When the Kayı tribe of Oğuz Turks arrived in Anatolia, the Seljuk Sultan concentrated them at Söğüt on the frontier with Byzantium. They soon deciared independence, quickly expanded and captured Prusa (modern-day Bursa). The judicious piety of the Ottomans soon won them the support of the general population of their territories, and even some of Christian brotherhoods. By 1362, with the Ottoman capture of Adrianople (now Edirne), Byzantium had been reduced to the city-state of Constantinople. The threat to the city increased but had been delayed by occasional support to Byzantine rulers by the Latin West (crusaders). Finally in 1453, Sultan Mehmet Il, "the Conqueror", entered Constantinople after a 54-day siege through the walis of Theodosius and brought an end to the Byzantine Empire. The city was rebuilt and repopulated over the years and attracted the Jews, Christians and Muslims from alt over the empire.
Mehmet and his successors, particulariy Süleyman the Magnificent pushed the frontiers of the empire across from Algiers to the Caspian Sea and from Hungary to the Persian Gulf. Much of western Europe only just escaped conquest when an Ottoman arrny was driven back from the gates of Vienna in 1529. This proved to be the apex of the ernpire which for the next 400 years endured incapable rulers, powerful reformers, revolutions and countless wars, ambitious women and intricate politicking, Young Turks and old sultans who preferred pleasure to politics. Eventually the empire shrank to the mere houndaries of Anatolia and after the First World War, it was on the verge being shared, piece by piece, by the English, French, ltalians, Greek and the Russians. The Turkish independence war led by Atatürk brought an end to all (including the Ottoman Empire) followed by the establishment of Turkish Republic State in 1923.
What was happening elsewhere? History gained pace during these 600 years. The world suffered wars: Huguenot, 30-year, Spanish, Napoleonic, Franco-German, British-French, Crimean and the worst of alt, the First World War. The world renewed itselfwith the Industrial, French and Mexican revolutions. The British went to lndia, Dutch to Cape Town, Captain Cook to South Pacific. People made names: lvan the Terrible, Christopher Columbus, Cortez, Peter the Great, Napoleon, Elizabeth, and the Romanovs. People talked about Reformation, the May Flower, the United States of America, the Spanish Colonial Empire and the Ming and Ching Dynasties.
Mehmet and his successors, particulariy Süleyman the Magnificent pushed the frontiers of the empire across from Algiers to the Caspian Sea and from Hungary to the Persian Gulf. Much of western Europe only just escaped conquest when an Ottoman arrny was driven back from the gates of Vienna in 1529. This proved to be the apex of the ernpire which for the next 400 years endured incapable rulers, powerful reformers, revolutions and countless wars, ambitious women and intricate politicking, Young Turks and old sultans who preferred pleasure to politics. Eventually the empire shrank to the mere houndaries of Anatolia and after the First World War, it was on the verge being shared, piece by piece, by the English, French, ltalians, Greek and the Russians. The Turkish independence war led by Atatürk brought an end to all (including the Ottoman Empire) followed by the establishment of Turkish Republic State in 1923.
What was happening elsewhere? History gained pace during these 600 years. The world suffered wars: Huguenot, 30-year, Spanish, Napoleonic, Franco-German, British-French, Crimean and the worst of alt, the First World War. The world renewed itselfwith the Industrial, French and Mexican revolutions. The British went to lndia, Dutch to Cape Town, Captain Cook to South Pacific. People made names: lvan the Terrible, Christopher Columbus, Cortez, Peter the Great, Napoleon, Elizabeth, and the Romanovs. People talked about Reformation, the May Flower, the United States of America, the Spanish Colonial Empire and the Ming and Ching Dynasties.
