Constantinople Falls to Ottoman Empire on 29 May 1453

On 29 May 1453 the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople after a siege that began in early April. He assembled an army of about 150 000 men, a fleet of 400 ships and a giant bombarde cannon to breach the city's double walls.

The defending Byzantine emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos could muster roughly 7 000 soldiers, including 2 000 foreign mercenaries, while the civilian population was about 50 000. Appeals for help from Western Europe and the Papacy were rejected or ignored, leaving the city isolated.

Ottoman artillery finally opened a breach on 29 May; fighting inside the walls lasted only a few hours before the city fell. The loss marked the end of the Byzantine Empire, shifted the strategic balance between East and West, and began a period of Ottoman dominance in the eastern Mediterranean that shaped European and Asian politics for centuries.