1453

"There is only one thing I want. Give me Constantinople" Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II

As the now thousand year old Byzantine Empire weakened, a new nation was on the rise, the Ottomans. Made of Muslim Turkish people, who had migrated from the Central Asian steppe, the Ottoman Empire had entered Europe and captured most of the former Byzantine lands. But Constantinople remained unconquered and a thorn in the side of growing Ottoman Empire. For centuries, the conquest of Constantinople had been a major goal of Islam. The Prophet Muhammad himself is credited with calling for its capture, and successive Muslim armies had tried and failed to take the city. As one twelfth century Muslim wrote "Constantinople is a city greater than its reputation. May Allah in his generosity make it the capital of Islam".

The importance of the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks can not be over emphasized. It radically changed the culture and people of this strategic land where Europe and Asia meet. It brought the 2,000 year history of the Roman Empire to an end. The region that had been Greek for nearly 3,000 years became Turkish. The city that was the oldest center of Christianity and arguably the most important Christian site after Jerusalem was now Islamic. Besides transforming the land itself, the fall of Constantinople would also bring change to the rest of Europe. The Byzantine scholars of Constantinople fled the city for Christian Western Europe. These poets, scientists, philosophers, and academics brought to Western Europe the preserved knowledge of Greek and Roman civilization, which became a major spark in starting the Renaissance.

But while 1453 marked the end of one era, it was also a start of the new one for the great city of Constantinople. Renamed Istanbul, the city lived on undiminished and again became the capital of a new empire. Istanbul would be the capital and center of the Ottoman Empire for nearly 500 years, and continues to be one of the world's most important cities today.