Börte

Börte Üjin was betrothed to Temüjin at a young age and married him at seventeen, around 1178. Soon after, she was kidnapped by a rival tribe — an act that provoked her husband's rescue mission, a campaign considered one of the key events that launched him on the path to becoming Genghis Khan. She became the head of his first Court and Grand Empress when he founded the Mongol Empire. She bore four sons and five daughters, and their descendants formed the primary bloodline through which the empire expanded. She died in 1230.