Brief History
The "Ottomans" became first known to the West in 1227 when they migrated westward into the Seljuk Empire, in Anatolia. The Ottoman Turks created a state in Western Anatolia under Ertugrul, the capital of which was Sögüt, near Bursa to the south of the Marmara. Ertugrul established a principality as part of the decaying Seljuk empire. His son Osman expanded the principality; the empire and the people were named "Ottomans" by Europeans after him. Osman's son Orhan expanded the growing empire, taking Nicaea (present-day Iznik) and crossed the Dardanelles in 1362. The Ottoman Empire came into its own when Mehmed II captured the Byzantine Empire's capital, Constantinople (Istanbul), in 1453.
The Ottoman Empire came to rule much of the Balkans, the Fertile Crescent and Egypt over the course of several centuries, with an advanced army and navy. The Empire lasted until the end of the First World War, when it was defeated by the Allies and was succeeded by the modern Republic of Turkey in 1923. Not all Ottomans were Muslims and not all Ottoman Muslims were Turks, but by 1923 the majority of people living within the borders of the new Turkish republic identified as Turks. (Notable exceptions were the Kurds and the few remaining Armenians and Greeks).
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“The history is always the same the product is always different and the history interests more than the product. More, that is, more. Yes. But if the product was not different the history which is the same would not be more interesting.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
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