Marco Polo - Biography.

Marco Polo - Biography. Venetian traveler and author Birth 1254 Death 1324 Place of Birth Venice, Italy Known for Traveling to China Milestones 1271 Set out to travel to the Mongol Empire with his father Niccolò and uncle Maffeo 1275 Arrived at the court of Kublai Khan, Mongol ruler of China, in Shangdu 1275?-1292 Served as a diplomat for Kublai Khan and traveled extensively within the Mongol Empire 1292 Departed for Europe, accomplishing a final diplomatic mission for Kublai Khan in Persia on the way 1295 Arrived in Europe 1298 Was captured and imprisoned by the Genoese during a war between Venice and Genoa 1298 Dictated the story of his travels to fellow prisoner and romance writer Rustichello Did You Know Marco Polo's father and uncle made their first trip to China without him. For hundreds of years, Marco Polo's story was one of the only sources of European information about China. A lifelong storyteller, Polo became known as il milione ('the man with a million stories'). Christopher Columbus used Marco Polo's account of his travels to help estimate the distance involved in sailing west to China. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.