Right Place, Right Time

Genghis Khan's offensives and empire         historicair via Wikimedia Commons

History is full of right-place-right-time stories, but it takes more than that for one individual to emerge as the stand-out beneficiary of those factors. Such a one was the 13th century's Temujin, aka Genghis Khan, a leader whose name inspires curiosity, fear, and wonder even to this day. His Mongols swept out of their homeland in Mongolia to conquer most of Eurasia. Studies of the rings of area's trees show that he was able to accomplish this in great part as a result of a unique 15-year weather pattern that led to more grasses, which in turn led to more livestock and war horses. But it took a man like Genghis Khan to take advantage of that windfall: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140310-genghis-khan-mongols-mongolia-climate-change/