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Ottoman Empire

Middle East & Central AsiaHeartland today: Türkiye

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A dynasty founded by Osman in northwest Anatolia around 1299 that took Constantinople in 1453 and ruled much of the Middle East, North Africa and southeast Europe. It lost territory from the late 1600s and ended when the sultanate was abolished in 1922.

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Key events

  1. Osman I, leader of a Turkish frontier band in northwest Anatolia, founds the principality that becomes the Ottoman stateDisputed

    The year 1299 is traditional; the Library of Congress study dates Osman's reign from about 1284. Little is known of Osman himself, and the Ottoman accounts of his rise, such as the dream of a tree growing from a cleric's chest, were written down generations later.

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  2. – Timur defeats and captures Sultan Bayezid I at Ankara; his sons fight each other for the throne until 1413

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  3. Sultan Mehmed II besieges and takes Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire, and makes it his capital

    The siege ran from 6 April to 29 May 1453.

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  4. – Selim I defeats the Mamluk Sultanate and takes Syria and Egypt

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  5. – Suleiman I reigns for 46 years, taking Belgrade and Rhodes, defeating Hungary at Mohács, and besieging Vienna in 1529

    Suleiman died on the night of 6 to 7 September 1566 during the siege of Szigetvár. The 1529 siege of Vienna failed.

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  6. By the Treaty of Karlowitz the Ottomans give up most of Hungary and Transylvania to the Habsburgs, and further lands to Poland and Venice

    Signed on 26 January 1699, after the failed siege of Vienna in 1683 and the war with the Holy League. Many historians see it as the first large Ottoman territorial loss.

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  7. Sultan Abdulmejid I proclaims the Edict of Gülhane, promising all subjects security of life and property and regular taxation, and opening the Tanzimat reforms

    Proclaimed on 3 November 1839. The edict was a declaration of principles that opened the Tanzimat reforms, which ran to 1876.

  8. Army officers of the Committee of Union and Progress force Sultan Abdulhamid II to restore the 1876 constitution

    The army revolt began in Macedonia in July 1908 and the constitution was restored on 24 July.

  9. The Grand National Assembly in Ankara abolishes the sultanate, ending the reign of Mehmed VI, the last sultan

    Voted on 1 November 1922. The Assembly kept the caliphate and gave the title to Abdulmejid II, who held it, with no political power, until the caliphate was abolished in 1924.