Ottoman Empire .............................. O
The Ottoman Empire was established by
Osman, a Turkish tribal leader who over-
threw the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia in the
late thirteenth century. The Ottoman
armies crossed into the Balkan Peninsula
in the middle of the fourteenth century
and won crucial victories in the Battle of
Kosovo in 1389 and the Battle of Nicopo-
lis in 1396. In 1453, the Ottoman sultan
Mehmed II extended Ottoman authority
throughout Asia Minor and conquered
Constantinople, the capital of the Byzan-
tine Empire, thus destroying the last rem-
nants of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Mehmed’s successors, Selim I and Sule-
iman the Magnificent, who ruled from
1520 to 1566, brought the realm to the
height of its power in southeastern Eu-
rope, the Levant, North Africa, and Meso-
potamia. Suleiman reorganized the law and
justice system of his realm and was a pa-
tron of the arts, literature, and Islamic
scholarship, as well as a brilliant military
leader. Under his leadership the Turks
crushed a Hungarian army at the Battle of
Mohacs in 1526, and then captured the
capital of Buda in 1541, overthrowing the
Hungarian ruling dynasty. Ottoman sul-
tans ruled as caliph, or head of the entire
A map of the Ottoman Turkish empire in 1606, from the Mercator “Atlas.” THESTAPLETON
COLLECTION.REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.
