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   Fash-E :windmill_of_friendship: (fash-e@poa.st)'s status on Thursday, 22-Feb-2024 08:38:12 JST Fash-E :windmill_of_friendship:

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   In 1204 tensions between Greek and Latin Christians culminated in Latin troops sacking Constantinople and establishing a Latin Empire in its place. The Greek princes fled to Nicaea where they launched a campaign to restore the Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos Dynasty. After winning the Battle of Pelagonia in 1259, they returned to Constantinople by 1261. The Palaiologos Restoration would not last. With the collapse of Byzantium and the Crusader states, the Turks had overran all of Anatolia. The Byzantine Empire had managed to restore control over Greece and Constantinople but it had been critically weakened, leaving it unable to halt the advance of the Turks. In the 14th century, the Turkish Beyliks consolidated around a Sultanate known as the Ottomans. With complete control over Anatolia, they sailed across the Bosphorus under Sultan Bayezid I. They conquered Thrace and then Bulgaria by 1396. They had Constantinople completely encircled but for 57 more years they still could not take the city.
   
   The Fall of Constantinople 1453. For over one thousand years the Theodosian Walls had stood impenetrable. Built between 412 and 422 AD during the reign of Emperor Theodosius II, They had protected Constantinople from siege after siege (20), even against the largest armies of Islam. In 621 the walls had repelled 80000 Bulgars and Persians with only 8000 defenders. Only with the invention of the super-sized cannon known as the Dardanelles Gun could the walls finally be breached. The gun had been designed and sold to the Turks by a German-Hungarian engineer named Orban. The Turks took the design and made it larger, naming is the Great Turkish Bombard.
   
   The Byzantines had known the end was near and made preparations to evacuate Christian artifacts and the royal family. Now the Turkish Sultan Mehmed II had besieged the city with 130,000 soldiers and was bombarding the gates with the largest cannons in history. The last Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos refused to abandon the city, choosing to fight to the end. As the Turks broke through the walls and stormed the city, the Emperor's last recorded words were: "The city is fallen and I am still alive." The last Roman Emperor took off his imperial ornaments so nothing would distinguish him from an ordinary soldier and led his remaining men in a final charge where they were killed.