Ottoman Empire

A Turkish state which emerged in Central Anatolia in the late 13th century, the Ottoman Empire conquered the rest of modern-day Turkey, much of the Middle East, Egypt, North Africa, and the Balkans at various points of its existence until the early 20th century. Under Sultan Mehmed II, the Ottomans dealt the final blow to the Byzantine Empire by capturing Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1453, although the empire reached its territorial, military, economic, and cultural apex under Sulieman the Magnificent in 1590. Like the Byzantines before them, the Ottomans used their control of the Eastern Mediterranean to profit from trade and interactions between the East and West and, beginning with Mehmed II, fashioned themselves as the successors to Eastern Rome. The Balkans achieved independence from Ottoman rule in the 19th century with the 1832 Treaty of Constantinople, following the Greek War of Independence. The Ottoman Empire, after allying itself with the Central Powers during the First World War and committing genocides against Armenian, Pontic Greek, and Assyrian populations, was defeated by Britain and its allies. The Empire’s Middle Eastern possessions were partitioned by Britain and France after the war, setting the stage for the region’s tumultuous history in the 20th and 21st centuries. However, Turkey would win its independence, abolish the Ottoman monarchy, and emerge as the modern Republic of Turkey by 1923.