Lonely Planet İstanbul Guide

thus thrown open to Turkish invasion and settlement. Soon the Seljuks had built a thriving empire of their own in central Anatolia, with their capital first at Nicaea and later at Konya. As Turkish power was consolidated to the east of Constantinople, the power of Venice – always a maritime and commercial rival to Constantinople – grew in the West. This coincided with the launch of the First Crusade and the arrival in Constantinople of the first of the Crusaders in 1096. Soldiers of the Second Crusade passed through the city in 1146 during the reign of Manuel I, son of John Comnenus II ‘the Good’ and his empress, Eirene, both of whose mosaic portraits can be seen in the gallery at Aya Sofya. In 1204 soldiers of the Fourth Crusade led by Enrico Dandolo, Doge of Venice, attacked and ransacked the city. They then ruled it with an ally, Count Baldwin of Flanders, until 1261, when soldiers under Michael VIII Palaiologos, a Byzantine aristocrat in exile who had risen to become co emperor of Nicaea, successfully recaptured it. The Byzantine Empire was restored.

Mehmet the Conqueror (Fatih) became Ottoman sultan for the first time in 1444, aged only 12, but was subsequently forced from power by a powerful grand vizier. He regained the throne in 1451, aged 19, and reigned until his death in 1481, aged 49.

The Bosphorus Bridge The first bridge built over the Bosphorus opened in 1973 and was initially named after the waterway. It was renamed Martyrs of July 15 Bridge after the attempted coup d’état in 2016.