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.

He gained some victories during the war 1821 war between the Ottoman Empire and Persia, resulting in a peace treaty signed in 1823 after the Battle of Erzurum.

The Serbian and Greek armies repulsed the Bulgarian offensive and counter-attacked into Bulgaria, while Romania and the Ottoman Empire also attacked Bulgaria and gained ( or regained ) territory.

Serbia had gained substantial territory during the Russo-Turkish War, 1877 – 1878, while Greece acquired Thessaly in 1881 ( although it lost a small area back to the Ottoman Empire in 1897 ) and Bulgaria ( an autonomous principality since 1878 ) incorporated the formerly distinct province of Eastern Rumelia ( 1885 ).

Many Albanians gained prominent positions in the Ottoman government, Albanians highly active during the Ottoman era and leaders such as Ali Pasha of Tepelena might have aided Husein Gradaščević.

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.

After 1832, when Greece had gained independence from the Ottoman Empire, European travelers and scholars began to systematically tour Sparta and the Peloponnnese.

Conquered by the Ottoman army in the first half of the 15th century, the region remained a part of the Ottoman Empire for nearly 500 years, during which it gained a substantial Turkish minority, especially in the religious sense of Muslim ; some of those Muslims became so through conversions.

Meanwhile, existing victorious Allies such as France, Belgium, Italy, Greece and Romania gained territories, while new states were created out of the collapse of Austria-Hungary and the Russian and Ottoman Empires.

According to a brochure read by Tintin on his plane, Syldavia gained independence from Ottoman empire early, resembling Montenegro and Serbia.

With the Treaty of Belgrade, the Habsburgs ceded the Kingdom of Serbia with Belgrade, the southern part of the Banat of Temeswar and northern Bosnia to the Ottomans, and Oltenia, gained by the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718, to Wallachia ( an Ottoman subject ), and set the demarcation line to the rivers Sava and Danube.

Russia gained from the Ottoman Empire the right to protect the Empire's Orthodox Christians.

The crusade, for a brief period, united the diverging forces of the Balkans, and the victories gained in battles managed to secure the Kingdom of Hungary from Ottoman occupation for over a century.

It eventually ended in a decisive victory for the Russians, who gained new territory, and further eroded Ottoman power.

They were supported by different factions of the nobility in the Hungarian kingdom ; Ferdinand also had the support of his brother the Emperor Charles V. After defeat by Ferdinand at the Battle of Tarcal in September 1527 and again in the Battle of Szina in March 1528, Zápolya gained the support of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Sultan.

The public terms of Tilsit mentioned the warm feelings between Napoleon and Alexander I of Russia, but the secret terms addressed more substantial issues: France permitted Russia to do as it wished with the Ottoman Empire in return for France gaining the Dalmatian coast and the Ionian Islands ; Russia gained a free hand in Finland ; and Alexander also agreed to join the Continental System if the war with Britain did not end soon.

The idea of a Corinth Canal was revived after Greece gained formal independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1830.

Several minor or unsuccessful revolts took place against Ottoman rule, with brief independence gained in the northern regions in the 18th century.

The success of the Serbian revolution against Ottoman rule in 1817 marked the birth of the Principality of Serbia, which achieved de facto independence in 1867 and finally gained recognition by the Great Powers in the Berlin Congress of 1878.

Serbia gained its autonomy from the Ottoman Empire in two uprisings in 1804 ( led by Đorđe Petrović – Karađorđe ) and 1815 ( led by Miloš Obrenović ), although Turkish troops continued to garrison the capital, Belgrade, until 1867.

Izetbegović was born in the town of Bosanski Šamac, situated in the north of Bosnia ; he was one of five children born to a distinguished but impoverished family descended from former Slavic Ottoman aristocrats from Belgrade who fled to Bosnia in 1868, after Serbia gained independence from the Ottoman Empire.

From the 18th century and onwards, members of prominent Greek families in Constantinople, known as Phanariotes ( after the Phanar district of the city ) gained considerable control over Ottoman foreign policy and eventually over the bureaucracy as a whole.

The Ottoman forces had gained some time for the Allies, but in the end the Turks were forced to abandon the redoubts.