Fall of Constantinople
The Ottomans end the thousand-year Byzantine Empire
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After a siege of nearly two months, the army of Ottoman sultan Mehmed II stormed Constantinople; the last emperor, Constantine XI, died in the fighting. Byzantium fell, the city became the Ottoman capital, and Moscow later claimed Byzantium's legacy.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 15th century
Did you know
The Eastern Roman Empire outlived the Western one by almost 1,000 years: Rome fell in 476, Constantinople only in 1453.
When Constantinople fell in 1453, Gutenberg was already printing in Mainz: the last Roman Empire vanished in the first years of the printed book.
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1429 Joan of Arc relieves Orléans — 24 years earlier
- c. 1450 Gutenberg's printing press — 3 years earlier
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1478 Annexation of Novgorod by Moscow — 25 years later
Asia
- 1446 King Sejong promulgates Hangul — 7 years earlier
Americas
- c. 1438 Pachacuti founds the Inca Empire — 15 years earlier
- c. 1450 Building of Machu Picchu — 3 years earlier
- c. 1450 Founding of the Iroquois Confederacy — 3 years earlier
Oceania
- c. 1445 Extinction of the moa — 8 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Johannes Gutenberg (aged 53)
- Mehmed II (aged 21)
- Christopher Columbus (aged 2)
- Leonardo da Vinci (aged 1)
- Charles VII (aged 50)
- Pachacuti (aged 35)
- Louis XI (aged 30)
- Ashikaga Yoshimasa (aged 17)
- Ivan III (aged 13)
- Isabella I of Castile (aged 2)