[harpygoddess]

May 29 is the anniversary of the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to an Ottoman army under the 21-year-old Sultan Mehmet II after a siege of seven weeks. The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Paliailogos, died in the final defense of the city, and the ensuing orgy of pillage and massacre brought the eastern Roman empire to a decisive end.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Time to take back Constantinople from the Mohammadan hordes.

[Flick Lives]

Interesting to think that 2,200 years after its founding, the last vestige of Ancient Rome fell. It survived thru the Middle Ages into the beginning of the Renaissance.

[wildbill]

In my freshman year at Columbia I bet my roommates that I could somehow bring up the fall of Constantinople in every class until graduation. It became a sort of in-joke that drew laughs that bewildered professors didn’t understand.

[PGR88]

The Byzantine Christians blocked the advance of Islam in the East for nearly 800 years

[Fiji Hill]

Constantinaple got the works.

[Lent]

Irony was that it was really the 4rth Crusade and its sacking of the city in the 13th century which was the direct cause of the eventual end of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire as this piece notes as well.

[katana]

Somebody should note that the Janissaries were all originally Christians enslaved as young boys and put through a regime of brain washing and military discipline to the point of absolute fanaticism. In fact, everyone in the Ottoman government besides the Sultan himself was just such a slave, taken from Christian villages every year (think "Hunger Games" in real life) under the Devshirme system.

[dominic flandry]

I have read that many of the city’s residents refused to join in defense of the city. If a people will not defend themselves, one cannot expect anyone else to defend them.