Genghis Khan

[chongjasmine]

I read somewhere that he or his descendants managed to conquer half of the world. So, which part of the world had he conquered? And did his conquering of so many parts of the world, bring with it the prosperity of trade?

[The Ace]

There are whole libraries on this.

In a nutshell, after the conquest of China, his hordes struck Westward, engulfing the Soviet Union (inaccurate term, but everybody knows where it is), Asia, Eastern Europe and parts of the Middle East.

The dynasty accumulated fabulous wealth, controlled most of the world's trade routes and was baulked only by Japan.

When the last of the great Khans (Kublai ?) died, the whole thing vanished, practically overnight, it's still one hell of a story, though.

[Dozmonic]

There's speculation that had Ogedai survived longer, the Mongols would have continued to crush the majority of Europe too

[Dave]

Genetic Genealogy has discovered that vast numbers of men in central Asia carry his Y chromosome:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_from_Genghis_Khan

DNA evidence - The Ian Ashworth Effect

Zerjal et al. [2003] identified a Y-chromosomal lineage present in about 8% of the men in a large region of Asia (about 0.5% of the men in the world). The paper suggests that the pattern of variation within the lineage is consistent with a hypothesis that it originated in Mongolia about 1,000 years ago (thus several generations prior to the birth of Genghis). Such a spread would be too rapid to have occurred by genetic drift, and must therefore be the result of selection. The authors propose that the lineage is carried by likely male-line descendants of Genghis Khan and his close male relatives, and that it has spread through social selection. Both due to the power that Khan and his direct descendants held and a society which allowed one man to have many children through having multiple wives and widespread rape in conquered cities.

According to Family Tree DNA, Genghis Khan is believed to have belonged to Haplogroup C3.

So, your idea that "his descendants managed to conquer half of the world" is true in that sense.