Thanks, Genghis

Aside from all of the death and destruction and the pyramids of human skulls, it turns out that Genghis Khan was actually a pretty swell guy. Well, at least if you believe this Chinese guy, anyway.

Genghis Khan -- notorious as the ruthless, bloodthirsty creator of an empire that spanned Asia and Europe -- also laid the foundations for the Renaissance, China's Xinhua news agency said Thursday.

"Genghis Khan introduced papermaking and printing technologies to Europe and pioneered cultural exchanges between Asia and Europe," it quoted Zhu Yaoting, a specialist on Mongolian history at Beijing Union University, as saying.

"He brought cultural progress that helped liberate the Europeans from the bondage of theology -- in this sense, his expeditions served as a catalyst for the Renaissance," he said.

Genghis Khan's expeditions to Europe also reopened the Silk Road and laid the path for Marco Polo's historic trip to China.

You might want to take that with a grain of salt, though.

China has also in the past made numerous other unusual historical claims, including the contention the Chinese invented football and golf.

Uh, yeeeeeah. I guess those games just kind of, um, went out of style in China, huh?