History of the Anatolia (modern day Turkey)

By Eli K. Cooke

Part I: Rise of the Ottomans

In the 11th Century, when the Byzantine Empire began to weaken Islamic Countries started claiming Antolian territory, the most famous of which, the Seljuk Empire. In around 100 years the Seljuks had split up leaving a ton of tiny countries constantly trying to gain territory…, and once they gained it they lost it to another tiny country. Then the Ottoman Empire was created.

By the late Thirteenth Century The Ottoman Empire was one of the small Countries (Emirates to be exact) that bordered the Byzantine Empire. It, as expected, conquered lots of the Anatolian countries from 1280-1300. Except instead of losing them they kept gaining territories. In 1440’s there was an attempted crusade to stop Ottoman expansion but it was stopped in Varna, 1444. The Ottomans started to take advantage of the Byzantine Empire's weak position, and besieged their capital, Constantanople; And in two years the siege was over with the Ottomans victorious.

Part: II Rein of the Ottomans.

Their territory quickly expanded across the Balkans with Walachia, Moldova, and Khanate of the Crimea as Vassal states leaving only a few Venetian territories behind. By 1481 all of their Vassal states were territories, and in 1517 they captured the Maluk Empire's capital, Cairo causing the empire's fall. It had been in control of Syria, and Egypt for over 450 years.

In the 1500’s The Ottoman Empire Fought a series of naval battles with a European Alliance called the Holy League, that was formed after the Ottoman capture of Algiers in 1529, the expulsion of a crusader Army called St. Johns from Rhodes, and the Cyproit Massacre of 1570. By 1639 they had an empire stretching from the Caucasus mountains to the western border or Morocco.

Throughout the 1800s multiple Ottoman influenced massacres happened. Here’s a list of Ottoman Massacres (All thpugh, not just the ones in the 1800’s):

1. The Massacre of the Latins, 1182 (this wasn’t technically in the Ottoman Empire since that wasn’t created until another hundred years but it’s definitely part of Turkish history)
2. The Massacre of Cyprus, 1570
3. The Chios Massacre of 1822
4. The Hamidian Massacre of 1894
5. The Armenian Massacre of 1915