The Siege of 1453 The Siege of 1453 was a defining moment for Constantinople and the world. The city, once considered impregnable, faced the formidable forces of the Ottoman Empire led by Sultan ...

This is the story of Constantinople’s fall, how Europe’s richest city fell to the Turks and became known as Istanbul: the story of the Great Siege of 1453. When histories greatest ...

This is the metadata section. Skip to content viewer section. This essay examines the fall of Constantinople in 1453 as a critical juncture for the playing out of Chrisitan-Muslim relations.

Built as Byzantium, and then renamed Constantinople, Istanbul officially received its present name on this day in 1930.

Adrianople served as the Ottomans’ European capital until the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and contains treasures of art and architecture including the Selimiye Mosque, designed by the ...

With its strategic location on the Bosphorus peninsula between the Balkans and Bosphorus and the Mediterranean, Istanbul has been associated with major political, religious and artistic events for ...

John Julius Norwich tells the dramatic story of the fall of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, followed by the rise of the Ottoman Turks in the 15th Century. Using monuments in Istanbul to ...