when did the ottoman empire take over the byzantine empire
Fall of Constantinople The Fall of Constantinople (Greek: Ἅλωσις τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, Halōsis tēs Kōnstantinoupoleōs; Turkish: İstanbul'un Fethi Conquest of Istanbul) was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by an invading army of the Ottoman Empire on 29 May 1453. The Ottomans were commanded by the then 21-year-old Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, who defeated an army commanded by Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos. The conquest of Constantinople followed a 53-day siege that had begun on 6 April 1453.
Constantinople From the mid-5th century to the early 13th century, Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe[6] and it was instrumental in the advancement of Christianity during Roman and Byzantine times as the home of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and as the guardian of Christendom's holiest relics such as the Crown of Thorns and the True Cross. After the final loss of its provinces in the early 15th century, the Byzantine Empire was reduced to just Constantinople and its environs, along with Morea in Greece, and the city eventually fell to the Ottomans after a month-long siege in 1453.
Fall of Constantinople The capture of the city (and two other Byzantine splinter territories soon thereafter) marked the end of the Byzantine Empire, a continuation of the Roman Empire, an imperial state dating to 27 BC, which had lasted for nearly 1,500 years.[3] The conquest of Constantinople also dealt a massive blow to Christendom, as the Muslim Ottoman armies thereafter were left unchecked to advance into Europe without an adversary to their rear.
Ottoman Empire During the 16th and 17th centuries, at the height of its power under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent,[12] the Ottoman Empire was a multinational, multilingual empire controlling most of Southeast Europe, parts of Central Europe, Western Asia, parts of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, North Africa and the Horn of Africa.[13] At the beginning of the 17th century, the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries.[note 6]