100 Fun Facts About Ottoman Empire

From whom does the Ottoman Empire take its name?

He was a Turkoman tribal leader whose beylik emerged in northwestern Anatolia around 1299.

Which region of northwestern Anatolia, on the Byzantine frontier, was the cradle of the Ottoman beylik?

A Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Bapheus in 1302 helped Osman's rise.

Which city did Osman's son Orhan capture in 1326 and make the new Ottoman capital?

The empire's later capitals were Edirne and, from 1453, Constantinople.

Which Serbian prince led the army against Sultan Murad I at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389?

It was one of the largest battles of the Late Middle Ages, fought about 5 km from modern Pristina.

Which Turco-Mongol conqueror defeated the Ottomans at Ankara in 1402 and captured Sultan Bayezid I?

The resulting civil war between Bayezid's sons lasted from 1402 to 1413.

Which sultan conquered Constantinople on 29 May 1453?

He allowed the Eastern Orthodox Church to keep its autonomy in exchange for accepting Ottoman rule.

How long did the final siege of Constantinople last in 1453?

It began on 6 April, and Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos led the defence.

How did the besieging sultan get his ships into the Golden Horn past the Byzantine chain barrier in 1453?

The road of greased logs ran across Galata on the north side of the Golden Horn.

What was the giant Ottoman cannon that hurled 600-pound stone balls at Constantinople called?

The foundries employed Turkish founders such as Saruca and at least one foreigner, Orban.

Which practice did the Conqueror of Constantinople legalise to preserve the state?

He wanted to avoid the strain that earlier civil wars had placed on Ottoman unity.

Which sultan's conquests led the Ottoman rulers to adopt the title of caliph?

He also annexed Mamluk Egypt and created a naval presence on the Red Sea.

At which 1514 battle did the Ottomans defeat Shah Ismail of Safavid Iran?

He then annexed the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and created a naval presence on the Red Sea.

What is Suleiman the Magnificent called in Turkish, for his reform of the legal system?

His reign from 1520 to 1566 made the empire a global power.

At which 1526 battle did Suleiman break the Kingdom of Hungary?

He captured Belgrade in 1521 and Rhodes in 1522, then failed to take Vienna in 1529.

How old was Suleiman when he set out on his thirteenth and final campaign, to Szigetvar, in 1566?

He had not led an expedition in person for about 13 years.

Which Catholic king allied with Suleiman against Austria and Spain, jointly taking Nice in 1543?

Ottoman admirals Hayreddin Barbarossa and Dragut commanded the joint ventures.

Under what name is Hurrem Sultan, Suleiman's legal wife, better known in Europe?

Probably born in Ruthenia, she was captured by Crimean Tatars and sold via the Crimean slave trade to Constantinople.

What name is given to the 1533-1656 period when imperial consorts and mothers held great power?

Kosem Sultan's rivalry with her daughter-in-law Turhan Hatice ended in Kosem's murder in 1651.

Which family of grand viziers effectively ran the empire from 1656 to 1703?

Their era saw the conquest of Crete completed in 1669.

What did the elite Janissary infantry take their name from?

They were perhaps the first infantry force in the world equipped primarily with firearms.

What was the devshirme?

Often called the blood tax, it is first recorded in 1438 and produced many grand viziers.

Which sultan abolished the Janissary corps in 1826?

His predecessor Selim III had lost his throne and life trying to reform the army.

Which 1571 Holy League naval victory was the last major Western battle fought almost entirely between galleys?

Miguel de Cervantes fought in it and later wrote Don Quixote.

Which Polish king led the relief of Vienna in 1683, sweeping away Kara Mustafa Pasha's army?

The defeat led to the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699 and permanent territorial losses.

Which Swedish king took refuge in the Ottoman Empire after Poltava in 1709?

The result was an Ottoman victory in the Pruth River Campaign of 1710-11.

Who persuaded the grand vizier and clergy in 1726 to allow a printing press for non-religious books?

Sultan Ahmed III granted the permission despite objections from calligraphers.

Which Egyptian governor was tasked with crushing the Wahhabi revolt, destroying the Emirate of Diriyah in 1818?

He later fought two wars against the Porte itself, nearly seizing the Levant.

What nickname was given to the Ottoman Empire by the mid-19th century?

Serbia, Wallachia and Moldavia moved towards full independence in the 1860s and 1870s.

What was the name of the 1839 to 1876 reform period that modernised the Ottoman state?

Reforms included a conscripted army, secular law and, notably, the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

Which American inventor received an Ottoman patent for the telegraph in 1847?

Sultan Abdulmecid personally tested the invention.

Which sultan reverted the empire to absolute monarchy after the 1876 constitution?

He was so afraid of a coup that he would not let his army hold war games.

Which island's administration did Britain take over in 1878 for backing the Ottomans at the Congress of Berlin?

Britain then sent troops to Egypt in 1882 to put down the Urabi Revolt.

What did the sultan do with most of the Ottoman fleet after the 1877-78 Russian war?

He distrusted admirals who had sided with the reformist Midhat Pasha.

Which movement's 1908 revolution restored the Ottoman constitution?

The Committee of Union and Progress later staged a 1913 coup and set up a dictatorship.

On which side did the Ottoman Empire enter World War I?

It began with a surprise German-Ottoman attack on Russia's Black Sea coast on 29 October 1914.

Which strait did the Ottomans successfully defend in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915-16?

They also won early victories in Mesopotamia, including the Siege of Kut.

Which Sharif of Mecca launched the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans in June 1916?

His son Faisal briefly ruled a monarchy in Damascus before the British and French mandates.

Which 1916 secret agreement carved the Ottoman Middle East into British and French spheres?

Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria became mandates and no unified Arab state emerged.

Which armistice, signed on 30 October 1918, ended the Ottoman Empire's war?

Istanbul was then occupied by British, French, Italian and Greek forces.

Which 1920 treaty finalised the Ottoman Empire's partition but let the sultan keep his title?

It was overturned by the Turkish War of Independence.

On what date was the Ottoman sultanate abolished?

The last sultan left the country on 17 November 1922; the caliphate followed in March 1924.

Who was the last Ottoman sultan?

The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed on 29 October 1923 with Ankara as its capital.

What was the millet system?

Non-Muslims were never equal under the law but had recognition, protection and limited freedoms.

Which European ruling house is the only one with an unbroken line of sovereigns comparable to the Ottomans?

Sultans were deposed on eleven occasions, always replaced by another member of the dynasty.

What was a tughra?

There were 35 of them, each bearing the sultan's name and his father's, usually with the prayer ever victorious.

What does the name Topkapi, given to the sultans' palace in the 19th century, mean?

Construction began in 1459, six years after the conquest, and it was originally called the New Palace.

Which palace replaced Topkapi as the sultans' main residence and administrative centre in 1853?

Its Western-influenced style was brought in by architects such as the Balyan family.

Which chief architect designed the Suleymaniye and Selimiye mosques and more than 300 other structures?

The son of a stonemason, he rose to Janissary commander before being appointed chief architect at about 50.

Which Byzantine building strongly influenced the classical Ottoman mosque style?

Ottoman architecture grew from Seljuk roots with Byzantine and Iranian influences.

Which astronomer built the Constantinople observatory in 1577, destroyed three years later?

He also described a steam jack driven by a rudimentary steam turbine in Egypt in 1551.

Which Yemeni commodity made Cairo a major Ottoman trade centre in the 17th and 18th centuries?

Cairo prospered from the trade through the 17th and much of the 18th century.

What share of the Ottoman population was Muslim in 1897?

By 1914 less than a fifth of the population was non-Muslim.

What was Osmanli, the Turkish word for Ottoman, originally used to refer to?

Educated urban Turkish speakers often called themselves Rumi, meaning Roman, rather than Turk.

For how many months did the Venetian defenders of Famagusta hold out against the Ottomans in 1570-71?

163,000 cannonballs struck the walls before the last Venetian stronghold on Cyprus fell.

What was the title of the governor who ruled an Ottoman eyalet?

Eyalets were split into sanjaks; the 1864 Vilayet Law replaced them with a new hierarchy.

Roughly what was the Ottoman public literacy rate until the early 19th century?

Ordinary people hired scribes called arzuhalcis to write petitions to the government.

Which Western language became common among educated Ottomans after the Tanzimat?

French literature was the main Western influence on Ottoman writing in the later 19th century.

The first novel published in the Ottoman Empire, The Story of Akabi (1851), was written in Turkish using which script?

Its author was Vartan Pasha; Ottoman prose had no fiction at all before the 19th century.

Which 17th-century writer's Seyahatname is a landmark of Ottoman travel literature?

Divan poetry, dominated by gazels, was the empire's main literary stream.

Which sultan was an accomplished composer of Ottoman classical music?

Selim III's works remain in the repertoire; Ottoman classical music is built on rhythmic units called usul and melodic units called makam.

Which 1730 uprising brought the Ottoman Tulip Period to an end?

The era was named for the tulip craze at Ahmed III's court and saw the first Ottoman-language printing press in the 1720s.

Which 1774 treaty forced the Ottomans to recognise the Crimean Tatars as independent?

Russia had the Khanate annexed outright just nine years later, in 1783, under Catherine the Great.

The Ottoman sultan who reigned 1389–1402 was called Yıldırım, meaning what?

He earned it in a battle against the Karamanids and in 1394 laid an unsuccessful siege to Constantinople.

Which 25 September 1396 Crusader defeat helped end the Second Bulgarian Empire?

It was one of the last major Crusades of the Middle Ages, with a large French contingent joining Sigismund of Hungary.

Which sultan came out of retirement to win the Battle of Varna in 1444?

He had abdicated for his 12-year-old son months earlier, after a ten-year truce with Hungary that the crusaders promptly broke.

Which Hungarian commander broke the Ottoman siege of Belgrade in 1456?

He died of plague a few weeks later; the sultan had cast 22 large cannons for the siege and sent a flotilla up the Danube.

Which Moldavian prince crushed an Ottoman army at Vaslui in January 1475?

Pope Sixtus IV hailed him as Athleta Christi; by one account he fasted for forty days rather than celebrate.

Which Albanian noble deserted the Ottomans in 1443 and fought them until his death in 1468?

Educated at the palace school and a sanjakbey by 1440, he switched sides at the Battle of Nish and held out from Krujë.

Which Italian town did the Ottomans capture in August 1480 as their first outpost in Italy?

Tradition holds that more than 800 inhabitants were executed for refusing to renounce their faith; the town was given up a year later.

Which Ottoman prince lived out his exile as a hostage of the Knights of Rhodes and the Pope?

He had refused a fortune from his brother to drop his claim to the throne and died in exile in 1495.

Which sultan sent his navy to evacuate Jews expelled from Spain in 1492?

He mocked Ferdinand and Isabella for expelling such useful subjects; many of the refugees settled in Salonica.

Who was Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller during the Great Siege of Malta in 1565?

About 500 knights and some 6,000 foot soldiers held out from 18 May to 8 September against Suleiman's second attempt on the island.

Which city's surviving Old City walls did Suleiman order rebuilt, a job done in 1537–41?

They enclose roughly one square kilometre and were raised partly on the remains of far older fortifications.

Which sultan commissioned the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, built between 1568 and 1575?

Its architect regarded it as his masterpiece; the sultan chose Edirne over the capital for reasons historians still debate.

How many minarets flank Istanbul's Blue Mosque?

Ahmed I built it in 1609–17 to solicit God's favour after a humbling peace; thousands of Iznik tiles give it the popular name.

Which 1606 peace first had the sultan recognise the Holy Roman Emperor as an equal?

The sultan, styled Caesar of Rome since 1453, granted the emperor his own title of Padishah for the first time.

Which sultan banned the smoking of tobacco and opium in 1632?

He legalised alcohol the same year, then banned it in 1634; his reign was dominated by war with Safavid Iran.

Which city did the Ottomans retake from Safavid Iran in 1638 after a forty-day siege?

The Treaty of Zuhab that followed fixed a frontier that still roughly matches today's Iraq–Iran border.

Which sultan's 1622 strangling by Janissaries at Yedikule was the first Ottoman regicide?

Enthroned at 14, he had cut the corps's pay and was about to raise a new, more loyal army.

What does Kafes, the palace quarters where heirs were kept under guard, literally mean?

Mustafa I became its first inmate in 1618; confinement replaced the killing of brothers as the way to secure the succession.

Which 17th-century sultan had a palace room lined entirely with lynx and sable fur?

Known as Deli Ibrahim, he was deposed in 1648; some historians think he was more incompetent than mad.

How long did the Ottoman siege of Candia on Crete last before the city fell in 1669?

One of the longest sieges in history, it began in 1648; the Ottomans bombarded the city for 16 years to little effect.

How many covered streets make up Istanbul's Grand Bazaar?

Its core, the Bedesten of Gems, went up in 1455–56 to revive the conquered city's trade; it now draws up to 400,000 visitors a day.

What was a timar in the early Ottoman Empire?

Holders, often sipahi cavalrymen, drew no pay; grants yielding more than 20,000 akçes a year were called zeamet or hass.

The akçe, the chief Ottoman coin for centuries, was struck from which metal?

Its name comes from ak, meaning white; after 1687 the kuruş took over as the main unit of account.

Ottoman Turkish was mostly written in a variant of which script?

Minority communities sometimes wrote Turkish in their own alphabets; the republic switched to Latin letters in 1928.

What title did the mother of the reigning Ottoman ruler hold?

The title is said to have been created by Suleiman for his mother Hafsa Sultan, replacing the older epithet 'cradle of the great'.

What name did the Ottomans give to the 1826 disbanding of the Janissary corps?

Most of the 135,000 Janissaries revolted; their barracks were shelled and thousands were executed afterwards.

Which sultan's 1867 tour of Paris, London and Vienna was the first royal visit to Western Europe?

Napoleon III had invited him to the Paris Exhibition, but the real aim was to restore Ottoman credit and head off intervention in Crete.

How many days did Murad V's 1876 reign last before he was deposed as mentally ill?

He spent the rest of his life confined in Çırağan Palace, surviving three attempts by supporters to free him.

At which 1827 battle did British, French and Russian ships destroy an Ottoman-Egyptian fleet?

Both sides still fought with wooden sailing ships and smoothbore cannon; the result made Greek independence far more likely.

Which November 1853 naval rout by Russia pushed Britain and France toward the Crimean War?

Russia's new explosive shells sank or beached every Ottoman frigate and corvette; only one steamer escaped.

The 1856 peace that ended the Crimean War was signed in which city?

Christians in the empire gained a degree of official equality, and Wallachia and Moldavia became largely independent.

Which 1878 treaty created an autonomous Bulgaria, still marked there as Liberation Day?

The enlarged Bulgaria alarmed Britain and France, and the Congress of Berlin cut it down three months later.

The Hejaz railway, begun in 1900, ran from Damascus to which holy city?

It stopped 400 km short of Mecca when war broke out; T. E. Lawrence's raiders later ambushed its trains.

Which Ottoman province did Italy seize in the 1911–12 war that saw the first aerial bombing?

Italian pilots flew the first aerial reconnaissance and dropped the first aerial bomb; Ottoman riflemen were the first to shoot a plane down.

Which of the Three Pashas who ran the empire from 1913 was Minister of War?

Talaat held the interior ministry and Djemal the navy; all three met violent deaths after the war.

After the First Balkan War, which region was the only European land left to the Ottomans?

Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria attacked together in October 1912; Bulgaria then turned on its allies in the Second Balkan War.

Orhan married Theodora, daughter of which Byzantine who hired Ottoman troops for a civil war?

The alliance let Ottoman warriors loot Thrace and handed them the fortress of Tzympe, their first toehold in Europe.

What natural disaster let the Ottomans take Gallipoli, their first European town, in 1354?

The 2 March quake levelled nearly every building, the Greek inhabitants fled, and Süleyman Pasha seized the site within a month.