|
ISTANBUL HISTORY
With past spanning 3000 years, the greatest part of Istanbul's fascination comes from its place in history and the buildings that remain from ancient times. here's a quick summary of its past to help you to distinguish a hippodrome from a harem.
1000-657 BC
Ancient fishing villages on this site.
657 BC - 330 AD
byzantium, a Greek city state, later subject to Rome.
330-1453 AD
Constantinople, the "New Rome", capital of the Later or Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire - reached its height in the 12th century.
1453-1922
Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Turkish Empire - reached the height of its glory in the 16 the century.
1922-1984
Ankara becomes the capital of the Turkish Republic. Istanbul continues to be the country's largest city and port, and its commercial and cultural centre.
1984 to the Present
Istanbul begins to enjoy a renaissance as "capital of the East". A new municipal goverment undertakes vast schemes to modernise and beautify the city and attract international business operations. New parks, museums and cultural centres are opened , old ones are restored and refurbished.
It then became the capital city of Ottoman Empire, which saw a population increase with immigrants from other parts of the country, with religious freedom and social rights granted to Greeks, Armenians and Jews. Mehmet the Conqueror began to rebuild it, with a new palace and mosque (Fatih Camii) and tried to inject new life into the economy.
The reign of Suleyman the Magnificent (1520-66) was considered the greatest of all the Ottoman leaders, and the military conquests paid for the most impressive Ottoman architecture, the work of Mimar (Sedefkar) Sinan. The city was also the center of the Islamic work, and domes and minarets from hundreds of mosques dotted the skyline.
But a century after the death of Suleyman, the Empire started to decline again. By the end of the 18th century the empire was in decline with more territory being lost to the West, and sultans becoming more interested in Western institutional models. There was a short-lived Ottoman parliament and constitution in 1876, and by the end of the World War I during which allied troops occupied the city, the once-great empire was in shambles.
This changed radically with the emergence of a prominent commander of the Turkish army, who entered the struggle for the Turkish nation. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was considered a hero after the 4-year long War of Independence, after which he established the Republic if Turkey in 1932. Moving the capital to Ankara, then a small provincial town in Anatolia, Istanbul was simply the commercial and cultural centre, which it still remains today.
 |
