Constantinople
In ad 305, there occurred an event unprecedented in the history of the Roman Empire. Emperor Diocletian voluntarily abdicated to live the simple life of a farmer on his country estate. Read more
Constantinople
It was a sorry tale. A brilliant general, military hero, and faithful servant of the state, blind and reduced to penury in his old age, sitting on the main street of Constantinople begging for his living. Read more
Constantinople
Shortly before dawn on June 3, 1098, Bohemund of Taranto, one of the leaders of the First Crusade and the survivor of many campaigns, stood in the shadow of the Tower of the Two Sisters, one of the strongest points in the defenses of the ancient city of Antioch. Read more
Constantinople
Byzantium, the successor state to ancient Rome, lasted over a thousand years. But it all could have been different because its first major enemy—Persia—was a fierce and determined competitor bent on the Empire’s demise. Read more
Constantinople
For Europe, there was great news from Malta in August 1565. The Ottoman Turks had lifted their siege and made for home. Read more
Constantinople
Early in the morning of Tuesday, May 29, 1453, they came swarming like hungry wolves over the plain between the Turkish palisades and the battered walls of Byzantium. Read more
Constantinople
It was the spring of 1097 and the Turks guarding the walls of Nicaea were in a confident mood. Read more
Constantinople
Mention Elizabethan England to most people, and they usually think of William Shakespeare, the Globe Theatre and Sir Francis Drake. Read more
Constantinople
Although the great Crusades were over by 1309 ad, one old crusading order continued to evolve, flourish, and make enemies—the Knights Hospitallers of St. Read more
Constantinople
For many history buffs, the date 1066 conjures up an image of Norman knights breaking through the shield wall of the ax-wielding Anglo-Saxons at Senlac Hill. Read more
Constantinople
In the English-speaking world, most students of military history would be hard-pressed to identify the time, place, or antagonists of the Canakkale Campaign. Read more
Constantinople
By the middle of the 12th century, much of western Europe had settled into a tenuous, often interrupted peace, and many modern nation-states had begun to emerge. Read more
Constantinople
The Battle of Dorylaeum, fought on July 1, 1097, marked the first full-scale military clash between the Christian armies of the West and the Muslim armies of the East. Read more
Constantinople
It was a spectacle never to be forgotten by those few who were lucky enough to witness it. Read more
Constantinople
On April 1, 1811, one-eyed General Mikhail Kutuzov arrived in the Romanian capital of Bucharest to take command of Russia’s Moldavian army. Read more
Constantinople
To his contemporaries, Harun al-Rashid, fifth caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, seemed the most fortunate of men. Read more
Constantinople
In 1242, Russian Prince Alexander Nevsky faced the armored might of the Teutonic knights. Generals Alexander Suvorov and Peter Kotlyarevski were Napoleon’s contemporaries, while General Mikhail Skobelev exemplified the panache of the Victorian Era. Read more
Constantinople
The tattered banners of Hercules fluttered in the howling wind along the Frigidus River in western Italy, hard athwart the Adriatic Sea, on the afternoon of September 6, 394 ad. Read more
Constantinople
On the morning of September 14, 1854, an Anglo-French fleet arrived off the coast of the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea. Read more
Constantinople
In the summer of 1875, the Christian Slavic populations of Bosnia and Herzegovina rose up in rebellion against their Muslim Ottoman Turkish rulers in response to high taxes and depredations by the local Turkish administration. Read more
