4 CENTRAL ASIA
In 1505, the Uzbeks invaded the south-central area of Samarkand, Bukhara, and Tashkent (including the area also known as Khorezm). In Tibet, the name “Dalai Lama” was given to a Tibetan monk, Sonam Gyatso, by a 16th century Mongol ruler. Farther north, a revived Mongol power under Altan Khan (1550-73) pressured the Chinese. In the west, the first advance into Siberia by the Cossack chieftan, Yermak Timofeyevich (1532-1585), heralded the Russian eastward migration. In the 16th century, Siberia was occupied by Turko-Mongolian tribes who lived in small, isolated communities who survived by tending reindeer herds. North of the Ural Mountains, the Eurasian Nenets herded reindeer and hunted seals and whales in the Arctic Ocean.
Sonam Gyatso is the first to have the title Dalai Lama. He was born in 1543 near Lhasa. (Source: Wikimedia)
