The boy born on the Onon River became the ruler of the largest land empire in history. This route follows him from the steppe camps of Khentii, through the war that began at a border town in Kazakhstan, to the siege of Samarkand and a death in the middle of a campaign.
The sources disagree on his birth year, his birthplace and his grave. Where the Secret History of the Mongols gives a legend and other sources give the record, the stops say which is which.
In spring 1453 Sultan Mehmed II besieged the last Byzantine capital with a new fortress, huge cannons and ships hauled over a hill. Constantine XI held out for weeks, and the city fell on 29 May.
This route follows the siege in order: the fortress on the Bosphorus, the chain across the Golden Horn and the ships that bypassed it, the land-wall gates, and Hagia Sophia. Exact positions of some events are not recorded, so several pins are approximate.
Harriet Tubman escaped slavery in 1849 and then went back to Maryland about 13 times, bringing out some 70 people. Her work depended on a chain of Quakers, free Black ministers and abolitionists who hid and moved people north.
The route follows that chain from the Eastern Shore through Wilmington and Philadelphia to Niagara and Salem Chapel in St. Catharines, then to her farm at Auburn. Real routes were kept secret, so most pins are approximate.
A boy born in Eisleben becomes a monk, a professor and the man who defied an emperor. Along the way he vows in a thunderstorm, challenges the church over indulgences, is spirited away in disguise and ends his life where it began.
The route follows Luther through seven places in Germany: his birth house, the Erfurt monastery, the Wittenberg church doors, the Diet of Worms, the Wartburg, his Wittenberg home and the house where he died. The Worms pin is approximate, and the Castle Church doors story is tradition.
A few hundred Cossacks, a Stroganov fortress on the Kama and a khan's capital on the Irtysh: in four years Yermak turned a raid into the Russian entry into Siberia.
The route follows the campaign from Orel-gorodok over the Urals to the battle at Chuvash Cape, the fall of Qashliq, Yermak's death at the Vagay and the founding of Tobolsk. Dates differ between chronicles and modern sources, and the sources mark the death site and the legends as uncertain; the notes at each stop say which.
Cut off from the rest of the country, Leningrad lived through the winter of 1941–42 on 125 grams of bread a day, half of it sawdust. This route follows the siege through the places that carried the city through: a fortress island, an ice road, a seed bank, a diary, a symphony.
It runs from the first day of the encirclement to the memorials that came after, and keeps to documented facts. Several stops are memorials: please visit with respect.
In March 1917 Nicholas II came home from abdication to the palace where his family had lived as emperor and empress. Sixteen months later none of them was alive. In between lay exile: first under the Provisional Government, then under the Bolsheviks, ever farther east.
The route follows that road from the Alexander Palace through the governor's house in Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg and the forest sites nearby, where the story ended and where it was later argued over. It is told plainly, and the final stops are places of mourning for many visitors.
In 1937 Amelia Earhart tried to become the first woman to fly around the world, on a roughly equatorial route. Two attempts, a crash in Hawaii and a lost radio signal over the Pacific turned her flight into one of history's great mysteries.
The route follows both attempts, from Oakland and Pearl Harbor to Miami, Lae and Howland Island, and ends at Nikumaroro, where one theory says she and her navigator came down. That final stop is only a hypothesis.
On 16 September 1810 a parish priest in a small Mexican town called his parishioners to arms, and within weeks a vast, ill-armed army was marching on the capital. Miguel Hidalgo's revolt began Mexico's war of independence.
The route follows it from the plot in Querétaro and the Cry of Dolores through the storming of the Alhóndiga in Guanajuato, the near-miss at Mexico City and the defeat at Calderón Bridge, to the ambush in Coahuila and the execution in Chihuahua. Violence is part of the story and is named plainly.
In the autumn of 1600 two armies met at Sekigahara to decide who would hold power after Toyotomi Hideyoshi. One day in the fog gave Tokugawa Ieyasu a decisive victory and put him on the road to the shogunate.
The route follows the campaign from the siege of Fushimi to the castles of Mino, the field of Sekigahara, the fall of Mitsunari's Sawayama and his burial in Kyoto, and ends at Edo Castle in 1603. Dates inside Japan's old calendar are labelled as such.
In September 1799 the Russian field marshal Suvorov led his army into Switzerland to join the Allied forces, only to find his allies failing him. He fought through the Alps, crossed high passes and ended in Chur.
The route follows the march from Taverne to Chur. Dates are Gregorian (New Style), and pins mark villages or passes rather than battlefields.
In March 1697 a great Russian embassy left Moscow for Europe, and the tsar went with it incognito as "Peter Mikhailov", though at 2.03 metres he was one of the tallest men around. He worked in shipyards, studied gunnery and tried to broaden the Holy League against the Ottoman Empire.
The route follows the journey stop by stop: Riga and Königsberg, the Dutch shipyards, London and Deptford, then Vienna and the meeting with Augustus II at Rava-Ruska. Dates follow each source: the Dutch article uses the Gregorian calendar, the English and Russian sources the Old Style, so the labels say which.
In 1751 the Qianlong Emperor left Beijing for the first of six tours south to Jiangnan, the last in 1784. Much of the way ran along the Grand Canal, and the tours took in the dikes of the Huai, the cities of Jiangnan and the holy sites of Shandong.
This route follows the first two tours. In 1751: the Hongze Lake embankment, West Lake and Mount Tai. In 1757: Yangzhou, Suzhou and Qufu. Dates follow the Chinese lunar calendar used in the court records.
Lin Zexu's crackdown on the opium trade in Canton in 1839 set off a war that ended three years later with a treaty signed on a British warship in the Yangtze. The route follows it from the Pearl River to Nanjing.
Seven stops cover the confiscation, the destruction of the opium at Humen, the clashes at Chuenpi and Dinghai, the raising of the flag at Hong Kong, the fall of Zhenjiang and the treaty talks at Jinghai Temple. Several places have changed beyond recognition, which the notes mark.
A poet who nearly lost his head for his verses, Su Shi (Su Dongpo) was banished to Huangzhou, Huizhou and Hainan, and wrote some of his best work in exile.
The route follows his life in order, from his family home in Sichuan through the 1079 trial, three places of banishment, and his death at Changzhou in 1101. Several stops are rebuilt memorials or city-level markers, and each says so.
China's first emperor unified the warring states in 221 BC and spent his last decade building: a capital, canals, walls, palaces and a vast tomb. Some of what is told about him is documented history; some is legend.
This route visits seven places tied to him, from Xianyang to the Terracotta Army. Stops marked as legend or speculative (the elixir quest on Zhifu Island, the lost course of the Qin wall) are kept apart from sites that archaeology has confirmed.
On 6 August 1945 an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima; three days later, another on Nagasaki. This route follows the two days on the ground, from the bridge that served as the aiming point to the places that survived or were rebuilt.
It starts in Hiroshima at Aioi Bridge, the hypocenter and the Dome, then moves to Nagasaki's hypocenter, cathedral and shrine, and ends with the two museums and parks built in 1955. Death tolls are estimates and are given as the ranges researchers publish.
In July 1853 four black warships anchored off Uraga and ended more than two centuries of Japanese seclusion. Within a year, Commodore Matthew Perry had delivered a president's letter, signed a treaty and opened two ports.
The route follows his two voyages: from the Ryukyu court at Shuri to Uraga, Kurihama, the treaty at Yokohama and the temples of Shimoda. Perry also visited Hakodate in 1854, but that stop is not included.
Between 1180 and 1185 Japan's two great warrior clans, Taira and Minamoto, fought over the realm, and the war ended with a child emperor, a fleet and the tide at Dan-no-ura. It was the war that led to the first shogun.
This route visits seven battlefield sites in date order, from the bridge at Uji to the Kanmon Straits. Documented events are kept apart from the Heike Monogatari's legends, which the text attributes to the tale. Most battle areas are approximate.
In April 1701 a lord drew a blade inside Edo Castle, and two years later forty-seven of his leaderless samurai stormed the mansion of the man he had attacked. The documented story runs from a corridor in Edo, through a surrendered castle and a quiet retreat near Kyoto, to a night raid and a temple cemetery in Tokyo.
The route sticks to dated events and places. The legend of Chūshingura, the later play, is kept to the final stop, where it is set apart from what happened.
Two of Mexico's best-known painters married in 1929 and spent decades making art in one city: she in the family house where she was born, he on the walls of its palaces.
The route runs from Frida's Blue House through Rivera's murals, the twin studio houses in San Ángel and the Trotsky house nearby, to the museum pyramid Diego built for his collection.
In 1819 Bolívar led an army from the flooded Llanos over the Páramo de Pisba, a pass 3,960 metres high that had been left unguarded because it seemed impassable. Weeks later he won at Boyacá and entered Santa Fe.
The route follows him from the Congress of Angostura through the freezing crossing, the standoff at Gámeza and the lancers' charge at Vargas Swamp to the Boyacá bridge and the capital. Several stops are approximate, since the sources name regions rather than exact spots.
In January 1817 General José de San Martín led an army out of Mendoza and over the Andes to free Chile from Spanish rule. The crossing took 21 days, and the feat has been compared to Hannibal's and Napoleon's crossings of the Alps.
The route follows the campaign from the hill monument in Mendoza and the El Plumerillo camp, over the two passes the columns used, to the victories at Chacabuco and Maipú. The mountain stops are pinned approximately; the passes are long, and the army's exact tracks are not.
In November 1532 Francisco Pizarro reached Cajamarca with 110 foot soldiers and 67 cavalry. Within a day he had captured the Inca emperor Atahualpa, and a year later the Spanish entered Cusco, the Inca capital.
The route follows Pizarro from his first landfall at Tumbes in 1528 through the first Spanish town in Peru and the Ransom Room in Cajamarca to the Sun Temple in Cusco and, finally, Lima, the city he founded and where he was killed. The conquest is told from the places where it happened; the first two pins are only approximate.
