The Conquest of Constantinople

Sultan Mehmed II entered Constantinople after a siege of fifty-four days. The capital of the Byzantine Empire, which had resisted conquerors for eight centuries, fell, and the Prophetic glad tiding was fulfilled.

Mehmed II mustered some quarter of a million fighters and giant cannon the like of which history had not known — the most famous being the Sultanic cannon cast by Orban — and laid siege to the city, protected by the greatest walls in the world, on 26 Rabiʿ al-Awwal 857 AH.

When the Byzantines closed the Golden Horn with chains, the Sultan ordered seventy ships dragged over greased planks across the hills in a single night, so that they appeared in the heart of the inlet — one of the most astonishing stratagems in history.

At dawn on Tuesday 20 Jumada al-Ula 857 AH (29 May 1453) the Ottomans stormed the walls, the emperor Constantine was killed, and the young Sultan — twenty-two years old — entered the city and was named "the Conqueror." The people recalled the hadith: "Constantinople will surely be conquered; what an excellent commander is its commander, and what an excellent army is that army."