...until we get the new forum.
On this day 560 years ago, after 53 days of siege, the city of Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmet II. It was considered the most cataclysmic event of the century.
First built in 330 by Emperor Constantine the Great, Constantinople was a critical city in the Byzantine Empire, guarding the sea lanes between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. It remained a symbol of power in the East Roman Empire, even as their influence began to decline. The city witnessed numerous battles during the turmoil of The Crusades, but despite years of bloodshed, it had never been seized by a Muslim army.
Mehmet II was only 19 when he became Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The Christian nations of Europe were still bitterly divided along the lines of Catholic vs Eastern Orthodox, and did not take the new leader seriously. Few combatants were available to protect the city against the Mohammedan force of over 150,000.
The Ottomans brought incredible technology with them, including the Dardanelles Gun. Built by the ironworker Oran, this massive cannon was 27 feet long and could hurl a 600 pound projectile over a mile's distance. It took three hours to reload and was transported by a team of sixty oxen. After six weeks, the weapon collapsed under its own recoil, but the bombardment severely weakened Constantinople's triple rampart walls.
Total casualties for the Christian forces numbered about 4000, while the exact number of Ottoman kill is unknown. After the city fell, the Ottomans were given free reign to loot, rape, and pillage for three days. Amazingly, they were ordered to cease after this period, and surviving accounts claim that they treated the people with more courtesy from that day forward, more so than the Italian Crusaders who had sacked the city years earlier and committed unspeakable atrocities. 30,000 survivors were enslaved.
The fall of Christianity's most fabled city horrified the other Western nations. Like Pearl Harbor in 1941, it spurred them to action by forming a grand alliance that would eventually halt Ottoman expansion.
Constantinople was renamed Istanbul, and remains the capitol of the Ottoman state, though we know it as Turkey today.
Here's a good video about the battle:
