History of Turkey

The history of Anatolia and the Turkish states that arose there, from ancient civilizations through the Ottoman Empire to the modern Republic of Turkey.

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Göbekli Tepe: A monumental Neolithic ritual site in southeastern Anatolia, built before agriculture became widespread. Its early monumental architecture anchors Anatolia’s pre-state history.
Battle of Manzikert: A 1071 battle in which Seljuk forces defeated the Byzantine army in eastern Anatolia. Its aftermath accelerated Turkic settlement and Byzantine territorial losses.
Osman I: The founder of the Ottoman dynasty, who ruled a small polity in northwestern Anatolia around the turn of the fourteenth century. His frontier principality became the Ottoman state.
Fall of Constantinople: The Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453, ending the Byzantine Empire’s rule over the city. The conquest made the city an Ottoman imperial center.
Abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate: The Turkish Grand National Assembly’s 1924 decision to end the caliphate and remove the Ottoman dynasty from Turkey. It completed a major break between the republic and Ottoman religious authority.
Hittite Empire: A Bronze Age kingdom centered in Anatolia that became a major Near Eastern power. The Hittites formed one of Anatolia’s earliest large territorial states.
Sultanate of Rum: A medieval Seljuk state in Anatolia, established after Turkic conquests in the eleventh century. It consolidated Turkic rule while Anatolia remained politically fragmented.
Mehmed II: The Ottoman sultan who conquered Constantinople in 1453 and made it his imperial capital. His conquest ended Byzantine rule in the city and transformed Ottoman power.
Young Turk Revolution: The 1908 revolution that restored the Ottoman constitution and parliament after autocratic rule. It opened a turbulent final phase of Ottoman constitutional politics.
Turkish alphabet reform: The 1928 replacement of the Arabic-based Ottoman script with a Latin-based alphabet for writing Turkish. It made language and literacy central to the republic’s cultural transformation.