Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire, vast empire of the Ottoman Turks that at its height, during the reign of Sultan Suleyman I, stretched from the far shore of the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf in the east to Budapest in the north and Algiers in the west. The Ottoman Turks, led by Osman I, entered Asia Minor in the late 1200s and, expanding rapidly, made Bursa their capital in 1326. They crossed to the Balkan Peninsula (1345), and in 1453 Constantinople fell to Muhammad II. The empire continued to expand in the 16th century under Selim I, the Terrible (1512–20), and reached its zenith under Suleyman I. However, Suleyman failed to capture Vienna (1529) and was driven back to Malta (1565). Directly after his death, the Ottoman fleet was annihilated at the naval battle of Lepanto (1571). During the 1700s and 1800s the decaying empire fought against Russia, and Greece won its independence. The reformist Young Turk movement led the empire into World War I on the German side, with disastrous results. The nationalists, led by Kemal Atatürk, deposed and exiled the last sultan, Muhammad, and proclaimed the Turkish republic in 1922.