Istanbul in the news, and in history

The events involving the murder of the Post journalist reminded me to look back, to the years prior to the First World War, and back centuries.  For over 1000 years, Constantinople, the original name of Istanbul, was the greatest city in the Western world. 

The city was founded by the Roman emperor Constantine in the 300s, and the seat of the Roman empire was moved east.  By the 500s Constantinople was a city of at least 750,000, surrounded by a wall that withstood invaders' attacks until 1453, when the city fell to the Turks.  It was the center of culture and economic engine of the empire, later called the Byzantine Empire (after the town of Byzantium, the site of the founding of Constantinople).

The Roman emperor Justinian built the great Hagia Sophia, created one of the great law codes of history, and reconquered the western Roman empire during his reign.  For a brief time, the empire once again stretched from the Persian border to Italy.  Justinian's great general Belisarius should be ranked among the top commanders in all of history.

Then the empire went into slow decline.  A series of wars with the powerful Persian Empire weakened the Byzantines and Persians.  And Constantinople was devastated by a great plague which killed perhaps a third of its population.  The Arab armies arose out of the desert and took parts of the empire to the south.  In 1071 the Seljuk Turks routed a Byzantine army at Manzikert 500 miles to the east.  The Crusades were begun in part to bring western ("Frankish") support to the empire.  After initial success, the Crusaders were driven back by Saladin.

Then in 1204 the fourth Crusade armies broke in to Constantinople and raided the Treasury.  Muslim pressure continued all around the city until in 1453, the Turks battered down a large section of the wall with a giant cannon and took the city.

For the next 450 years, the Turks controlled the city.  When the Turks were defeated in WWI, their empire, was reduced to borders of modern Turkey.  Constantinople was renamed Istanbul.  The city remains a great metropolis, with vivid reminders of its grand past.