This is the story of Constantinople’s fall, how Europe’s richest city fell to the Turks and became known as Istanbul: the story of the Great Siege of 1453. When history's greatest fortification was ...

In May 1453, the Ottomans under Sultan Mehmed II brought down the great walls of Constantinople after weeks of siege. This one-minute journey with Google Earth traces the city’s defenses, the decisive ...

In 1204 the soldiers who had set out to retake Jerusalem in the Fourth Crusade changed course—but why? The result would change medieval Europe forever.