On the morning of August 15th, 1281, the sky darkened over Kyushu, the most southerly of the main islands of the Japanese archipelago. The threatening clouds marked the arrival of a typhoon, which laid waste the island throughout the remainder of the day. The storm is remembered in Japanese history as the "Divine Wind"; it saved the nation from domination by the Mongol Emperor, Kubla Khan.
For generations of students of English literature, Kubla Khan is recalled only as the eccentric architect of a surreal palace, made famous by the catchy verse of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree;
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
Kubla in real life, however, was a fierce warlord, and grandson of Ghengis Khan. He ruled the Mongol Empire for most of the second half of the 13th century, and in 1274 he sent a naval expedition of 900 vessels to invade Japan.
They landed in Hakata Bay on Kyushu, and the Mongols terrorised the locals and laid waste the island - until a fierce November gale destroyed many of the ships, and forced the remainder to withdraw.
Now, not unnaturally, Kubla Khan was outraged at this unexpected setback to his plans. By 1281 his forces had regrouped, and he sent 4,000 ships to undertake a new assault. By June the invaders were again on Kyushu, but before they could become established, the weather once again declared which side it favoured. The typhoon arrived on the morning of this day 720 years ago. Desperate to escape its devastation, the Mongol fleet made for open water, but a tidal surge on Hakata Bay swept the hapless vessels backwards to the shore; more than half the invaders were immediately killed or drowned, their ships were reduced to a worthless pile of splinters, and those that made the shore were slaughtered by the reinvigorated Japanese.
Not surprisingly, the Mongols, thereafter, lost all taste for any further adventures in Japan.
Their rescue by the elements made a powerful impression on the Japanese, and has been celebrated in their folklore as an intervention by the gods. The timely storms of 1274 and 1281 became the Kamikaze, the "Divine Winds" - a symbol that the Japanese would always overcome their foreign enemies, no matter what the odds. Some 700 years later the persistence of this belief was evident when kamikaze pilots crashed their explosive-laden aircraft onto American ships in the Pacific.