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Following unification of the Mongol tribes, Genghis Khan launches a campaign of conquest. His sons and grandsons create the world’s biggest land empire.
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Weakened by disunity, the empire implodes. Ming troops oust the Mongols from Dadu.
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Osman inherits the leadership of th estriban group later known by the version o his name, as the Ottoman Turks.
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The Ottoman sultan Bayazid I brings the Slav kingdom of Bulgarian under his control.
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The Ottoman sultan Bayazid is defeated and captured near Ankara by Timur, who keeps the sultan captivity until his death the next year.
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Skanderberg, Albania’s national hero, begins his long campaign for success against the Turks.
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Christian boys, trained as slaves in the personal service of the Turkish sultan, acquire considerable power as the elite cops of janissaries.
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Mehmed II lays siege to the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in 1453. He uses siege guns and bombards the walls for eight weeks. Heavy fighting continues, but the Byzantine capital is defeated when Emperor Constantine XI dies in battle. The city is now called Istanbul.
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Turks terrify Constantinople by lobbing vast stones as the city from a 19-ton bombard of cast iron.
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Constantinople falls to a 21-year-old Muslims conqueror, Mhemed II, bringing the Ottoman Turks their capital city.
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During his reign Istanbul becomes a political, cultural and economic center. Mosques, bazaars, roads, inns and baths are built.
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The Turks complete the occupation of Greece, which remains within the Ottoman Empire until the XIX century.
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Mehmed II, conqueror of Constantinople, begins to build Topkapi Saraí as his palace.
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Mehmed II and Ottoman Turks conquer Bosnia, where a large number of families convert to a Islam.
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Skanderberg dies and Albania becomes fully absorbed into the Ottoman Empire.
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The name of Constantinople changes to Istanbul, a word based on the everyday Greek name for the city.
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Bayazid II, the Turkish sultan, makes a special point of welcoming in Istanbul the Jews expelled from Spain.