Hulegu sacks Baghdad. This comes after the campaign against the Nizaris (a branch of Ismaili Shias that included the famous Assassins). Hulegu proceeds towards the Levant, taking Aleppo and Damascus in early 1260.

This typically marks the end of the Abbasid Caliphate, although Abbasid caliphs were retained as a ceremonial ornament in Mamluk Cairo from 1261 until the Ottoman conquest in 1517.