The Ottoman Empire

699 AH – 3 Mar 192487 items

dynastiesempires
The Golden Horn with the Süleymaniye Mosque by moonlight, oil painting by Amédée Rosier (1831–1914). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Golden Horn with the Süleymaniye Mosque by moonlight, oil painting by Amédée Rosier (1831–1914). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Osman to Atatürk, 1299–1922

One family ruled for six hundred years. It began as a frontier lordship of Turkish horsemen in north-western Anatolia, took Constantinople in 1453, reached Vienna, Baghdad, Cairo and Mecca under Selim I and Süleyman, and held on as a reforming, shrinking empire until the First World War broke it. The Grand National Assembly in Ankara abolished the sultanate on 1 November 1922 and the caliphate sixteen months later.

Hijri dates, as the Ottomans kept them

The Ottoman chroniclers dated by the hijri calendar, and so do this timeline’s key events: Constantinople fell on 20 Jumada al-Awwal 857, which the app draws on Tuesday 29 May 1453, and the traditional founding year is 699 AH, which ran from late September 1299 into September 1300. The app’s hijri is the tabular calendar, which can sit a day off the sighted month the Ottomans lived by, so where the two disagree the item keeps the other side’s date and its note gives the hijri one.

European events before 1582 carry Julian dates, as their own records give them: Mohács was fought on 29 August 1526 Julian, which the proleptic Gregorian calendar would call 8 September. Later events are Gregorian.

How to read it

  • Bands for seven eras, from the rise to the dissolution, for the sultans who changed the empire most, and for sieges, wars and the genocide.

  • Tags to follow one thread: battles, sieges, diplomacy, reform, religion and civilians.

  • The map runs from Vienna to Mecca and from Baghdad to Malta: the empire at its height spanned three continents.

The main narrative follows Caroline Finkel’s Osman’s Dream, Halil İnalcık on the classical age, Donald Quataert and Erik-Jan Zürcher on the last two centuries, and Ronald Grigor Suny on the Armenian genocide.

Items

  1. The rise: from frontier lordship to empire

    ≈ 153 years

  2. Osman I

    ≈ 24 years, 3 months

  3. Osman’s traditional year of independence

    Söğüt, Osman’s home district

  4. Osman defeats the Byzantines at Bapheus

    Near Nicomedia (İzmit); the field is not known

  5. Orhan

    38 years

  6. Bursa surrenders to Orhan

    Tombs of Osman and Orhan, Tophane, Bursa

  7. An earthquake opens Gallipoli

    Gallipoli (Gelibolu)

  8. Murad I

    ≈ 26 years, 11 months

  9. Adrianople becomes Edirne

    Adrianople (Edirne)

  10. Bayezid I, the Thunderbolt

    ≈ 13 years

  11. Battle of Kosovo

    Kosovo Polje, near Gazimestan

  12. Battle of Nicopolis

    Nicopolis (Nikopol), on the Danube

  13. The Interregnum

    ≈ 10 years, 11 months

  14. Timur crushes Bayezid at Ankara

    The Çubuk plain, north-east of Ankara

  15. Battle of Varna

    Outside Varna, on the Black Sea

  16. Mehmed II, the Conqueror

    ≈ 30 years

  17. Rumeli Hisarı cuts the Bosporus

    Rumeli Hisarı, on the Bosporus

  18. Siege of Constantinople

    1 month, 23 days · Constantinople (Istanbul)

  19. Ships hauled overland into the Golden Horn

    Over the hill behind Galata into the Golden Horn

  20. The classical age

    ≈ 113 years

  21. Constantinople falls

    Gate of St Romanos (Topkapı), Theodosian Walls

  22. Selim I, the Grim

    ≈ 8 years, 5 months

  23. Battle of Chaldiran

    The plain of Chaldiran

  24. Battle of Marj Dabiq

    Marj Dabiq, north of Aleppo

  25. Cairo falls after Ridaniya

    Ridaniya, outside Cairo

  26. The sharif of Mecca submits

    The Great Mosque, Mecca

  27. Süleyman the Magnificent

    ≈ 46 years

  28. Belgrade taken

    Belgrade fortress (Kalemegdan)

  29. The Knights of Rhodes surrender

    Rhodes town, the Knights’ citadel

  30. Battle of Mohács

    Mohács battlefield (Sátorhely memorial)

  31. First siege of Vienna

    18 days · Vienna, the walled city

  32. The Sultanate of Women

    ≈ 123 years

  33. Baghdad taken from the Safavids

    Baghdad

  34. Battle of Preveza

    Off Preveza, Gulf of Arta

  35. Sinan finishes the Süleymaniye

    Süleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul

  36. Siege of Malta

    3 months, 26 days · Birgu and Fort St Angelo, Malta

  37. The transformation

    ≈ 136 years

  38. Süleyman dies at Szigetvár

    Szigetvár castle

  39. Battle of Lepanto

    Mouth of the Gulf of Patras, off Lepanto

  40. The Janissaries kill Osman II

    Yedikule fortress, Istanbul

  41. Treaty of Zuhab

    Near Qasr-e Shirin (Zuhab)

  42. Siege of Candia

    ≈ 21 years, 4 months · Candia (Heraklion), Crete

  43. The Köprülü era

    ≈ 46 years, 9 months

  44. Second siege of Vienna

    2 months · Kahlenberg, above Vienna

  45. Kara Mustafa strangled in Belgrade

    Belgrade fortress (Kalemegdan)

  46. Treaty of Karlowitz

    Karlowitz (Sremski Karlovci)

  47. Reform and retreat

    ≈ 136 years

  48. The Tulip Era

    ≈ 12 years, 2 months · Sadabad, Kağıthane, on the Golden Horn

  49. The first Ottoman Turkish printed book

    Constantinople (Istanbul)

  50. Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca

    Küçük Kaynarca (Kaynardzha)

  51. Selim III and the New Order

    ≈ 18 years

  52. Mahmud II

    ≈ 30 years, 11 months

  53. The Janissaries destroyed

    Constantinople (Istanbul)

  54. Battle of Navarino

    Navarino Bay (Pylos)

  55. The Tanzimat

    ≈ 36 years, 8 months

  56. The Gülhane edict

    Gülhane gardens, Topkapı Palace

  57. The Crimean War

    ≈ 2 years, 5 months

  58. The Reform Edict

  59. The Hamidian era

    ≈ 31 years, 10 months

  60. The first constitution

    Constantinople (Istanbul)

  61. Congress of Berlin

    Reich Chancellery, Wilhelmstraße, Berlin

  62. The Decree of Muharram

    Constantinople (Istanbul)

  63. The Hamidian massacres

    2 years

  64. Dissolution

    ≈ 14 years, 3 months

  65. The Young Turk Revolution

    Salonica (Thessaloniki)

  66. The Hejaz railway reaches Medina

    Hejaz railway station, Medina

  67. Abdülhamid II deposed

    Constantinople (Istanbul)

  68. The Balkan Wars

    11 months, 26 days

  69. Raid on the Sublime Porte

    The Sublime Porte (Bab-ı Ali)

  70. The empire’s First World War

    ≈ 4 years

  71. The Gallipoli campaign

    10 months, 24 days

  72. The Allied fleet turned back at the Narrows

    The Narrows of the Dardanelles

  73. The Armenian genocide

    ≈ 2 years, 2 months

  74. Armenian leaders arrested in Constantinople

    Constantinople (Istanbul)

  75. The Gallipoli landings

    Anzac Cove and the heights above it

  76. The Temporary Law of Deportation

  77. The Arab Revolt begins in Mecca

    The Great Mosque, Mecca

  78. Massacres at Deir ez-Zor

    Deir ez-Zor, on the Euphrates

  79. Armistice of Mudros

    Mudros harbour, Lemnos

  80. The Turkish War of Independence

    ≈ 3 years, 4 months

  81. Mustafa Kemal lands at Samsun

    Samsun

  82. The Grand National Assembly opens in Ankara

    First Grand National Assembly building, Ankara

  83. Treaty of Sèvres

    Manufacture nationale de Sèvres

  84. The sultanate abolished

    First Grand National Assembly building, Ankara

  85. Treaty of Lausanne

    Palais de Rumine, Lausanne

  86. The Republic of Turkey proclaimed

    First Grand National Assembly building, Ankara

  87. The caliphate abolished

    First Grand National Assembly building, Ankara