DK Travel : Istanbul : History & Culture

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1071: Battle of Manzikert

The Seljuk Turks from Persia defeated Byzantine forces at Manzikert and seized most of Anatolia. The Byzantines never recovered their eastern lands.
1204: Sack and Capture of Constantinople

The armies of the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople, driving the emperor into exile. Crusader rulers governed in Constantinople until 1261, when Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus recaptured the city.
1453: Birth of Istanbul

Following years of Ottoman encroachment into the Byzantine Empire, Sultan Mehmet II captured Constantinople, renaming it İslambol (“the City of Islam”). The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine IX, died fighting on the city walls.
1529: Siege of Vienna

The Ottoman Empire reached its maximum extent under Süleyman I. In 1526, he had taken control of southern Hungary. In the spring of 1529, he mustered a huge military force with the aim of consolida-ting his Hungarian gains and moving on to Vienna. A combi-nation of serious flooding en route and a spirited defence led by a German mercenary, Niklas Graf Salm, sent the Turks packing and marked the end of Ottoman expansion in Western Europe.
1777: Turkish Delight

Ali Muhiddin Hacı Bekir, confectioner to the imperial court, invented a chewy sweet flavoured with rosewater and coated in icing sugar: rahat lokum (“morsel of contentment”), better known as Turkish delight.
1854–6: Crimean War

When Russia began to encroach on Ottoman territory, Britain and France weighed in on the side of the Turks. Florence Nightingale set up a hospital in Istanbul, defining modern nursing practice (see Florence Nightingale Museum ).
1919–23: Birth of the Republic

Mustafa Kemal Paşa – or Atatürk (“Father of the Turks”) – led a bloodless revolution that abolished the sultanate, and fought a fierce war of independence. In 1923, as first president of the new Republic of Turkey, he moved the capital to Ankara, leaving Istanbul without political status for the first time in 1,600 years.
1973: Bosphorus Bridge

The Bosphorus Bridge was opened between Ortaköy and Beylerbeyi, linking European Turkey to Asian Anatolia.
2005: Talks on EU Membership Begin

Talks began on European Union membership for Turkey. Supporters pointed out that Istanbul, the powerhouse of Turkey’s economy, is European.
AD 330–95: Division of the Roman Empire

In 330, Constantine moved the capital of the Empire from Rome to the former Greek colony of Byzantium. It was initially called New Rome but later became Constantinople (“City of Constantine”). In 395, Theodosius divided the Empire between his sons, with the western half run from Rome and the eastern (Byzantine) half centred on Constantinople.