Whether the Ottoman/Turks are more European or Middle Eastern is open to debate. I have decided to put them in the European section. Some of the trivia below will support that pretence.
- The Turks came from Central Asia and were related to the Mongols.
- From the 13th to the 15th century, the Turks advanced into Anatolia and into the Balkans, mixing little by little with the local Byzantine population of mixed European descent (Celtic, Gothic, Greek, Latin and Slavic).
- In 1299, Osman I declared the independence of the Ottoman state. In 1324, he took the major Byzantine city of Bursa and made it the Ottoman capital.
- The Janissaries were an elite corp that formed the Ottoman sultan's private guards. Founded in 1330, new recruits were taken among Slavic Christian children, because of Ottoman suspicions towards non-Turkish Muslims at the time. Some of those European janissaries rose to become vizier (minister) and one even grand vizier in the Ottoman state.
- In 1453, Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror laid siege on Constantinople, the last stronghold of Byzantine power in the region. Thanks to one of the earliest use of cannons in the region, he destroyed the city's legendary 30-m high walls, seize it and made it its new capital. The Hagia Sofia, built in the 6th century by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian as the largest Christian church in the world, became a mosque.
- In the first half of the 16th century, Europe had 4 great monarchs : King Henry VIII of England & Ireland, King Francis I of France, Emperor Charles V of Habsburg (Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Austria) and Sultan Suleyman I (Ottoman Empire). All were probably the greatest monarchs their country had known, and the greatest to remain for several centuries.
- Roxelana (nee Aleksandra Lisowska), a Slavic woman born in present-day Ukraine, was first slave, then concubine, then wife of Suleyman the Magnificient. Her son with the Sultan inherited the throne as Sultan Selim II, thus infusing European blood into the Imperial Ottoman dynasty.
- French was the language of the Ottoman court, nobility and bourgeoisie in the 19th century. Many French words have passed into modern Turkish language as a result.
- The Turks came from Central Asia and were related to the Mongols.
- From the 13th to the 15th century, the Turks advanced into Anatolia and into the Balkans, mixing little by little with the local Byzantine population of mixed European descent (Celtic, Gothic, Greek, Latin and Slavic).
- In 1299, Osman I declared the independence of the Ottoman state. In 1324, he took the major Byzantine city of Bursa and made it the Ottoman capital.
- The Janissaries were an elite corp that formed the Ottoman sultan's private guards. Founded in 1330, new recruits were taken among Slavic Christian children, because of Ottoman suspicions towards non-Turkish Muslims at the time. Some of those European janissaries rose to become vizier (minister) and one even grand vizier in the Ottoman state.
- In 1453, Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror laid siege on Constantinople, the last stronghold of Byzantine power in the region. Thanks to one of the earliest use of cannons in the region, he destroyed the city's legendary 30-m high walls, seize it and made it its new capital. The Hagia Sofia, built in the 6th century by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian as the largest Christian church in the world, became a mosque.
- In the first half of the 16th century, Europe had 4 great monarchs : King Henry VIII of England & Ireland, King Francis I of France, Emperor Charles V of Habsburg (Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Austria) and Sultan Suleyman I (Ottoman Empire). All were probably the greatest monarchs their country had known, and the greatest to remain for several centuries.
- Roxelana (nee Aleksandra Lisowska), a Slavic woman born in present-day Ukraine, was first slave, then concubine, then wife of Suleyman the Magnificient. Her son with the Sultan inherited the throne as Sultan Selim II, thus infusing European blood into the Imperial Ottoman dynasty.
- French was the language of the Ottoman court, nobility and bourgeoisie in the 19th century. Many French words have passed into modern Turkish language as a result.