting, Hussein has just surrendered, and now he kneels, begging for his life. He offers to give over his city unconditionally as long as Timor spares him.

But Timor just spits on the ground and disgust. This is exactly the kind of weakness that Timor cannot abide. But with a dismissive gesture, Tumor agrees to the deal. The city of Balkh surrenders, and Tumor's warriors stream into the gates. But as soon as they've established control, Tumor goes back on his word. He gives the order for Hussein to be beheaded. Hussein protests, but Tumor cuts him off with a sneer, explaining that he's sticking to the terms of their agreement precisely.

He promised that he would spare Hussein. but he didn't say anything about what his men would do. Hussein's murder is more than just an act of cruelty. It's a signal to others that Tumor is not a man to be trifled with. Or at least this is what Tumor hopes. He needs to be seen as a strong leader because he's actually in a vulnerable position. He controls only a small region and is surrounded on all sides by other warlords who are all wary of his growing power.

If they united against him, Tumor wouldn't stand a chance. So for Tamor, going on the offense is the best form of defense. Over the next two decades, he wages seven different military campaigns, and one by one, the neighboring warlords all fall to Tumor's onslaught. And as is characteristic, Tumor shows no mercy as he crushes his opponents. Every rival that stands against him is put to the sword. Every settlement is plundered. Every building is burned, and civilians are slaughtered by the thousands.

Soon, Tumor declares himself the head of a new empire, because with his closest threats neutralized, Tumor has begun to think bigger. He's inspired by the example of his ancestor, Genghis Khan, who marched his armies from China to the gates of Europe. So Tumor turns his attention west to the rich lands of Persia. By now, Tumor's reputation precedes him, and in many cities the people simply surrender without a fight in the hope of being spared. So as his soldiers advance, Tumor's. Moore sends caravans of plunder back east to his home city of Samarkand.

Tumor's aim is to transform Samar Khan into the capital of the Islamic world, and it is Tumor's Muslim faith that decides who will be conquered next. For more than a century, the Muslim rulers of the Delhi Sultanate have controlled large parts of the Indian subcontinent. But many of their subjects are Hindu, and Tumor believes the sultans have been too tolerant of them. So he decides to take matters into his own hands. In September 1398, Tumor gathers 90,000 of his warriors and marches into India.

He heads straight for the heart of the sultanate, the city of Delhi itself. A long-running civil war within the sultanate means that its forces are weak and divided, and town after town fall, so that just three months after setting out, Tumor's army will be at the gates of Delhi. But the sultan there won't give up the city without a fight, and Tumor will be forced to work for one of the most famous victories of his long, military career. It's the morning of December 17, 1398, outside Delhi, a few days after Tumor laid siege to the city. Now in his early 60s, Tumor watches as hundreds of his soldiers

dig a ditch around his army encampment. He flexes his right hand in the cool winter air. As the ruler of an empire that now covers one and a half million square miles, Tumor is one of the most powerful men on the planet, but he's still troubled by the wounds he suffered more than three decades ago. His hand is missing two fingers where the shepherd's arrow found its mark, and that dull throb is a constant reminder to Tumor of the price of failure. A few days ago, Tumor's army arrived outside the walls of Delhi. Tumor hoped that Sultan Nassarud and Mahmoud would surrender without a fight, as so many of his enemies had done in the past. But the sultan decided to make a stand, so Tumor deployed his troops around the city

walls and prepared for battle. Digging a ditch around his camp, camp may seem an unusual tactic for an army based predominantly on mobile cavalry and mounted archers. But the garrison defending Delhi doesn't just have men at its disposal. It also has a number of war elephants. They are dangerous animals, protected by chain mail and with poison coating their tusks. The deep ditch is designed to keep Timor's army safe from these beasts if they break through the lines and get as far as the encampment, and the ditch is completed just in time. While Timor is overseeing the final excavations, Delhi's main gate opens and out-marches the Sultan's army and a company of war elephants trumpeting loudly.

But as intimidating as the elephants are, Tumor knows their weakness. They're afraid of fire. So Tumor orders his soldiers to strap bales of hay to the backs of camels and then light them ablaze. Tumor's soldiers prod the camels toward the enemy, and as they feel the heat on their backs, the animals panic and break into a run. The war elephants trumpet even louder, but now it's a scream of fear at the living torches racing toward them. The huge beasts turn and bolt, trampling many of the Sultan's army beneath their feet in their rush to escape the flames. With his enemy in disarray, Timor orders his men to attack.

His cavalry makes light work of picking off the fleeing troops, and by evening it's clear the city will soon fall. Knowing that Timor will show them no mercy, thousands of civilians flee Delhi that night, and among those who escape is Sultan Nasrud Mahmud, who abandons his wealthy capital and flees with his life. The next day, Tammu's soldiers sweep into Delhi unopposed. Over the next two weeks, they burn, pillage, and destroy everything they can get their hands on. Any citizens who are foolhardy enough to defend their possessions are slaughtered. The rest are enslaved.

Corpses pile up in the street, but Tumor won't let any of them be buried. He wants the bodies to act as a deterrent to anyone who might consider right. up against him, and soon the once magnificent city of Delhi is in ruins. Tumor orders his army back to Samarkand, but when he returns home, he has no time to rest. The western provinces of his empire have taken advantage of Tumor's absence and rebellion is brewing. Timor responds in his usual brutal manner, leading another campaign into the west, cracking down on any hint of descent and enslaving more than 60,000 people. With the rebellion crushed, Tumor heads back home.

home again, stopping off to sack the cities of Aleppo, Damascus, and Baghdad, and it's there that Tamur insists that every one of his soldiers present him with the heads of two slain enemies. The soldiers rushed through the city, massacring anyone they find, and when that isn't enough, they resort to beheading their own wives, rather than risk disappointing their emperor. But Tamur still isn't satisfied. If he's going to match the achievements of his forbear Gangus Khan, then he needs to expand his empire to the east. There, the Ming dynasty rules the vast realm of China, but Timor is confident the Ming emperors will have no answer to his battle-hardened and fanatically loyal troops. But

Timor will never get the chance to face the Ming in battle. Instead, he'll be confronted by a faceless foe that even he will have no answer to. Old age. It's February 1405 in Otre, on the eastern frontier of Timor's empire, seven years after the sack of Delhi. Timor lies sweating in his tent, vaguely aware of hushed voices whispering around him. A group of doctors are conferring, and from their worried expressions, Tumor can tell he's seriously ill. Two months ago, Tumor set out from Samar Khan at the head of an army of over 200,000 men. He intended to march them on a year-long expedition into the heart of Ming China and bring another ruler to his knees. But a few days ago, Timor fell ill, and his aging body struggled to fight off the sickness. Tumor soon had to order

his army to halt and set up camp to give him a chance to recover. Outside his tent, the cold wind whistles, and although Timor is shivering, the doctors say he's suffering from a fever, and they need to bring his temperature down. They summon servants to bring buckets of ice and pack it around his body, but Timor soon starts shaking uncontrollably. Eventually, the doctors confess that they don't know what else to do, that this might be one fight Timor cannot win. With what little strength he has left, Timor gathers his commanders and his wives to his bedside. In a weakened voice, he tells him that his empire should be divided up between his sons and grandsons after he dies,

just as the Mongol Empire was shared out between the descendants of Genghis Khan. And then, later that evening, at around 8 o'clock, Tomor draws his last breath. His body is taken back to Samarkand, and interred under a slab of black jade. But Samarkand is no longer the capital of a vast empire. Just as Timor decreed, his realm is dissolved upon his death and its various territories are ruled separately by his heirs. None of Timor's successors will ever reunite his empire, because none will ever display the necessary military talent and ruthless brutality.

Traits that Timor used to crush his opponents and conquer countless great cities, including Delhi, which felt the full force at Timor's terrible wrath on December 17, 1398. Next on History Daily. December 18th, 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court hands down a controversial decision upholding the constitutionality of Japanese internment camps during World War II. From Noisor and Airship, this is History Daily, posted, edited and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham, audio editing by Mohamed Shazi, sound designed by Mali Bond, music by Throne. This episode is written and researched by Rob Scrague, edited by Scott Reeves,

managing producer Emily Burke, executive producers, or William Simpson for airship and Pascal Hughes for Noisor.