The Crusader Conquest of Constantinople | toritto

It is the Year of Our Lord 1075 and a great disaster has befallen Christendom.

The Islāmic armies of the Seljuk Turks have taken Jerusalem.

In Western Europe, the Roman Empire is gone some 600 years.  In the East the empire still lives at Constantinople, its Emperor ruling portions of the eastern shore of the Adriatic through the Balkans and Greece into Asia Minor and Syria.  It is in constant conflict with the…

via The Crusader Conquest of Constantinople | toritto

October 1, 1918 Lawrence of Arabia – Today in History

I have been in hospital for two weeks, hence the gap in transmission.

Lawrence tried to convince his superiors that Arab independence was in their own best interest, but found himself undermined by the Sykes-Picot agreement, negotiated in secret between French and Br…

Source: October 1, 1918 Lawrence of Arabia – Today in History

The Intrepid ’20s Women Who Formed an All-Female Global Exploration Society – Atlas Obscura

Journalist and explorer Marguerite Harrison shares a meal with a group of Bakhtiari men. (From the documentary A Nation’s Battle for Life by Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack) BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES

In August 1923, Marguerite Harrison sailed from New York bound for Constantinople. The 44-year-old had returned just five months earlier from Russia where she had been imprisoned, for a second time, on suspicions of espionage. A widowed mother of a teenage boy, Harrison had thought she would…

Source: The Intrepid ’20s Women Who Formed an All-Female Global Exploration Society – Atlas Obscura

Romanov rumours and the lonely grave of a mysterious woman in Kent – Flickering Lamps

In a corner of a burial ground in the remote marshland town of Lydd in Kent is a lonely grave, set a little apart from the others.  It is the final resting place of a soldier’s wife –…

Source: Romanov rumours and the lonely grave of a mysterious woman in Kent – Flickering Lamps

A precedent for the Holocaust: The Armenian genocide and The Promise | Literaturesalon’s Blog

by Claudia Moscovici

As Peter Balakian points out in the Preface of his book, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian genocide and America’s response (New York: Harper Perennial, 2004), the Holocau…

Source: A precedent for the Holocaust: The Armenian genocide and The Promise | Literaturesalon’s Blog

Eight thousand year-old figurines discovered in Turkey | The Heritage Trust

Figurines found by Polish archaeologists in Turkey. Image credit Jason Quinlan

Science & Scholarship in Poland have reported on the discovery by Polish archaeologists of two unique eight th…

Source: Eight thousand year-old figurines discovered in Turkey | The Heritage Trust

Empress Theodora |

Theodora (c.497-548) was born in Constantinople – modern day Istanbul. In her remarkable life she became probably the most powerful woman in Byzantine history. Little is known about her early…

Source: Empress Theodora |

On this day: a king for Albania | In Times Gone By…

Otto Witte – a German circus performer – claimed he was crowned King of Albania on the 13th of August, 1913. When Albania broke free of the Ottoman Empire and Serbian occupation, a Musl…

Source: On this day: a king for Albania | In Times Gone By…

The Battle of Ankara,1402 – Treachery on the battlefield seals the fates of an Emperor and a Sultan

The Battle of Ankara was fought on the 20th of July 1402. Two of the greatest rulers of their time – Bayezid I The Thunderbolt, the…

Source: The Battle of Ankara,1402 – Treachery on the battlefield seals the fates of an Emperor and a Sultan

Was the Ottoman Empire really history’s longest-lasting empire? | Byzantine Blog

The majesty of Istanbul’s ‘Blue Mosque’ (Tetra Images/Getty Images)

It was one of the most resilient empires in world history, but how did it start? And why did it end?

This article was first published in the May 2016 issue of History Revealed

Was the Ottoman Empire really history’s longest-lasting empire?

That’s a debate that is hard to fit into a nutshell. But, the ever-changing world power – an Islāmic network of countries comprising much of the Mediterranean coast (besides Italy) – began in 1299 and did not conclude until 1922.

This means that it certainly outstripped the British Empire in terms of…

Source: Was the Ottoman Empire really history’s longest-lasting empire? | Byzantine Blog

The Gallipoli Campaign: Landings at Anzac Cove

April 25th 1915

The Gallipoli Campaign: Landings at Anzac Cove

A little after four in the morning of the 25th April, the first wave of Australian soldiers rowed ashore on Anzac Cove, on the Gallipoli peninsula, after being initially towed in by steamboats, under the cover of darkness. Around four thousand men were ashore, four battalions in total, which included the 11th, in what was an astonishing tactical surprise in and around dawn. With the Turks somewhat confused with what was unfolding around them, it wasn’t long before the Anzacs (Australians) secured the beach head for the next wave of men heading into shore. Interestingly, contrary to popular belief, there was no massacre on Anzac Cove beaches. Of course, there were many casualties reported early on, but if you are looking for…

Source: What happened this month in history?

The shameful conquest and sack of Constantinople

April 12th 1204

The shameful conquest and sack of Constantinople.

The sack of Constantinople or siege of Constantinople was the final shameful act of the Fourth Crusade that had began the previous year in 1203. It was a culmination of events that led the crusader armies to the walls of the eternal city, in which the Latins had entered in an agreement to restore the rightful heir of the Byzantine Empire. Following the first siege of the city in 1203, the disgraced Emperor Alexios III…

Source: What happened this month in history? – If It Happened Yesterday, It’s History

March 25th: celebrating the Annunciation and the War of Independence | Letters from Athens

One of our main national celebrations in Greece is March 25, which commemorates the start of the 1821 Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Empire, a revolt whose motto was the cry “Freedom or death.”

Following the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Greece remained under Turkish occupation for four centuries. After a number of unsuccessful attempts at revolt, the War of Independence started in 1821. Despite many reversals, this would lead to the establishment of a Greek sovereign state with the London Protocol of 1830, signed by England, France and Russia – the allies who intervened to help win the war. The Greek struggle had elicited strong sympathy in Europe, and many leading intellectuals had promoted the Greek cause, including…

Source: March 25th: celebrating the Annunciation and the War of Independence | Letters from Athens

The Robot Clocks of 12th-Century Turkey | Atlas Obscura

Al Jazari was not only an exceptional engineer and inventor, but also an incredibly talented illustrator. The elephant clock is perhaps his most famous invention. (Photo: Public Domain/Wikipedia Commons)

During his 70 years on Earth, Turkish scholar and inventor Al-Jazari built an impressive range of robots, clocks, and robot clocks. What’s even more impressive is that he created the bulk of them during the 12th century.

Al-Jazari (1136-1206), whose full name was Al-Shaykh Ra’is al-A`mal Badi`al-Zaman Abu al-‘Izz ibn Isma`il ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari, worked as the chief engineer at Artuklu Palace, headquarters of the Artuqid dynasty that ruled over parts of Turkey, Syria and Iraq in the 11th and 12th centuries. During his time there, he invented a large number of devices that revolutionized mechanical engineering: everything from a mechanical waitress who served drinks to a group of robot musicians who played their instruments on a lake in the palace to entertain guests.

While these inventions may seem trivial today, their contribution to…

Source: The Robot Clocks of 12th-Century Turkey | Atlas Obscura

A Yorkshireman in Istanbul, 1593 | History Today

Soon after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, a young Yorkshireman named Edward Barton was despatched to the Sultan’s court to promote the interests of the Levant Company.

The capture of Constantinople in 1453 by the Ottoman Turks signalled the collapse of Byzantine power and, because the Turks knew little of international trade and commerce, it might have led to an administrative vacuum. But the Sultan, Mohammed, wisely decided to adopt many of the customs and institutions developed by the Byzantines during the 1,000 years of their Empire. Among these was the system of capitulations – a word derived from the Latin capitulae, meaning the chapters of an agreement or treaty governing the relations between the State and other nations and their citizens in Constantinople. The status and rights of non-Turks in the Ottoman Empire thus came to be defined by…

Source: A Yorkshireman in Istanbul, 1593 | History Today.