<p>Timur the Lame, so called because he walked with a limp since half of his body was paralyzed, was the warlord king of a nomadic tribe based in what is now present-day Uzbekistan, and was a total hardass. His name was later Westernized to Tamerlane when people finally came to the realization that even though he was gimpy there was nothing about him that was remotely lame.</p>
<p>Tamerlane (1336-1405) led his tribal army all around Central Asia, kicking the asses of anyone he met and pillaging or plundering any towns he came across. Though he thought of himself as the descendent of Chingis Khan destined to conquer an Empire greater than that of Alexander, he didn't have a whole lot of interest in governing such a huge area. So instead, he would just invade a country, kill anyone who crossed him and take all their shit back to his capital with him. It was kind of like the predecessor to running a "smash-and-grab" at the 7-11. Basically, he just ran around getting shit to make his palace kick ass and his capital city a center of culture. When he conquered the Ottoman Empire, he thought that the Byzantine gates to the capital city were so cool that he ripped them out of the wall and had them installed in his own capital. Not only that, but he also captured the Ottoman Sultan and his wives, kept the Sultan in a cage in his parlor and had his wives get naked and serve everyone food and drinks. So when his friends would come over he'd be like, "dude, check out these kickass gates, my badass pinball machine and a cage containing the Ottoman Sultan.". One time, he led his army into India, kicked the asses of the Indian army and captured the capital of Delhi for no reason at all. He occupied the town for like four days and then left with all the cool shit he could carry, just because he's hard like that.</p>
<p>Tamerlane, while reputedly intellectual and scholarly, was also ruthlessly bloodthirsty. He was notorious for creating gigantic pyramids of human skulls outside of towns he had sacked, so that even if everyone in the town was slaughtered people would still know that he was awesome. His strategy was to be so ridiculously over-the-top that nobody in their right minds would cross him. It only took the slaughter of a couple of towns before anyone that heard he was coming near instantly surrendered their town and all their worldly possessions to him. He was a total bastard, a brilliant military tactician, and someone who could kick your ass using only one-half of his body. During his lifetime he conquered all of Central Asia, Turkey, India and parts of Mongolia, but died on his way to a full-scale invasion of Ming China, whose asses he could have totally kicked.</p>
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