Ottoman Empire

To understand the history of power in the medieval world, one must look to the tip of the Thracian peninsula, where a single city commanded the watery threshold between Europe and Asia.

A minor principality founded by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I in northwestern Anatolia around 1299 CE would grow to dismantle the remnants of antiquity and redraw the map of three continents.

The young sovereign who took the Ottoman throne for a brief first reign in 1444 was only twelve years old, yet he quickly found himself commanding armies to turn back a European crusade led by John Hunyadi.

For eleven centuries, the massive stone ramparts of Constantinople stood as the ultimate symbol of imperial permanence, shielding the heirs of Rome from generations of invaders.