Ottoman Empire

No question Ottoman Empire was the most fascinating empire of all times. Its Sultans, wars , its vision of the world, and their devotion to Allah (GOD). Their reign lasted over 700 years. there are no other kingdom in the world that reigned that long.This site here will give you alot of images, and information on Ottoman Empire. http://www.ottomanonline.net/

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Turkish: دولت عليه عثمانيه - Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye[1]; literally, "The Sublime Ottoman State"), also known in the West as the Turkish Empire, existed from AD 1299 to AD 1922. At height of its power in the 16th and 17th centuries, the tri-continental Ottoman Empire controlled much of Southeastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, stretching from the Strait of Gibraltar (and in 1553 the Atlantic coast of North Africa beyond Gibraltar) in the west to the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf in the east, from the edge of Austria and Slovakia and the hinterland beyond Ukraine in the north to Sudan and Yemen in the south. The empire was at the center of interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds for six centuries.

With Istanbul, (the Ottoman Turkish name of old Constantinople) as its capital, it was the final great Mediterranean Empire and heir to the legacy of Rome and Byzantium in many ways. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Ottoman Empire was among the world's most powerful states, threatening the powers of eastern Europe with its steady advance through the Balkans. Its navy was a powerful force in the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, Red Sea, Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. On several occasions, the Ottoman army invaded central Europe, laying siege to Vienna in 1529 and again in 1683 in an attempt to conquer the Habsburgs, and was finally repulsed only by coalitions of European powers on the sea and on land. It was the only Eastern power to seriously challenge the rising power of Western Europe between the 15th and 20th centuries.

The Ottoman Empire steadily declined during the 19th century, and met its demise at the beginning of the 20th century after its defeat in World War I in the Middle Eastern theatre with the other Central Powers. In the aftermath of the war, the Ottoman government collapsed and the victorious powers partitioned the Empire. Subsequent years saw the creation of new states from the remnants of the Empire; at present 39 nation-states (40 including the disputed TRNC) have emerged from the former Ottoman territories. In Anatolia, the historical center of the Empire, an emergent Turkish national movement expelled invading forces during the Turkish War of Independence, which concluded with the birth of the Republic of Turkey. The new Republic declared the Sultan and his family, the Ottoman Dynasty, as persona non grata of Turkey. Fifty years later, in 1974, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey granted descendants of the former dynasty the right to acquire Turkish citizenship.