Ottoman History

Ottoman History

Dolmabahçe Palace (Turkish: Dolmabahçe Sarayı, IPA: [doɫmabahˈtʃe saɾaˈjɯ]) located in the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul, Turkey, on the European coastline of the Bosphorus strait, served as the main administrative center of the Ottoman Empire from 1856 to 1887 and 1909 to 1922 (with Yıldız Palace being used in the interim).
Location

Mehmed II, also known as The Conqueror is one of the famous sultans of Ottoman Empire with his intelligence. Mehmed II ruled the Ottoman for a brief time, from 1444 to 1446, after his father. After that time Sultan Murad II renounced the throne but when he died Mehmed II ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1451 to 1481. Mehmet II was a genius statesman and a military leader who was also interested in literature, fine arts and monumental architecture. He was educated by famous scholar Aksemseddin and according to Ottoman historians he was speaking seven languages fluently.

During the second Mongol invasion, Tamerlane had met and very nearly annihilated another rising power: the Ottomans. Under a minor chieftain named Othman, groups of Turkish-speaking peoples in Anatolia were united in the Ottoman confederation which, by the second half of the fourteenth century, had conquered much of present-day Greece and Turkey and was threatening Constantinople.
The Ottoman state was born on the frontier between Islam and the Byzantine Empire. Turkish tribes, driven from their homeland in the steppes of Central Asia by the Mongols, had embraced Islam and settled in Anatolia on the battle lines of the Islamic world, where they formed the Ottoman confederation. They were called ghazis, warriors for the faith, and their highest ambition was to die in battle for their adopted religion.

Imagine yourself as a young sultan in charge of an empire spanning parts of three continents—Asia, Europe, and Africa—your ancestors brought together through conquests. You are 13 years old and are enthroned in the capital city, Istanbul. You are confronted with the legacy of great rulers before you such as Suleiman the Magnificent and Mehmet the Conqueror. And yet, you are neither a renowned warrior nor an able administrator. How do you leave your mark on the fabric of the city that your forbears coveted and conquered? You commission one of the finest mosques in the heart of the imperial city.

Osman I (1259-1326) was the leader of a tribe of conquering warriors, who formed an independent state out of which arose the great Ottoman Empire.

Mehmed I, also called Çelebi Sultan Mehmed (died May 26, 1421, Edirne, Ottoman Empire) Ottoman sultan who reunified the dismembered Ottoman territories following the defeat of Ankara (1402). He ruled in Anatolia and, after 1413, in the Balkans as well.

Timur (Tamerlane), victorious over the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I at the Battle of Ankara, restored to the Turkmen their principalities that had been annexed by the Ottomans and divided the remaining Ottoman territory among three of Bayezid’s sons. Thus, Mehmed ruled in Amasya, İsa in Bursa, and Süleyman in Rumelia (Balkan lands under Ottoman control). Mehmed defeated İsa and seized Bursa

Murad II, (born June 1404,Amasya, Ottoman Empire[now in Turkey]—died February 3, 1451, Edirne) Ottoman sultan (1421–44 and 1446–51) who expanded and consolidated Ottoman rule in the Balkans, pursued a policy of restraint in Anatolia, and helped lead the empire to recovery after its near demise at the hands of Timurfollowing the Battle of Ankara (1402).

Early in his reign, Murad had to overcome several claimants to the Ottoman throne who were supported by the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologusand by many of the Turkmen principalities in Anatolia. By 1425 Murad had eliminated his rivals, had reestablished Ottoman rule .

Selim I, byname Yavuz (“The Grim”) (born 1470, Amasya,Ottoman Empire [now in Turkey]—died Sept. 22, 1520, Çorlu) Ottoman sultan (1512–20) who extended the empire toSyria, the Hejaz, and Egypt and raised the Ottomans to leadership of the Muslim world.

Selim came to the throne in the wake of civil strife in which he, his brother, and their father, Bayezid II, had been involved. Selim eliminated all potential claimants to the sultanate, leaving only his ablest son, Süleyman, as his heir. He then turned eastward, where Ismāʿīl I, founder of the Ṣafavid dynasty in Iran, posed a political

TURKEY’S LOCATION at the meeting point between Europe and Asia has given rise to an incredible history as waves of people, states, eras, and empires have left their mark on the coastline and mountains, the people and culture.
Turkey may have more ancient ruins that pretty much anywhere else, but it’s not the sheer number of sites that impresses, but that so many remain near intact. To walk among the graceful columns of a Lycian ruin adjacent to a Mediterranean beach, or to set foot in a Roman amphitheater at sunset, imagining the scenes that must have unfolded here thousands of years ago, couldn’t be more atmospheric. And to stand in the very spots where Alexander the Great, Saint Paul, and Helen of Troy once made history is pretty incredible.

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Göbekli Tepe

Dating back to the 6th century BC, Side - named after Sida, daughter of Danaus - was one of the earliest settlements of the Anatolia region and was renowned for its harbour during the Hittite period when it became a prominent commercial town trading with the countries in the eastern and western Mediterranean.

Side was occupied by Alexander the Great in 333 BC who introduced its people to the Hellenistic culture, which flourished between the 4th and 1st century BC. Following Alexander’s death, Side came under the control of Egypt’s Ptolemy dynasty that controlled side until it was captured by the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BC. In 190 BC a fleet from Rhodes, the Greek island city-state, supported by Rome defeated the Seleucid fleet which was commanded by the Carthaginian general Hannibal.

The Topkapi Palace situated in the heart of Istanbul was the official and primary residence of the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire from 1465 to 1856. Construction began on the palace in 1459 by the Sultan Mehmed II, who defeated and captured the Byzantine city of Constantinople in 1453 and renamed the city Istanbul. The Palace was originally known as the New Palace to distinguish it from the previous residence it replaced as the main residence. It received the name ‘Topkapý’ (Cannon Gate) in the 19th century, after the Topkapý Gate and shore pavilion, although these no longer exist.

History
Early cooperation with Turkish revolutionaries[edit]
The Ottoman government was party to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed between the Bolshevik government of Russia and the Central Powers on March 3, 1918; the treaty became obsolete later the same year. Russian Bolsheviks and the Soviet government headed by Vladimir Lenin, who emerged victorious from the Russian Civil War by 1921, viewed the Turkish revolutionary (national) movement under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal as congenial to their ideological and geopolitical aspirations. The Lenin government abdicated the traditional claims of the Russian Empire to the territories of Western Armenia and the Turkish Straits.
The Soviet supply of gold and armaments to the Kemalists in 1920–1922 was a key factor in the latter's successful grab of power in an Ottoman Empire defeated by the Triple Entente and their victory in the Armenian campaign and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922).[1]

Sultan Murad III was born in Manisa, on 4th of July 1546. He was the son of Sultan Selim II and Afife Nur Banu Sultana who was Venetian originated. He was a gracious ruler, he had spoken Arabic and Persian fluently. After, his father ascended he was appointed as the governor of Manisa. He took lessons from the famous scholars of Manisa. He was one of the most intelligent sultans of the empire. After, his father's death he went to Istanbul and ascended the throne on 22nd December 1574. Like his father, he left the administration to Sokollu Mehmed Pasha. Sultan Murad III led a life of pleasures, he never left Istanbul during his reign and he was very much influenced by the women in the palace. The woman dynasty emerged in his period continued in the following years.

The Blue Mosque, or to give it its’ correct name, The Sultan Ahmed Mosque named after the 14th Ottoman Sultan Ahmed I who commissioned its construction. Started in 1609 it took seven years to build and where it was normal to pay for such projects with the spoils of war, Ahmed had not gain any victories so had to pay for it from existing funds. The mosque was built on the site of the Palace of the Byzantine emperors which had to be demolished. The design of the Mosque incorporates both Ottoman and Byzantine architecture.

A long history of mutual enmity is exacerbating tension between Turkey and Russia. Leaders in both countries are apt to view their current hostilities through the prism of a bitterly contested imperial past.
“There is a good old, nasty feeling between those countries,” observed Turkish historian Ayhan Aktar of Istanbul’s Bilgi University. “There have been over the centuries several military encounters, [and] Turkey lost all of them. And then there was the Cold War against [the] Soviet Union, but for Turks it was always the Russians.”

Over the past 500 years, Russians and Turks have fought 12 wars, the first in 1568 over the Astrakhan khanate, located where the Volga River flows into the Caspian Sea. The last was during World War I, a conflict that hastened the collapse of both empires.