Constantinople falls to the Ottomans

After a siege of about 53 days, Ottoman forces under Sultan Mehmed II broke through the walls of Constantinople. The fall ended the Byzantine Empire and the city became the Ottoman capital.

Context

By 1453 the Byzantine Empire had shrunk to little more than the city itself and a few nearby holdings. Its defenders, led by Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos, numbered only several thousand, while the Ottoman besieging army is usually estimated in the tens of thousands; exact figures vary widely between chroniclers.

The Theodosian land walls had held for centuries, and a chain across the Golden Horn protected the harbor. Mehmed II brought large cannon, including bombards cast to batter the walls, and had ships moved overland to enter the Golden Horn. After weeks of bombardment, the final assault came before dawn on 29 May, and Constantine XI is believed to have died fighting.

Mehmed entered the city and soon made it his capital, later called Istanbul. The conquest ended the last remnant of the Roman state that had begun with Constantine the Great's refounding of the city in 330 CE. Many Greek scholars left for Italy, which is often linked to the spread of Greek learning in Renaissance Europe, though historians debate how large that effect was.

The siege date of 29 May is well documented by Greek, Italian and Ottoman writers, though their accounts of numbers and events differ, which is normal for sources written under such circumstances.