The city has traditionally been a pole of attraction, and was a major center for refugees from various ethnic backgrounds who immigrated to Anatolia from the Balkans during the loss of the Ottoman territories in Europe between the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The First Balkan War, which lasted from October 1912 to May 1913, strengthened Bulgaria's position as a regional military power, significantly reduced Ottoman influence over the Balkans, and resulted in the formation of an independent Albanian state.

It is possible that Bonaparte envisaged Aboukir Bay as a temporary anchorage: on 27 July he expressed the expectation that Brueys had already transferred his ships to Alexandria and three days later issued orders for the fleet to make for Corfu in preparation for naval operations against the Ottoman territories in the Balkans, although the courier carrying the instructions was intercepted and killed by Bedouin partisans.

After five centuries, the Ottoman Empire lost virtually all of its possessions in the Balkans.

At its core, the term " Balkans " are States that have been shaped by membership of Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire.

In 1878, Russia defeated the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War ; the resulting Treaty of San Stefano gave Russia considerable influence in the Balkans.

Kollár's interest in linguistic and cultural diversity was aroused by the situation in his native multi-lingual Kingdom of Hungary and his roots among its Slovaks, and by the shifts that began to emerge after the gradual retreat of the Ottoman Empire in the more distant Balkans.

The Byzantine Empire ultimately fell to Ottoman Turks in the 15th century and as a result Ottoman colonies were established in the Balkans, notably in Macedonia, the Peloponnese and Crete.

After the devastating 1354 earthquake, the Greek city of Gallipoli was almost abandoned, but swiftly reoccupied by Turks from Anatolia, the Asiatic side of the straits, making Gallipoli the first Ottoman position in Europe, and the staging area for their expansion across the Balkans.

In the absence of secure sea lines of communications, the retention of the Thessaloniki-Constantinople corridor was essential to the overall strategic posture of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans.

Following the eventual weakening of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria declared war and sought to aggrandize their respective boundaries on the remaining territories of the Empire.

In the late 1870s Russia and the Ottoman Empire again clashed in the Balkans.

* 1875 – Outbreak of the Herzegovina Uprising against Ottoman rule, which would last until 1878 and have far-reaching implications throughout the Balkans

In 1804, the Serbs revolted against the Ottoman Empire that controlled the Balkans at that time.

The relations between Kosovo's ethnic Albanian and Serb populations have been hostile since the rise of nationalism in the Balkans during the 19th century, rivalry which became strong after Serbia gained Kosovo from the Ottoman Empire in 1913 and after Albania became independent in the same year.

The Ottoman Turks formed an empire starting from the 14th century which came to encompass the Balkans, Middle East and North Africa.

Macedonia was the economic heart of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans throughout centuries until its fall in 1913.

He established the Empire by building up a society and government in the newly conquered city of Adrianople ( Edirne in Turkish ) and by expanding the realm in Europe, bringing most of the Balkans under Ottoman rule and forcing the Byzantine emperor to pay him tribute.

In the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans.

Part of the Ottoman territories in the Balkans ( such as Thessaloniki, Macedonia and Kosovo ) were temporarily lost after 1402, but were later recovered by Murad II between the 1430s and 1450s.

The Ottoman Turks ceded much territory in the Balkans to Austria.

Those educated in the schools established during the Tanzimat period included Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and other progressive leaders and thinkers of the Republic of Turkey and of many other former Ottoman states in the Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa.

The Byzantine commander of the Bursa fort, called Evronos Bey, became a commander of a light cavalry force and even his sons and grandsons served Ottoman Empire in this capacity to conquer and hold many areas in Balkans.

After 1180 BC, the Hittite empire disintegrated into several independent " Neo-Hittite " states, subsequent to losing much territory to the Middle Assyrian Empire and being finally overrun by the Phrygians, another Indo-European people who are believed to have migrated from The Balkans.

* 1346 – Dušan the Mighty is proclaimed Emperor, with the Serbian Empire occupying much of the Balkans.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire had been expanding its influence in the Balkans and was particularly opposed.

* Koine Greek and Modern Greek, in the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire and other parts of the Balkans south of the Jireček Line.

The Ottoman Empire came to rule much of the Balkans, the Fertile Crescent and Egypt over the course of several centuries, with an advanced army and navy.

The main focus was in the Balkans where the South Slavs had been ruled for centuries by other empires, Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Venice.

* Beginning of the Ottoman Empire, early expansion into the Balkans.

* The Bulgars arrive in the Balkans ; establishment of the powerful Bulgarian Empire.

The eastern successor of the Roman Empire in the Balkans, the Byzantine Empire, retained control over Thrace until the 8th century when the northern half of the entire region was incorporated into the First Bulgarian Empire.

On 23 April 1939 the Turkish Foreign Minister Şükrü Saracoğlu told the British Ambassador of his nation's fears of Italian claims of the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum and German control of the Balkans, and suggested an Anglo-Soviet-Turkish alliance as the best way of countering the Axis.

Because of the Balkans were rich in raw materials like iron, zinc and above all oil that could help Germany survive a British blockade, it was viewed as highly important by the Allies to keep German influence in the Balkans to a minimum, hence British efforts to link British promises to support Turkey in the event of an Italian attack in exchange for Turkish promises to help defend Romania from a German attack.

Murad II's reign was marked by the long war he fought against the Christian feudal lords of the Balkans and the Turkish emirates in Anatolia, a conflict that lasted 25 years.

With the extension of Turkish dominion into the Balkans, the strategic conquest of Constantinople became a crucial objective.

The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish proper, spoken mainly in Anatolia and the Balkans, the speakers of which account for about 40 % of all Turkic speakers.

Nationalist historical painting in Central Europe and the Balkans dwelt on Turkish oppression, with battle scenes and maidens about to be raped.

The existence of the centuries-old Serb or Serbian diaspora in countries such as Austria, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Russia, Poland, Slovakia, Turkey and Ukraine, is the result of historical circumstances – the migrations to the North and the East, due to the Turkish conquests of the Balkans and as a result of politics, especially when the Communist Party came into power, but even more when the communist state of Yugoslavia collapsed into inter-ethnic conflict, resulting in mass expulsions of people as refugees of war.

As well as the major Persian, Turkish and Arab centres, carpets were also made across Central Asia, in India, and in Spain and the Balkans.

The Balkan wars 1912 – 13, terminated the Turkish domination in the Balkans.

It is thought that this was a way to control and to separate two fundamental army divisions ( jannisary and sipahi ) completely from each other and alienating Turks from capital-city politics while maintaining a controlled Turkish elite of bureaucracy and nobility in Anatolia and Balkans, without the danger of creating rival Turkish dynasties to the Ottoman throne ( which was a central reason of destruction for earlier Turkish states ).

* Beylerbeyi ( or Beglerbegi ) ' Lord of Lords ', was the administrative rank formally enjoyed by the ruler of Tunis and by rulers of parts of the Balkans in their official capacity of Ottoman Governor-General within the Turkish empire.

In the Mani Peninsula, in times of the Ottoman conquest of Greece, the de facto sovereign country of the Maniots in the southern Peloponnesus, had as head of state a chieftain which combined both military command and judiciary activities who was entitled as Bey following the Turkish influence over conquered areas, especially in the Balkans.

However, the Emperor had decided to continue the Turkish war in the Balkans and, for the time being, compromise in the west.

This is a period marked by the rise of a new threat: the Ottoman Turkish sultanate gradually spreading from Asia to Europe and conquering Byzantine Thrace first, and then the other Balkans states.

Anise-flavored tsipouro is the closest taste to Turkish Rakı in Balkans, which is different from Greek Raki despite the common name.

Salisbury wrote at the end of 1878: " We shall set up a rickety sort of Turkish rule again south of the Balkans.

Hunyadi, at the head of the vanguard, crossed the Balkans through the Gate of Trajan, captured Niš, defeated three Turkish pashas, and, after taking Sofia, united with the royal army and defeated Sultan Murad II at Snaim ( Kustinitza ).

Rûm, also Roum or Rhum ( in Arabic الر ُّ وم ُ ar-Rūm, Persian / Turkish Rum ; all from Middle Persian Hrom ) is a vague term used at different times in the Muslim world to refer to the Balkans and Anatolia generally, to the Byzantine Empire in particular, to the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm in Asia Minor, to non-Muslims inhabiting Ottoman or Turkish territory, and to Greeks living outside of Greece.

Rumelia ( English: Roumelia ; Turkish: Rumeli ; Albanian: Rumelia ;, Romylía, or Ρούμελη, Roúmeli ; Bosnian, Serbian and ;, Rumeliya ) was a historical term describing the area now referred to as the Balkans or the Balkan Peninsula when it was occupied by the Ottoman Empire.