History of the Byzantines

Emperor Constantine I Founded the Byzantine Capital

330

Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman/Byzantine, also the brief Latin, and the later Ottoman empires. It was reinaugurated in 324 AD from ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, and dedicated on 11 May 330. Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe, it was instrumental in advancement of Christianity during Roman and Byzantine times as the home of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

Nika Riots

532

The Nika riots or Nika revolt, took place against Emperor Justinian I in Constantinople over the course of a week in AD 532. They were the most violent riots in the city's history, with nearly half Constantinople being burned or destroyed and tens of thousands of people killed.

Hagia Sophia

532

The Hagia Sophia was built in a short time of about six years, it was done in 537 AD. The names of the building’s architects “Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus” they are well known by being familiar with mechanics and mathematics. The Hagia Sophia with a huge 32-meter (105-foot) main dome supported on pendentives and two semidomes, on the side of longitudinal axis. There are three aisles separated by columns with galleries above and great marble piers rising up to support the dome.

General Belisarius

533

Belisarius was rewarded by Justinian with the command of a land and sea expedition against the Vandal Kingdom, mounted in 533–534. The Romans had political, religious and strategic reasons for such a campaign. The pro-Roman Vandal king Hilderic had been deposed and murdered by the usurper Gelimer, giving Justinian a legal pretext. The Arian Vandals had periodically persecuted the Nicene Christians within their kingdom, many of whom made their way to Constantinople seeking redress.

Military Campaigns

634

Jerusalem fell in 638, Caesarea in 640, while others held out until 641.The province of Syria was the first to be wrested from Byzantine control. Arab-Muslim raids that followed the Ridda wars prompted the Byzantines to send a major expedition into southern Palestine, which was defeated by the Arab forces under command of Khalid ibn al-Walid at the Battle of Ajnadayn.

Byzantine conquest of Bulgaria

970

a series of conflicts between the Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantine Empire led to the gradual conquest of Bulgaria by the Byzantines, who thus re-established their control over the entire Balkan peninsula for the first time since the 7th-century Slavic invasions. The struggle began with the incorporation of eastern Bulgaria after the Russo–Byzantine War (970–971).

Eastern Orthodox Church

1054

The East–West Schism, also called the Great Schism and the Schism of 1054, was the break of communion between what are now the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox churches, which has lasted since the 11th century.

Pope Urban II

1095

Pope Urban II makes perhaps the most influential speech of the Middle Ages, giving rise to the Crusades by calling all Christians in Europe to war against Muslims in order to reclaim the Holy Land.
Born Odo of Lagery in 1042, Urba was a protege of the great reformer Pope Gregory VII. He made internal reform his main focus, railing against simony and other clerical abuses prevalent during the Middle Ages. Urban showed himself to be an adept and powerful cleric.

Sack of Constantinople

1204

Following the siege of Constantinople in 1203, on 1 August 1203, the pro-Crusader Alexios Angelos was crowned Emperor Alexios IV of the Byzantine Empire, who then tried to pacify the city. But riots between anti-Crusader Greeks and pro-Crusader Latins broke out later that month and lasted until November, during which most of the populace began to turn against Emperor Alexios IV.1204

Fall of Constantinople

1453

The Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire 1453by an invading army of the Ottoman Empire on 29 May 1453. The Ottomans were commanded by the then 21-year-old Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, who defeated an army commanded by Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos. The conquest of Constantinople followed a 53-day siege that had begun on 6 April 1453.