Turks III

1453-1606 CE

From 1453 to 1606 CE, the Turks built the empire that terrified Christendom — Mehmed's cannons breaching Constantinople's walls, Suleiman's armies besieging Vienna, Ottoman galleys commanding the Mediterranean from Algiers to Alexandria. The Sublime Porte dispensed justice from Hungary to Yemen; the sultan's word was law for Orthodox and Catholic, Jew and Muslim alike. Lepanto broke their fleet but not their power; the empire's greatest age was already yielding to slower decay.