Bulgarians maintained in this place a fortress named "Holavnik". The town was occupied by the Ottoman Empire in 1417, towards the end of Prince Mircea I's rule, and, like Giurgiu and Brăila, constituted a "kaza" on the left bank of the Danube, under the name "Kule". With short interruptions during the anti-Ottoman rebellions of Vlad III the Impaler and Michael the Brave, destroyed by Iancu Jianu's "hajduks" in their campaign against Osman Pazvantoğlu and his successor (1809) and never rebuilt under Turkish rule, Turnu, like the other two "kazas", was due to be returned to Wallachia through the 1826 Akkerman Convention - and was ultimately ceded in 1829, through the Treaty of Adrianopole. It became the capital of Teleorman County in 1839.