Contact Us

How it happened: Ottomans conquer Istanbul

On this day 566 years ago Istanbul was conquered by an Ottoman king. Constantinople, as it was then known, was capital of the Byzantine Empire. It was surrounded by many Muslim states.

  • 4
  • 17
In 1452, Zaganos Pasha, a formidable Ottoman commander, fortified the Anatolian Fortress and finished building the Rumanian Fortress, both overlooking the Bosphorus Strait. The idea was to block military assistance to the Byzantine Empire in Istanbul through the Black Sea.