Theodore defends his infant empire not only…

A fire breaks out in the Song Chinese capital city of Hangzhou, raging for four days and nights, destroying nearly sixty thousand homes over an area of more than three miles, killing fifty-nine people, and an unrecorded amount of other people who are trampled while attempting to flee.

The government provides temporary lodging for five thousand three hundred and forty-five people in nearby Buddhist and Taoist monasteries.

The collective victims of the disaster are given one hundred and sixty thousand strings of cash, along with four hundred tons of rice.

Some of the government officials who have lost their homes take up residence in rented boathouses on the nearby West Lake.

Genghis had led another raid into Western Xia in 1207, invading the Ordo region and sacking Wulahai, the main garrison along the Yellow River, before withdrawing in 1208.

Genghis now begins preparing for a full-scale invasion.

By invading Western Xia, he will gain a tribute-paying vassal, and also will take control of caravan routes along the Silk Road and provide the Mongols with valuable revenue.

Furthermore, from Western Xia, he can launch raids into the even more wealthy Jin dynasty.

Lembitu leads his Estonian resistance fighters in raiding the Russian town of Pskov, at this time a part of the Novgorod Principality.

Troops led by Estonian resistance fighter Lembitu of Lehola destroy a garrison of missionaries in the historical Estonian region of Sakala.

Qutb-ud-din Aibak, a capable Turkic general of Central Asian birth who had become Muḥammad Ghorī's closest advisor, first defeats Tajuddin Yildoz at Ghazni in 1208, after which …

…Aibak declares himself the first Sultan of Delhi, thus establishing the Mamluk Dynasty or Ghulam Dynasty, the first of five unrelated dynasties to rule India's Delhi Sultanate, the first Muslim state in India.

Kalámai, which had been an imperial center in the tenth century in the southern Peloponnese, becomes in 1208 a fief of Geoffrey de Villehardouin, nephew to the Marshal of Champagne and Romania of the same name, a knight and crusader who had gone to Palestine and later come to help William of Champlitte to conquer Morea.

He begins erecting his castle on a hill behind the city.

Bishop Foulques had participated in the initial preaching mission of Dominic de Guzman that was led by Dominic's superior, Bishop Diego of Osma.

He continues to support this new form of preaching after Bishop Diego's death by backing Dominic and his followers, eventually allotting the nascent Dominicans property and a portion of the tithes of Toulouse to ensure their continued success.

Durand of Huesca, one of Peter Waldo's early companions, had converted to Catholicism after debating with Bishop Diego and Dominic.

Durand later went to Rome where he professed the Catholic faith to Innocent III.

Innocent gives him permission to establish the Poor Catholics, a mendicant order, which continues the Waldensian preaching mission against the Cathars.

Recruits are taken from the Pauperes Lugdunenses (the original name of the Waldensians); the distinguishing name is given by Pope Innocent III. (The Franciscans and Dominicans, both of which form in this era, will later supplant the Poor Catholics.)

The Livs and their christened chief Caupo of Turaida had rebelled against the tightening grip of the German crusaders.

Caupo's forces had been defeated at Turaida in 1206, and the Livonians declared to be converted.

The Knights of the Sword, aided by the newly converted local tribes of Livs and Letts, initiate raids into part of what is present-day Estonia.

By 1208, the important Daugava River trade posts of Salaspils (Holme), …