A letter from a distant land. In 1246 Güyük Khan came to power in a lavish ceremony attended by many foreign dignitaries - something unthinkable for a Khan but two generations earlier. But in that short space of time the Khanate had expanded voraciously, consuming kingdoms and spitting out corpses at a record-breaking rate. Word of the glory and horrors of the kingdom had spread as far west as the Vatican, and the ears of the then Pope, Innocent IV. Franciscan friar John Of Plano Carpini was dispatched with a letter from his holiness, calling on Güyük to act peacefully towards Christian lands and convert himself to Christianity. This was the great Khan's reply. How do we actually know about history? Voices of the Past is a channel dedicated to recreating the original accounts from the people who lived through events, or who lived far closer to them than we do today. We do this word for word, with an accompanying soundtrack of rousing music and images. — Thanks for watching! Don’t forget to subscribe for new videos every single week! & Let us know in the comments what you’d like to see covered in the future. — Become a patron for as little as a dollar a month & help keep this project going:- https://www.patreon.com/historytimeUK — Don’t forget to subscribe to our primary channel History Time, where we make full length historical documentaries:- https://www.youtube.com/historytime — History Time is now a podcast. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts from. —Join our community on social media:- Twitter:- https://twitter.com/HistoryTimeUK/ Facebook:- https://www.facebook.com/HistoryTimeOfficial/ Instagram:- https://www.instagram.com/historytime_ig/ — Music courtesy of:- - Epidemic Sound - Joss Edwards Music:- https://soundcloud.com/jossedwardsmusic * Kevin MacLeod — Voice actor & editor:- David Kelly We've compiled a reading list of our favourite history books via the Amazon influencer program. If you do choose t