MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th May, 2019) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday delivered a speech devoted to the 566th anniversary of the conquest of Istanbul by the Ottoman Empire, saying that the conquest "changed the course of world history," local media reported.
"May Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II and his heroic army rest in peace," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, as cited by the Anadolu Agency.
He was referring to the landmark date of May 29, 1453, when Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror took control of the city.
According to Erdogan, the conquest "started a new age and changed the course of world history."
Istanbul, a city with a two-thousand-year history, is a historic center considered as a bridge between the East and the West. It was founded before Christ under the name of Byzantion. Later it was renamed Constantinople after Roman Emperor Constantine the Great.
Constantinople served as a capital of the Byzantine Empire until 1453 when the Ottoman Turks began a strategic capture of the city. On May 29, 1453, Mehmet II seized control of the city and declared it a capital of the Ottoman Empire.
