The Conquest of Constantinople

Sultan Mehmed II, twenty one years old, takes Constantinople and closes one age of world history while opening another.

After a siege of fifty three days, in which ships were hauled overland into the Golden Horn, the city of Constantine became Istanbul. Mehmed the Conqueror invited its scattered population back, protected the Orthodox patriarchate, and made the city an imperial capital of mosques, markets and colleges that bridged Europe and Asia.