Fall of Constantinople
On 29 May 1453, Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II's army of approximately 80,000 men, supported by massive bronze cannon including the Hungarian engineer Urban's great bombard, breached the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople after a 53-day siege. Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos died fighting on the walls, the last ruler of the Byzantine Empire. The city—capital of the Eastern Roman Empire for over a thousand years—fell to looting for three days before Mehmed entered Hagia Sophia and converted it to a mosque. The fall ended the Byzantine Empire and had profound consequences throughout Europe and the Mediterranean world: it accelerated the flight of Greek scholars to Italy carrying classical manuscripts (enriching the Renaissance), closed the overland Silk Road trade routes to the East (motivating the Portuguese and Spanish search for sea routes), and established the Ottoman Empire as the dominant power of the eastern Mediterranean for the next two centuries. Mehmed, who styled himself Caesar of Rome (Kayser-i Rum), made Constantinople (renamed Istanbul) the capital of the Ottoman Empire.
- Year: 1453 CE
- Category: Military
