Constantinople owes Hagia Sophia to rioting sports fans.
The previous church burned in the Nika riots of 532, and Justinian built the present one on its site in just five years.
The events
- Nika riots532 · Constantinople. Fans of the rival Blue and Green chariot teams united against the emperor under the cry 'Nika!' ('Conquer!') and burned half the city. Justinian was ready to flee until Empress Theodora talked him out of it; Procopius puts the dead at about 30,000.
- Hagia Sophia consecrated537 · Constantinople. Justinian I built in five years a cathedral in Constantinople crowned by a vast dome about 31 m across; for nearly a thousand years it was the largest church in Christendom. After 1453 it became a mosque, in 1934 a museum and in 2020 a mosque again.
More amazing facts
- 525 · 731 For five centuries nobody knew they were living in AD anything.
- 532 Emperor Justinian was nearly overthrown by sports fans.
- 532 During the Nika riots it was his wife who stopped Justinian from fleeing.
- 536 · 541 536 is called one of the worst years to be alive: volcanic haze dimmed the sun across the Northern Hemisphere, and five years later the Plague of Justinian began.
- 537 Hagia Sophia remained the world's largest church for more than 500 years: consecrated in 537, it was surpassed only when the abbey church of Cluny in France was completed in the 12th century.
- 537 Byzantine sources claimed that Hagia Sophia's Imperial Gate was made from the timber of Noah's Ark. The seven-metre, 6th-century door was used only by the emperor and his retinue.