In 1453 when the last vestige of ancient Roman power fell to the Turks, the city officially shifted religions -- although the Patriarch, or Pope, of the Orthodox Church continued to live there, and still does -- and became the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

Going through the Imperial Gate in the wall, I entered the grounds of Topkapi Palace, home of the Sultans and nerve center of the vast Ottoman Empire, and walked along a road toward another gate in the distance, past the Church of St. Irene, completed by Constantine in 330 A.D. on my left, and then, just outside the second gate, I saw a spring with a tap in the wall on my right -- the Executioner's Spring, where he washed his hands and his sword after beheading his victims.

The Aegean Sea was later invaded by the Persians and the Romans, and inhabited by the Byzantine Empire, the Bulgarians, the Venetians, the Genoeses, the Seljuq Turks, and the Ottoman Empire.

The Anatolian beyliks were in turn absorbed into the rising Ottoman Empire during the 15th century.

With the beginning of the slow decline of the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century, and as a result of the expansionist policies of Czarist Russia in the Caucasus, many Muslim nations and groups in that region, mainly Circassians, Tatars, Azeris, Lezgis, Chechens, and several Turkic groups left their ancestral homelands and settled in Anatolia.

As the Ottoman Empire further fragmented during the Balkan Wars, much of the non-Christian populations of its former possessions, mainly the Balkan Muslims, flocked to Anatolia and were resettled in various locations, mostly in formerly Christian villages throughout Anatolia.

Anatolia remained multi-ethnic until the early 20th century ( see the rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire ).

* 1921 – The British install the son of Sharif Hussein bin Ali ( leader of the Arab Revolt of 1916 against the Ottoman Empire ) as King Faisal I of Iraq.

* 1903 – Fall of the Ottoman Empire: an unsuccessful uprising led by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization against Ottoman Turkey, also known as the Ilinden – Preobrazhenie Uprising, takes place.

* 1664 – The Ottoman Empire is defeated in the Battle of Saint Gotthard by an Austrian army led by Raimondo Montecuccoli, resulting in the Peace of Vasvár.

* 1687 – Battle of Mohács: Charles of Lorraine defeats the Ottoman Empire.

Ahmed I ( Ottoman Turkish: احمد اول Aḥmed-i evvel, ) or Ahmed Bakhti ( April 18, 1590 – November 22, 1617 ) was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1603 until his death in 1617.

Category: Infectious disease deaths in the Ottoman Empire

Ahmed II Khan Ghazi ( Ottoman Turkish: احمد ثانى Aḥmed-i < u > s </ u > ānī ) < span dir =" ltr ">( February 25, 1643 – February 6, 1695 )</ span > was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1691 to 1695.

Only a few weeks after his accession the Ottoman Empire sustained a crushing defeat at the Battle of Slankamen from the Austrians under Margrave Louis William of Baden and was driven from Hungary.

Ahmed III ( Ottoman Turkish: احمد ثالث Aḥmed-i < u > s </ u > āli < u > s </ u >) < span dir =" ltr ">( December 30 / 31, 1673 – July 1, 1736 )</ span > was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and a son of Sultan Mehmed IV ( 1648 – 87 ).

The subsequent Ottoman victories against Russia enabled the Ottoman Empire to advance to Moscow, had the Sultan wished.

However, this was halted as a report reached Constantinople that the Safavids were invading the Ottoman Empire, causing a period of panic, turning the Sultan's attention away from Russia.

The recovery of Azov and the Morea, and the conquest of part of Persia, managed to counterbalance the Balkan territory ceded to the Habsburg Monarchy through the Treaty of Passarowitz, after the Ottoman Empire was defeated in Austro-Turkish War of 1716-18.

As he was forming his new imperial government, Napoleon III sent an ambassador to the Ottoman Empire with instructions to assert France's right to protect Christian sites in Jerusalem and the Holy Land.

Prince Menshikov called the attention of the Turks to the fact that during the Russo-Turkish War ( 1768 – 1774 ), the Russians had occupied the Turkish controlled provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia on the north bank of the Danube River, but he reminded them that pursuant to the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, however, the Russians had returned these " Danubian provinces " to Ottoman control in exchange for the right to protect the Christian sites in the Holy Land.

Impressed by the victory of the Lebanese ruler, the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul gave him the title of Sultan al Barr ( Sultan of Land ).

These reforms included guarantees to ensure the Ottoman subjects perfect security for their lives, honour, and property ; the introduction of the first Ottoman paper banknotes ( 1840 ) and opening of the first post offices ( 1840 ); the reorganization of the finance system according to the French model ( 1840 ); the reorganization of the Civil and Criminal Code according to the French model ( 1840 ); the establishment of the Meclis-i Maarif-i Umumiye ( 1841 ) which was the prototype of the First Ottoman Parliament ( 1876 ); the reorganization of the army and a regular method of recruiting, levying the army, and fixing the duration of military service ( 1843 – 44 ); the adoption of an Ottoman national anthem and Ottoman national flag ( 1844 ); the first nationwide Ottoman census in 1844 ( only male citizens were counted ); the first national identity cards ( officially named the Mecidiye identity papers, or informally kafa kağıdı ( head paper ) documents, 1844 ); the institution of a Council of Public Instruction ( 1845 ) and the Ministry of Education ( Mekatib-i Umumiye Nezareti, 1847, which later became the Maarif Nezareti, 1857 ); the abolition of slavery and slave trade ( 1847 ); the establishment of the first modern universities ( darülfünun, 1848 ), academies ( 1848 ) and teacher schools ( darülmuallimin, 1848 ); establishment of the Ministry of Healthcare ( Tıbbiye Nezareti, 1850 ); the Commerce and Trade Code ( 1850 ); establishment of the Academy of Sciences ( Encümen-i Daniş, 1851 ); establishment of the Şirket-i Hayriye which operated the first steam-powered commuter ferries ( 1851 ); the first European style courts ( Meclis-i Ahkam-ı Adliye, 1853 ) and supreme judiciary council ( Meclis-i Ali-yi Tanzimat, 1853 ); establishment of the modern Municipality of Istanbul ( Şehremaneti, 1854 ) and the City Planning Council ( İntizam-ı Şehir Komisyonu, 1855 ); the abolition of the capitation ( Jizya ) tax on non-Muslims, with a regular method of establishing and collecting taxes ( 1856 ); non-Muslims were allowed to become soldiers ( 1856 ); various provisions for the better administration of the public service and advancement of commerce ; the establishment of the first telegraph networks ( 1847 – 1855 ) and railroads ( 1856 ); the replacement of guilds with factories ; the establishment of the Ottoman Central Bank ( originally established as the Bank-ı Osmanî in 1856, and later reorganized as the Bank-ı Osmanî-i Şahane in 1863 ) and the Ottoman Stock Exchange ( Dersaadet Tahvilat Borsası, established in 1866 ); the Land Code ( Arazi Kanunnamesi, 1857 ); permission for private sector publishers and printing firms with the Serbesti-i Kürşad Nizamnamesi ( 1857 ); establishment of the School of Economical and Political Sciences ( Mekteb-i Mülkiye, 1859 ); the Press and Journalism Regulation Code ( Matbuat Nizamnamesi, 1864 ); among others.

With the Holy Land incorporated into the Ottoman empire, a slow influx of Jews performing aliyah took place, and some Sephardi kabbalists settled in Hebron.

; 1740: Ottoman authorities invite Rabbi Haim Abulafia ( 1660 – 1744 ), renowned Kabbalist and Rabbi of Izmir, to come to the Holy Land.

Following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, concerns were raised in the Vatican about the safety and future of the Catholics in the Holy Land.

In 1858 the Ottoman Empire introduced The Ottoman Land Code of 1858, requiring land owners to register ownership.

Land collectively owned by village residents ended up registered to one villager, and merchants and local Ottoman administrators took the opportunity to register large areas of land to their own name.

However, just as soon as Louis Bonaparte had completed his coup against the Second Republic of France and assumed the title Napoleon III Emperor of France, he sent an ambassador to the Ottoman Empire with instructions to obtain from the Ottomans, a guarantee that France was to be the exclusive " protector of Christian sites " in Jerusalem and the Holy Land.

Under the Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarva signed in 1774, Russia had given these Danubian provinces back to Turkey ( the Ottoman Empire ) in exchange for Turkish recognition of Russia's exclusive right to " protect the Christian sites in Jerusalem and the Holy Land.

He was also active in canvassing financial support for the Jewish settlements in the Land of Israel, then under the control of the Ottoman Empire.

Luria died at Safed, Ottoman Empire controlled Land of Israel, July 25, 1572 ( 5 Av 5332 ).

" The 1858 Ottoman Land Law defines it as " Khalz land which is not in the possession of anybody, and, not having been left or assigned to the inhabitants, is distant from town or village so that the loud voice of a person from the extreme inhabited spot cannot be heard, that is about a mile and a half to the extreme inhabited spot, or a distance of about half an hour.

For about the next 10 years, the country saw a steady process of secular Westernization through Atatürk's Reforms, which included the unification of education ; the discontinuation of religious and other titles ; the closure of Islamic courts and the replacement of Islamic canon law with a secular civil code modeled after Switzerland's and a penal code modeled after the Italian Penal Code ; recognition of the equality between the sexes and the granting of full political rights to women on 5 December 1934 ; the language reform initiated by the newly founded Turkish Language Association ; replacement of the Ottoman Turkish alphabet with the new Turkish alphabet derived from the Latin alphabet ; the dress law ( the wearing of a fez, is outlawed ); the law on family names ; and many others.

Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1858, in Ottoman era, although gays are still not well-accepted and they may face discrimination in society.

* Bulgaria: 1858 ( de jure by Ottoman Empire ; de facto in 1880 )

Prior to 1858, land in Ottoman Syria, then a part of the Ottoman Empire since 1516, was cultivated or occupied mainly by peasants.

In Palestine, land reforms, especially the change in land ownership structure via the Ottoman Land Law of 1858, allowed Russian Jews to buy land in Palestine, thus enabling them to immigrate there under the first Aliya.

He became involved in a war with the Ottoman Empire in 1852, the Porte claiming jurisdiction in Montenegro, and the boundaries between the two countries were not defined until 1858.

In 1858, he succeeded Lord Stratford de Redcliffe as Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire and his wife joined him.

In order to settle this issue, Israel ’ s land policy was adapted to a large extent from the Ottoman land regulations of 1858 as the only preceding legal frame.

Mustafa Reshid Pasha (, literally Great Mustapha Rashid Pasha, March 13, 1800 – 17 December 1858 ) was an Ottoman statesman and diplomat.

In 1844 / 45, he became qadi ( judge ) and then the juridical adviser to the grand vizier ( Ottoman prime minister ), Mustafa Reşid Paşa, from 1846 to 1858.