Mehmed Born: Conqueror of Constantinople

Mehmed II was 21 when he conquered Constantinople on May 29, 1453, ending the Byzantine Empire after more than a thousand years. Born on March 30, 1432, in Edirne, the Ottoman capital in Thrace, he was the son of Sultan Murad II and had already served briefly as sultan at age 12 before his father returned to power. He ascended permanently in 1451 and immediately began planning the siege that would define his reign. He assembled an army of approximately 80,000 soldiers, a fleet of ships, and commissioned the construction of a massive cannon, the Basilica, designed by a Hungarian engineer named Orban. The cannon was so large it required 60 oxen and 200 men to transport and could fire stone balls weighing over 500 kilograms. The walls of Constantinople had repelled every siege for over a millennium, but Mehmed brought 69 cannons of various sizes and employed innovative tactics. When a chain across the Golden Horn blocked his fleet from entering the harbor, he had his ships transported overland on greased logs, bypassing the chain entirely. The city fell after a 53-day siege. Mehmed entered Hagia Sophia that evening and ordered it converted from a cathedral to a mosque. He then transformed Constantinople into Istanbul, rebuilding the city as the capital of the Ottoman Empire. He repopulated it by importing skilled craftsmen, merchants, and scholars from across his domains. He went on to conquer large portions of Greece, Serbia, Bosnia, and the Crimea, establishing Ottoman control over the eastern Mediterranean. He called himself Kayser-i Rum, Caesar of Rome, claiming inheritance of the Roman imperial tradition. He was also a scholar who collected Greek and Latin manuscripts and spoke six languages. He died on May 3, 1481, at age 49, probably poisoned. The empire he built lasted until 1922.