The Baljuna Covenant was an oath sworn in mid-1203 by Temüjin—the future Genghis Khan (depicted)—and the Baljunatu, a small group of companions. Temüjin, khan of the Mongols, had steadily risen in power through the late 12th century in the service of Toghrul, the khan of the Kereit tribe. However, Temüjin was betrayed by Toghrul in early 1203 and subsequently suffered a decisive defeat. He retreated to Baljuna, an unidentified body of water in south-eastern Mongolia, and amidst deprivations swore an oath of mutual fidelity with his companions. Not only did the Covenant promote Temüjin's ideals of social equality, but the oath-takers were themselves ethnically and culturally diverse—among their number were Tengrists like Temüjin, Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists. Three years later in 1206, Temüjin entitled himself Genghis Khan at a kurultai and honoured the Baljunatu with the highest distinctions of his new Mongol Empire.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baljuna_Covenant
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1766:
As part of wider food riots, citizens in Nottingham, England, looted large quantities of cheese, with one man killed during attempts to restore order. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nottingham_cheese_riot
1879:
Qing China signed the Treaty of Livadia with the Russian Empire, but the terms were so unfavorable that the Chinese government refused to ratify the treaty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Livadia
1913:
The Shubert Theatre opened on Broadway with a production of Hamlet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shubert_Theatre_%28Broadway%29
1967:
Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first African-American justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurgood_Marshall
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
finial: 1. (architecture) Especially in Gothic architecture: an ornament, often in the form of a bunch or knot of foliage, on the peak of the gable of a roof, a pediment, a pinnacle, etc. 2. (by extension) Any decorative fitting on the corner, end, or top of an object such as a canopy, a fencepost, a flagpole, or the newel post of a staircase. 3. (figurative, also attributive) The completion or end of something. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/finial
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
The path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet that triple purity, in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it. That is why the world's praise fails to move me, indeed it very often stings me. To conquer the subtle passions seems to me to be harder far than the physical conquest of the world by the force of arms. Ever since my return to India I have had experience of the dormant passions lying hidden with in me. The knowledge of them has made me feel humiliated though not defeated. The experiences and experiments have sustained me and given me great joy. But I know that I have still before me a difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility. --The Story of My Experiments with Truth https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Story_of_My_Experiments_with_Truth