After Johnny Caspar takes over as the ruling crime boss in Miller’s Crossing, acquiring new money and power, but also a whole lot of new headaches, he complains: “Runnin’ things… it ain’t all gravy.”
Caspar was only expressing something that all those in charge eventually discover, something that Kublai Khan, who was born on this day in 1215, would have been very familiar with.
Khan, grandson to Ghenghis, fought off all pretenders to the throne — including his younger brother — and expanded the Mongol empire until it encompassed a fifth of the planet’s inhabited territory.
