The Obituary
From a small Anatolian principality, the Ottomans built one of history’s longest-lasting empires, seizing Constantinople in 1453 and ruling much of the Middle East, North Africa, and southeastern Europe. The sultan also held the title of caliph, leader of Sunni Islam. Slow decline through the 18th and 19th centuries earned it the label “sick man of Europe.” Defeat in World War I brought Allied occupation and partition. Mustafa Kemal’s nationalist movement abolished the sultanate in 1922 and founded the Turkish Republic the next year, ending the Ottoman line.
Worth remembering
- Mehmed II's conquest of Constantinople in 1453 ended the thousand-year Byzantine Empire.
- At its peak under Suleiman the Magnificent it ruled from Vienna's gates to the Persian Gulf and North Africa.
Sources
- Ottoman Empire traditionally founded c. 1299 by Osman I Wikipedia
- Ottoman sultanate abolished 1 November 1922; republic proclaimed 1923 Encyclopaedia Britannica
A graveyard tradition: leave a stone to show you came, and remembered.