Islamic North Africa: Kairouan mosque (ca. 800 AD) The Eastern Roman reconquest of North Africa in the 530s AD ended the Vandal kingdom there. But trade declined until the Islamic invasions of North [...]
Taqi al-Din in his observatory Ottoman scholars built many libraries in Istanbul and in other cities of the Ottoman Empire. They translated many earlier books into Turkish or Arabic, like [...]
Ottoman literature: A copy of one of Mustafa Ali's books, from about 1600 AD Ottoman literature in the 1500s and 1600s Despite the lack of printing presses, some writers and [...]
Ibrahim Mutafferika's illustration of American bison (1728 AD) One of the great new inventions of Renaissance Europe was the printing press with movable type. But one of the great disadvantages [...]
Enderun Library, Topkapi Palace (Istanbul, 1719) Rabia rules the Ottoman Empire By 1703 AD, people were unhappy enough with Feyzullah Efendi that the Sultan killed him. Wait, who's Feyzullah Efendi? [...]
Venice and the Ottoman Fleet in a naval battle (1661) Koprulu Mehmed Pasha only ruled for five years before he died, but in that time he rescued the Ottoman navy [...]
Sofia Baffo Sofia Baffo - a woman in charge Sofia Baffo took control of the Ottoman Empire in 1583 AD. She ruled through her husband Murad III after her aunt and mother-in-law Nurbanu [...]
Mehmed II When Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453 AD, he made it the capital of the Ottoman Empire. He took for himself the title of "Kayser-i-Rum" - Caesar of Rome, or Roman [...]
Nader Shah (Iran, 1736-1747) In 1736 AD, Nader Shah overthrew the last Safavid shah and established the country of Iran, with himself as the Shah (king) of Iran. Like Genghis Khan, Nader Shah was [...]
Sofia Baffo (about 1600 AD) The two great kingdoms of West Asia between 1500 and 1900, the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Empire, were both monarchies. So they were supposed to be ruled by a single [...]
