The Ottomans rise
A small Anatolian principality becomes an empire spanning three continents.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 201 years
- Known to
- ± 10 years
- Era
- Post-Classical, Holocene
Osman establishes a beylik in northwest Anatolia around 1299. His successors cross into Europe, take Thessalonica and the Balkans, survive near-destruction by Timur, and by 1453 hold Constantinople. The state combines a slave-recruited military and administrative elite drawn from Christian populations with a legal framework accommodating religious communities under their own law. It lasts until 1922.