Siege of Constantinople (1411)

The siege of Constantinople in 1394–1402 was a long blockade of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I. Already in 1391, the rapid Ottoman conquests in the Balkans had cut off the city from its hinterland. After constructing the fortress of Anadoluhisarı to control the Bosporus strait, from 1394 on, Bayezid tried to starve the city into submission by blockading it both by land and, less effectively, by sea. The Crusade of Nicopolis was launched to relieve the city, but it was decisively defeated by the Ottomans. In 1399, a French expeditionary force under Marshal de Boucicaut arrived, but was unable to achieve much. The situation became so dire that in December 1399 the Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Palaiologos, left the city to tour the courts of Western Europe in a desperate attempt to secure military aid. The emperor was welcomed with honours, but secured no definite pledges of support. Constantinople was saved when Bayezid had to confront the invasion of Timur in 1402. Bayezid's defeat in the Battle of Ankara in 1402, and the Ottoman civil war that followed, even allowed the Byzantines to regain some lost territories, in the Treaty of Gallipoli.

The Battle of Pegae (Bulgarian: битка при Пиги) was fought between 11 and 18 March 921 in the outskirts of Constantinople between the forces of the Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantine Empire during the Byzantine–Bulgarian war of 913–927. The battle took place in a locality called Pegae (i.e. "the spring"), named after the nearby Church of St. Mary of the Spring. The Byzantine lines collapsed at the very first Bulgarian attack and their commanders fled the battlefield. In the subsequent rout most Byzantine soldiers were killed by the sword, drowned or were captured. In 922 the Bulgarians continued their successful campaigns in Byzantine Thrace, capturing a number of towns and fortresses, including Adrianople, Thrace's most important city, and Bizye. In June 922 they engaged and defeated yet another Byzantine army at Constantinople, confirming the Bulgarian domination of the Balkans. However, Constantinople itself remained outside their reach, because Bulgaria lacked the naval power to launch a successful siege. The attempts of the Bulgarian emperor Simeon I to negotiate a joint Bulgarian–Arab assault on the city with the Fatimids were uncovered by the Byzantine and countered. The primary sources for the battle are Theophanes Continuatus, Leo the Grammarian's Chronicle, the continuation of George Hamartolos' Chronicle and John Skylitzes' Synopsis of Histories.

The siege of Constantinople in 626 by the Sassanid Persians and Avars, aided by large numbers of allied Slavs, ended in a strategic victory for the Byzantines. The failure of the siege saved the empire from collapse, and, combined with other victories achieved by Emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641) the previous year and in 627, enabled Byzantium to regain its territories and end the destructive Roman–Persian Wars by enforcing a treaty with borders status quo c. 590.

The first Arab siege of Constantinople in 674–678 was a major conflict of the Arab–Byzantine wars, and the first culmination of the Umayyad Caliphate's expansionist strategy towards the Byzantine Empire, led by Caliph Mu'awiya I. Mu'awiya, who had emerged in 661 as the ruler of the Muslim Arab empire following a civil war, renewed aggressive warfare against Byzantium after a lapse of some years and hoped to deliver a lethal blow by capturing the Byzantine capital, Constantinople. As reported by the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes the Confessor, the Arab attack was methodical: in 672–673 Arab fleets secured bases along the coasts of Asia Minor, and then proceeded to install a loose blockade around Constantinople. They used the peninsula of Cyzicus near the city as a base to spend the winter, and returned every spring to launch attacks against the city's fortifications. Finally, the Byzantines, under Emperor Constantine IV, managed to destroy the Arab navy using a new invention, the liquid incendiary substance known as Greek fire. The Byzantines also defeated the Arab land army in Asia Minor, forcing them to lift the siege. The Byzantine victory was of major importance for the survival of the Byzantine state, as the Arab threat receded for a time. A peace treaty was signed soon after, and following the outbreak of another Muslim civil war, the Byzantines even experienced a period of ascendancy over the Caliphate. The siege left several traces in the legends of the nascent Muslim world, although it is conflated with accounts of another expedition against the city in 669, led by the future Caliph Yazid I. As a result, the veracity of Theophanes's account was questioned in 2010 by Oxford scholar James Howard-Johnston, and more recently by Marek Jankowiak. Their analyses have placed more emphasis on the Arabic and Syriac sources, but have drawn different conclusions about the dating and existence of the siege. On the other hand, echoes of a large-scale siege of Constantinople and a subsequent peace treaty reached China, where they were recorded in later histories of the Tang dynasty.

The Eurovision Song Contest 2004 was the 49th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Istanbul, Turkey, following the country's victory at the 2003 contest with the song "Everyway That I Can" by Sertab Erener. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), the contest was held at the Abdi İpekçi Arena, and, for the first time, consisted of a semi-final on 12 May, and a final on 15 May 2004. The two live shows were presented by Turkish actors Korhan Abay and Meltem Cumbul. It was the first time that Turkey had hosted the contest, 29 years after the country made its debut, and was also the first time since the 1998 contest in Birmingham that it was not hosted in the host country's capital city. This was the only edition of the contest that was hosted in a city other than the host nation's capital in the 21st century, until Germany picked Düsseldorf as the host city for the 2011 edition. Thirty-six countries participated in the contest, beating the record of twenty-six in the previous edition. Albania, Andorra, Belarus and Serbia and Montenegro took part for the first time this year. The old relegation system was replaced with a semi-final format. This was done in order to accommodate the increasing number of countries who wished to participate. The new format allowed all countries to participate every year, rather than being forced to sit out per the relegation rules, which had been the standard since 1994. Because of this, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Macedonia, Monaco and Switzerland all returned to the contest, Monaco not having competed since 1979. The winner was Ukraine with the song "Wild Dances", performed by Ruslana who wrote it with her husband Oleksandr Ksenofontov. This was Ukraine's first victory in the contest, only one year after the country made its debut in 2003. Serbia and Montenegro, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus rounded out the top five. Due the expansion of the contest, this year was the first time in which a non-winning entry scored over 200 points. Prior to this contest, only the winning entries in 1994 and 1997 had passed this mark. In this contest, the top 3 songs all got over 200 points. An official CD was released and, for the first time, the entire contest was released on DVD which included the semi-final and the grand final.

The 2008 Istanbul bombings occurred on July 27, 2008 when two explosions hit a busy shopping street in the Güngören district of Istanbul, killing seventeen people, five of them children, and injuring 154. The attacks occurred at 9:45 p.m. local time, 18:45 UTC, on a pedestrian street closed to traffic. The bombings were the deadliest civilian attacks in Turkey since the 2003 Istanbul bombings, five years earlier.

Istanbul Governor's Office (Turkish: İstanbul Vilayet Konağı) is the seat of the Governor of Istanbul Province. It is located at Cağaloğlu quarter of Fatih district of Istanbul, Turkey. It was the headquarters of the Ottoman Government, called the Sublime Porte, until the establishment of the Republic.

Nallı Masjid (Turkish: Nallı Mescit), also known as İmam Ali Mescidi or Babıali Mescidi, is a late 19th-century small mosque located at Ankara Street northwest of the historic Sublime Porte building (which is the Istanbul Governor's Office today), at Cağaloğlu quarter of Fatih district of old Istanbul, Turkey.

Cağaloğlu is a quarter located in the Fatih district of Istanbul, Turkey. Much of the publishing industry in Istanbul is located in Cağaloğlu. It is also famous for its ancient hamam, or Turkish bath, known as the Cağaloğlu Hamam.

The second Arab siege of Constantinople in 717–718 was a combined land and sea offensive by the Muslim Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate against the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople. The campaign marked the culmination of twenty years of attacks and progressive Arab occupation of the Byzantine borderlands, while Byzantine strength was sapped by prolonged internal turmoil. In 716, after years of preparations, the Arabs, led by Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik, invaded Byzantine Asia Minor. The Arabs initially hoped to exploit Byzantine civil strife and made common cause with the general Leo III the Isaurian, who had risen up against Emperor Theodosius III. Leo, however, tricked them and secured the Byzantine throne for himself. After wintering in the western coastlands of Asia Minor, the Arab army crossed into Thrace in early summer 717 and built siege lines to blockade the city, which was protected by the massive Theodosian Walls. The Arab fleet, which accompanied the land army and was meant to complete the city's blockade by sea, was neutralized soon after its arrival by the Byzantine navy through the use of Greek fire. This allowed Constantinople to be resupplied by sea, while the Arab army was crippled by famine and disease during the unusually hard winter that followed. In spring 718, two Arab fleets sent as reinforcements were destroyed by the Byzantines after their Christian crews defected, and an additional army sent overland through Asia Minor was ambushed and defeated. Coupled with attacks by the Bulgars on their rear, the Arabs were forced to lift the siege on 15 August 718. On its return journey, the Arab fleet was almost completely destroyed by natural disasters. The siege's failure had wide-ranging repercussions. The rescue of Constantinople ensured the continued survival of Byzantium, while the Caliphate's strategic outlook was altered: although regular attacks on Byzantine territories continued, the goal of outright conquest was abandoned. Historians consider the siege to be one of history's most important battles, as its failure postponed the Muslim advance into Southeastern Europe for centuries.

The Cağaloğlu Hamam is a historic hamam (Turkish bathhouse) in Istanbul, Turkey. Finished in 1741, it is one of the last major hamams to be built in Istanbul during the Ottoman period. It was built in Eminönü, in Alemdar, on Hilal-i Ahmer street as a public hamam to raise revenue for the library of Sultan Mahmud I situated inside the Ayasofya. It was begun by one of the head architects of that time, Suleyman Ağa, and finished by Abdullah Ağa. The structure consists of a double hamam: a bathhouse for men and another for women. The layout follows the long-established traditional form of hammams, though the architectural details and decoration are in the later Ottoman Baroque style of the 18th century.

The Hacı Beşir Ağa Mosque (Turkish: Hacı Beşir Ağa Camii), located in Istanbul's Fatih district, was built in 1745. The design of the mosque can be described as baroque.