Mimicking the apocalypse in dramatic intensity, if not in scale, the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 rates as a turning point in history. Posterity may recognize both a brutal end to the Byzantine Empire and a stark warning of what happens when a weakened civilization faces an unrelenting conqueror. In significance, this event, where the ancient walls of the Eastern Roman capital crumbled under Ottoman cannon fire, surpassed a military defeat; it was the death knell for a millennium-old bastion of Christianity, signaling the inexorable advance of Islamic imperialism across Europe and the Near East.
The Prophecy From Constantinople
