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The city has been conquered, fought
over and rebuilt many times over the centuries. Istanbul’s
history dates back to the first settlement possibly in the 13th
Century BC, although was founded by Byzas the Megarian in the 7th
Century BC, from when the city was named Byzantium. A small colony
of Greeks inhabited the area until 3rd Century BC, and over the
next 1000 years became a thriving trading and commercial centre.
Whilst continuing life as a trading city during the Roman Empire,
it was then conquered by Emperor Septimus Severius in 193 AD.
During the 4th century, Istanbul
was selected by the Roman Empire to be the new capital, instead
of Rome, by Constantine. It was a strategic choice: Built on seven
surrounding hills – echoing that of Rome – the city would
have control of the Bosphorus and easy access to the harbour of
the Golden Horn. The city was re-organized within six years, its
ramparts widened and the construction of many temples, official
buildings, palaces, hamams and hippodrome.
With great ceremony, in the
year 330 the city was officially announced as the capital of the
Roman Empire, and known as Constantinople in the late eras. It remained
the capital of the eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) for a long period,
due to the fall of the west Roman Empire in the 5th century. By
the sixth century, the population exceeded half a million, and was
considered a golden age under Emperor Justinyen’s reign.
The Byzantium Empire and Istanbul's
latter history is full of palace and church intrigues, was overrun
by the Arabs in the 7th and 8th centuries, the Bulgars in the 9th
and 10th, but could not keep out the Crusaders who conquered in
1204. They destroyed and raided it for many more years - including
churches, monasteries and monuments, which led to a decline in the
population. The city passed reign to Byzantium again in 1261, did
not regain its former richness, and was conquered by Turks in 1453
after a 53-day siege and the hands of control changed yet again.
It then became the capital
city of Ottoman Empire, which saw a population increase with immigrants
from other parts of the country, with religious freedom and social
rights granted to Greeks, Armenians and Jews. Mehmet the Conqueror
began to rebuild it, with a new palace and mosque (Fatih Camii)
and tried to inject new life into the economy.
The reign of Suleyman the Magnificent
(1520-66) was considered the greatest of all the Ottoman leaders,
and the military conquests paid for the most impressive Ottoman
architecture, the work of Mimar Sinan. The city was also the centre
of the Islamic work, and domes and minarets from hundreds of mosques
dotted the skyline.
But a century after the death
of Suleyman, the Empire started to decline again. By the end of
the 18th century the empire was in decline with more territory being
lost to the West, and sultans becoming more interested in Western
institutional models. There was a short-lived Ottoman parliament
and constitution in 1876, and by the end of the World War I during
which allied troops occupied the city, the once-great empire was
in shambles.
This changed radically with
the emergence of a prominent commander of the Turkish army, who
entered the struggle for the Turkish nation. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
was considered a hero after the 4-year long War of Independence,
after which he established the Republic if Turkey in 1932. Moving
the capital to Ankara, then a small provincial town in Anatolia,
Istanbul was simply the commercial and cultural centre, which it
still remains today.
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