Constantinople Falls and Byzantine Greece Ends
Ottoman cannons breach walls that had held for eleven centuries, and Hagia Sophia becomes a mosque within days
Quick facts
- Date
- 29 May 1453
- Ottoman sultan
- Mehmed II, r. 1451-1481
- Hagia Sophia converted to mosque
- Within days of the conquest
- Orthodox community allowed to continue under
- Patriarch Gennadeios II
What happened
On 29 May 1453, Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II's forces, using massive cannons designed by the Hungarian engineer Urban, breached the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople after weeks of siege. Ottoman troops sacked the city, and Mehmed entered in the afternoon, ended the pillaging, and declared that Hagia Sophia, the great cathedral of Byzantine Christianity, be converted immediately into a mosque. Constantinople became the new Ottoman capital. Mehmed permitted the Orthodox Christian community to survive under the leadership of the bishop Gennadeios II, a policy that would evolve into the Ottoman millet system governing the empire's Greek Orthodox subjects.
Why it matters
The fall of Constantinople ended the Byzantine Empire and, with it, any Greek-ruled state; it would be nearly four hundred years before Greeks governed themselves again. The city's fall also drove Byzantine Greek scholars and manuscripts westward into Italy, feeding the same classical revival that Mystras's philosophers had already begun to seed there.
How we know
The siege and fall of Constantinople are recorded in detailed contemporary accounts by Byzantine, Ottoman, and Italian eyewitnesses and chroniclers, and the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque is documented in Ottoman administrative records from the period.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. 1453: The Fall of Constantinople · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- World History Encyclopedia. Mehmed II · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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Related timelines
- The Byzantine Empire → · See the Byzantine Empire timeline for the full siege and the century of Ottoman advance that preceded it.
- The Ottoman Empire → · See the Ottoman Empire timeline for what came next: Mehmed II's transformation of Constantinople into an imperial capital and the empire's expansion across the Balkans.