№ CCCXLII - William Walker (1824-1860), President of the Republic of Lower California/Republic of Sonora (1853-1854) & President of Nicaragua (1856-1857).
Operation AXIOM
Five hundred sixty years ago to the day, 29 May 1453, Constantinople, the greatest city in all the world & the capital of what we know as the Byzantine Empire, fell to the Ottoman Turks. For a thousand years Constantinople had been the greatest city in all of Christendom, the last remnant of the glory that was Rome; the victorious Ottoman sultan, Mehmet II, was immortalized by the epithet Mehmet the Conqueror. The Fall of Constantinople removed the greatest obstacle to Ottoman expansion into Europe & for the next two centuries the Turk would be on the march, twice advancing as far as Vienna, besieging the Austrian capital in both 1529 & 1683. A number of Christian Greek scholars fled "the City's" new Muslim overlords & settled in Italy, where they are thought to have helped spark the Renaissance. The Ottoman conquest cut off Europe's access to the Silk Road & the trade goods of the Far East, increasing the impetus for the ongoing Portuguese & later Spanish attempts to find a sea route to China & India, explorations that lead to the discovery of this New World forty years after the fall of Constantinople, forever altering the course of human events. Constantinople, the city of Constantine the Great, fell to the Ottoman Turks under Mehmet the Conqueror, five hundred sixty years ago to-day.
The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Les Italiens, "Ottomania" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)
Commentary: Some might think that "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" would be the most appropriate song for such a day, but they would be in error. Constantinople was still Constantinople—or Konstantiniyye—under the Ottoman Empire, only being renamed "Istanbul" in 1923, after Atatürk's establishment of the Republic of Turkey. So, even after the Ottoman conquest of 29 May 1453, the city was Constantinople (not Istanbul).
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