Fall of Constantinople

The Fall of Constantinople was the conquest of the Byzantine capital by the Ottoman Empire under the command of Sultan Mehmed II, on Tuesday, May 29, 1453. This marked not only the final destruction of the Eastern Roman Empire, and the death of Constantine XI, the last Roman Emperor, but also the strategic conquest crucial for Ottoman rule over the Eastern Mediterranean and Balkans.

State of the Byzantine Empire

In the approximately 1,000 years of the existence of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople had been besieged many times; it had been captured only once, during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The crusaders, however, had not originally set out to conquer the Empire, and the Byzantines re-established themselves in the city in 1261. In the following two centuries, the much-weakened empire was gradually taken piece by piece by a new threat, the Ottoman Empire. In 1453 the "empire" consisted of little more than the city of Constantinople itself and a portion of the Peloponnese (centered on the fortress of Mystras); the Empire of Trebizond, a completely independent successor state formed in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade also survived on the coast of the Black Sea.

Related Topics:
Byzantine Empire - Fourth Crusade - 1204 - 1261 - Peloponnese - Mystras - Empire of Trebizond - Black Sea

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