Byzantium Falls: The (Staggering) Siege of Constantinople 1453

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On Easter Monday in 1453, an Ottoman army led by the young and ambitious Sultan Mehmed II arrived at the gates of the Byzantine capital Constantinople. This marked the beginning of a siege characterized by the determination of leaders, a city with extraordinary fortifications, and the most extensive siege artillery the world had seen to this day. The fall of Constantinople was a true watershed in history. It cemented the position of the Ottoman empire as the major power in the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean and it ended the long chapter of Roman history for good. The Roman Empire had in some ways outlasted the so-called fall of Rome in 476AD almost for a thousand years as it continued to exist as what we nowadays call the Byzantine Empire. Up to this day thousands of pages have been written on the fall, or conquest, of Constantinople, and barely any other siege in history has received more attention by scholars and history buffs alike. In this video we tell the story of the staggering siege of Constantinople by weaving together the insights of the most recent scholarly literature. This required – given the many controversies about this siege - quite a lot of reading.

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Chapters:
Intro 00:00-01:25
Blinkist 01:25-02:30
Chapter 1: Longing for the Red Apple 02:30-06:08
Chapter 2: The Wrong Apple to Pick? 06:08-14:24
Chapter 3: The Ottoman Giant 14:24-19:06
Chapter 4: Rolling Thunder Over the Red Apple 19:06-23:18
Chapter 5: Quick Victory 23:18-28:08
Chapter 6: The Tide Turns 28:08-32:46
Chapter 7: Assaults for Days on End 32:46-38:20
Chapter 8: Mind Games 38:20-40:40
Chapter 9: The Fall of Constantinople 40:40-45:00
Chapter 10: Epilogue 45:00-47:47

Bibliography:
Babinger, F., Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time, Princeton 31992.
Harris, J., Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium, Hambledon 2007.
Harris, J., The End of Byzantium, London 2011.
John W. Barker, s. v. “Constantinople” in: Clifford J. Rogers (ed), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval
Warfare and Military Technology, 2010.
Lilie, R.-J., Geschichte des oströmischen Reiches. 326-1453, München 62014.
Melville-Jones, J. R., The Siege of Constantinople 1453: Seven Contemporary Accounts, Amsterdam
1972.
Meuthen E., Der Fall von Konstantinopel und der lateinische Westen. In: Historische Zeitschrift 237/3
(1983), pp 1-35.
Nicol, Donald M., The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453. Cambridge 1993.
Nicolle, David, John Haldon, and Stephen Turnbull. The Fall of Constantinople: The Ottoman
Conquest of Byzantium. Oxford and New York 2007.
Pears, Edwin. The Destruction of the Greek Empire and the Story of the Capture of Constantinople by the Turks, New York 1968.
Philippides, M./Hanak W. K., The Siege and Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Historiography,
Topography and Military Studies, Farnham 2011.
Runciman, Steven. The Fall of Constantinople: 1453. Cambridge, Cambridge 1965.
Todt, K.-P., Von Kanonen zerschossen, von Janitscharen erstürmt: Die Eroberung Konstantinopels
durch die Osmanen, in: Antike Welt, Vol. 40, No. 6 (2009), pp 27-32