Timur, also called Timur Lenk, Turkish for Timur the Lame, English Tamerlane or Tamburlaine 1336-1405
Tatar conqueror

Born in Kesh, near Samarkand, he proclaimed himself Mongol Khan in 1370. In a series of devastating wars (in which he sustained the wounds which gave him his nickname) he subdued nearly all Persia from 1392 to 1396, Georgia, and the Tatar Empire, and conquered all the states between the River Indus and the lower Ganges, with his army of nomadic Turks and Mongols. He won Damascus and Syria from the Mamluk sovereigns of Egypt, then defeated the Turks at Ankara (1402), taking Sultan Bayezit I prisoner. He died while marching to conquer China. Although he was always a peripatetic ruler, his capital, Samarkand, was filled with splendid architectural monuments, covered with brightly coloured mosaics.