Search results
Apr 15, 2024 · Founding and Roman Period. 657 BC: Byzantium founded by Greek colonists from Megara. 330 AD: Emperor Constantine the Great re-establishes Byzantium as Constantinople, making it the new capital of the Roman Empire. Byzantine Period. 395 AD: The Roman Empire is divided; Constantinople becomes the capital of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.
Sir Steven Runciman, historian of the Crusades, wrote that the sack of Constantinople is "unparalleled in history". For nine centuries, [...] the great city had been the capital of Christian civilization. It was filled with works of art that had survived from ancient Greece and with the masterpieces of its own exquisite craftsmen.
- An Impregnable Fortress
- The Ottoman Empire
- The Defenders
- The Attackers
- A Fight For Survival
- Destruction
- Aftermath
Constantinople had withstood many sieges and attacks over the centuries, notably by the Arabs between 674 and 678 CE and again between 717 and 718 CE. The great Bulgar Khans Krum (r. 802-814 CE) and Symeon (r. 893-927 CE) both attempted to attack the Byzantine capital, as did the Rus (descendants of Vikings based around Kiev) in 860 CE, 941 CE, and...
The Ottoman Empire had begun as a small Turkish emirate founded by Osman in Eskishehir (western Asia Minor) in the late 13th century CE, but by the early 14th century CE, it had already expanded into Thrace. With their capital at Adrianople, further captures included Thessaloniki and Serbia. In 1396 CE, at Nikopolis on the Danube, an Ottoman army d...
The crushing of the Crusader army at Varna in 1444 CE meant that the Byzantines were now on their own. No significant help could be expected from the West where the Popes were already unimpressed with the Byzantine's unwillingness to form a union of the Church and accept their supremacy. The Venetians did send a paltry two ships and 800 men in Apri...
Mehmed II had one thing that previous besiegers of Constantinople had lacked: cannons. And they were big ones. The Byzantines had actually had first option on the cannons as they had been offered them by their inventor, the Hungarian engineer named Urban, but Constantine could not meet his asking price. Urban then peddled his expertise to the Sulta...
The onslaught went on for six weeks but there was some effective resistance. The Ottoman attack on the boom which blocked the city's harbour was repelled, as were several direct assaults on the Land Walls. On 20 April, miraculously, three Genoese ships sent by the Pope and a ship carrying vital grain sent by Alphonso of Aragon managed to break thro...
Chaos now ensued with some of the defenders maintaining their discipline and meeting the enemy while others rushed back to their homes to defend their own families. It is at this point that Constantine was killed in the action, most likely near the Gate of St. Romanos, although, as he had discarded any indications of his status to avoid his body be...
Constantinople was made the new Ottoman capital, the massive Golden Gate of the Theodosian Walls was made part of the castle treasury of Mehmed, while the Christian community was permitted to survive, guided by the bishop Gennadeios II. What was left of the old Byzantine empire was absorbed into Ottoman territory following the conquest of Mistra in...
- Mark Cartwright
May 22, 2024 · May 29, 1453. Location: Turkey. Participants: Byzantine Empire. Ottoman Empire. Key People: Constantine XI Palaeologus. Mehmed II. Fall of Constantinople, (May 29, 1453), conquest of Constantinople by Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire.
- Forum of Constantine. Forum of Constantine was one of the places that best describes the great transformation of the Roman Empire in the 300s. During the reign of Emperor Constantine, Christianity was on the rise and the center of Rome shifted to the East.
- The Great Palace. The Great Palace was a place to reflect the splendor of the Roman Empire. Emperors had lived here for almost a millennium. There was a corridor leading from the palace to the imperial lodge in the Hippodrome.
- The Mese. The Mese was a Roman road that flowed like a river through Constantinople. The Mese started from the Million Stone, very close to Hagia Sophia, and extended to the Golden Gate, the main entrance to the city.
- Church of the Holy Apostles. The Church of the Holy Apostles was an iconic structure built by Emperor Constantine. The church was a powerful symbol of the Christianized Rome and had the relics of some of the apostles.
Constantinople (Greek: Κωνσταντινούπολη) was the capital of the Byzantine Empire and, following its fall in 1453, of the Ottoman Empire until 1930, when it was renamed Istanbul as part of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 's Turkish national reforms.
Jun 5, 2020 · The Importance of Constantinople. Constantinople was the base of the Eastern Roman Empire and acted as the imperial capital from the time of Emperor Constantine I. It was, effectively (and literally), “New Rome” during the over a thousand years of the Byzantine Empire (330 CE – 1453 CE).
