A Concise History of the Middle East

Chronology • 453

1396 Ottomans defeat Crusaders at Nicopolis

1397-1398 Bayezid takes Konya and rest of Muslim Anatolia

1400-1401 Timur ravages Syria and invades Anatolia

1402 Timur defeats Ottomans at Ankara and captures Bayezid I

1402-1413 Interregnum and civil war in the Ottoman Empire

1415 Massive revolt against Mehmet I; Ottomans retake Izmir

1444 Crusaders invade Balkans; repelled by Ottomans at Varna

1451-1481 Reign of Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II "the Conqueror"

1453 Ottoman capture of Constantinople ends Byzantine Empire

1480-1481 Ottomans occupy southern Italy

1492 Christians take Granada and expel Jews and Muslims from

Spain

1501-1736 Safavid dynasty in Persia and parts of Iraq

1507-1622 Portuguese occupy Hormuz in the Gulf region

1514 Ottomans defeat Safavids at Chaldiran

1516 Ottomans defeat Mamluks and capture Syria

1517 Ottomans take Egypt, later also Medina and Mecca

1520-1566 Reign of Ottoman Sultan Suleyman "the Magnificent"

1529 First Ottoman siege of Vienna

1535 First Capitulations treaty between Ottoman Empire and France

1571 Christians defeat Ottoman navy at Lepanto; Turks take Cyprus

1578-1639 Long Ottoman-Safavid War over Iraq and Azerbaijan

1587-1629 Reign of Safavid Shah Abbas I

1606 Ottomans first recognize Habsburgs as equals in treaty

1616 British East India Company starts trading with Persia

1638 Ottoman Sultan Murad IV ends devshirme system

1645-1670 Ottoman-Venetian War in eastern Mediterranean

1656-1678 Koprulu viziers begin Ottoman reforms

1682-1699 Ottoman Empire at war against Habsburg Austria

1683 Second Ottoman siege of Vienna

1699 Karlowitz treaty, Ottomans ceding Hungary to Habsburgs

1703-1730 Reign of Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III, the "Tulip Era"