Who Controlled Constantinople The Longest? 

When on a 10-day holiday in Turkey with my family last December and I agree. The cats of Istanbul are similar to the community cats of Singapore.

I lived in İstanbul for 4 years and have family members living there since 80s and you are %100 right. I want to add that I some cafes have their own cats they look after and some people(including my aunt) has their dedicated stash of cat food for those 'stray cats'.

‘Public Cats’ is the term I’ve heard

😊😊9😅😊​@@OhTheDeliciousIrony

I think I'm gonna have to move there.

As if no other country ever had a civil war...

@@praevasc4299 Sacked by the romans who were not legally roman

@@praevasc4299 in this case not a civil war, but the sack and takeover of a Greek city by Germans.

@@q-tuber7034 who claimed to be the actual holy romans by suzerainty of the Pope in Rome lmao

​@praevasc4299 To be fair, the Romans are kinda known for their civil wars, much like China to some extent or any large empire with glory to attain for that matter who didn't do much to prevent that from happening (like the Ottoman killing all brothers thing, even though they still had their fair share). With the Romans like every odd emperor had some pretenders rising up at the same time or elite units / minorities revolting, especially when the previous emperor/ruler didn't think much of succession.

@@IStevenSeagal The city has never been under Arab control.

@@tylerellis9097 No you're right. It was only Turkey/Anatolia/Rom that they took, but they couldn't go past to the bosphorus.

the arabs controlled the land past the bhosphorus and even had farms durring there seiges@@IStevenSeagal

@@mlgdigimon Really. I guess I was half right.

There was never a "Persian" reign in Constantinople

Konstantiniyye

​@@7poppiesistthat's the official name of the city in ottoman turkish/Arabic but the English name is Constantinople just like Beijing is called Peking in German. Different languages have different names.

The Turks seem to have an issue with the names of their country and cities being translated to other languages. They insisted everyone calls Constantinople Istanbul, and recently they even demanded that the name of their country shall not be translated to other languages, but to use "Türkiye" instead. Which is quite a big double standard, for example they call Germany as "Almanya" instead of "Deutschland". So it's quite absurd they demand their country's name not to be translated, while they do translate the names of other countries.

​@@praevasc4299it's not that absurd on their behalf, just simply SDE.

I'm not told New York was once New Amsterdam. Why they changed it, I can't say. They just liked it better way.

I like that, it puts a lot of internal conflicts in my head to rest.

ORIGINALLY known as: the Mighty Republic

Byzantion began as Roman but things turned around very quickly! We were not Romans! Language, traditions, religion, the people… noting to do with Rome! Byzantion was Hellenic and Orthodox🇬🇷☦️

@@Kolious_Thrace ethnic identities can be abandoned and reclaimed. your ancestors abandoned greek ethnicity because it was synonymous, at the time, with greek religion. greek became an extinct ethnic identity exactly as roman is now.

@@Kolious_Thrace if they werent roman why did they call themselves Ῥωμαῖοι ?

It always is.

Byzantion wasn’t Roman… It began Roman but very quickly things turned into Hellenic! Language, traditions, religion, the people… we had nothing to do with the Romans!

​@@Kolious_Thraceit was the Roman empire till the very end, Greek was a lingua franca in the east since the Full Roman empire, not to say what you are writing about is wrong, but it's wrong factually.

​@@Kolious_Thracethe romans itself dont define the state like that

@@IamSome1 so, Hellas never existed? Just because Rome conquered us that doesn’t mean that we vanished from the world! For a looong time we were part of their empire, we were NOT romans! We were Roman citizens! As well as French, Germans, Egyptians… all of these ethnicities we were Roman citizens, we lived under their influence. Byzantion was not Rome! Most of our emperors were Hellenes not Romans… latin was quickly abandoned and the language of our people🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷 used through the whole Byzantine empire. A common mistake thy many non natives do is that: “You called yourselves Romans” Actually no! There are two different terms but in your ears sound the same: Ρωμαίος > Roméos Ρωμιός > Romiós Romèos was the Roman Latin citizen Romiós was the Hellene Orthodox citizen! We were Romii not Romans! A term adopted becaus me for many years our name Hellas was equivalent of the old pagan religion. So, it was forbidden to use it as from that point we were Orthodox Christians. Romios: Hellene in the origin without telling the term Hellas, and Orthodox. While Romèos meant Roman! Latin in origin and pagan worshipper of the West before they also adopted Christianity.

I'm sure you mean Alexandria because cairo was built and controlled by muslims only the British and the French managed to control and rule it for some time

A video about Cairo mold? That would be different for sure.

or Alsasce-Lorraine

@@juanfervalencia I'm thinking the same thing. It'll be interesting to see whether it's more French or German.

The geographical area of greater cairo dates back to pharohes, it was called Heliopolis or Iunu so a video about it would be great I think and span a very long period of time.

Didn't realize it until now hahaha

Why did Constantinople get the works... 36 times?

came here looking for the other TMBG fans. i am glad im leaving without feeling disappointed

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam 😊

Turkish delight, anyone?

That's cute. I can support the CAToman Empire. Sultan Kedi has no enemies, everybody loves him 😉❤

The cats are the Roman spirits who still walk in their city.

Constantinople*

@@VergiliosSpatulas let me be annoying and also mention Konstantinoupolis(If I got that right) 😆

true OGs 💪🗿

so it still hurts

lol

What country are you in?

You know the largest city in the USA is new Amsterdam (locally known as New York.

Aha its also known as "Tsargrad" by the Kievan-Russ fellas. 😃😃

Damn

Bruh I just learned that from Vinland saga

Only the Turks can name their own city and they have done anyway. İSTANBUL

​@@nurettinsarulTake care of your inflation, first of all.

Assassinating a key political figure at the worst possible moment. They truly were Romans to the end.

Sounds like byzantine betrayed catalans :D why kill their commander and accuse them of betrayal. Fuck around and find out angle

@@isuckatleague745 They were indeed betrayed, but it is understandable from their perspective: The Catalans were a bit rape-y and sacking all the cities they conquered, the Byzantines were starting to owe them tons of money and Roger the Flor was getting stronger by the day (both in political, monetary and military aspects). So the assassination was a plan to save Bysantine power, as they thought the Catalan mercenaries would disband after it. But they miscalculated.

The fall of the Balkans can largely be attributed to the incompetency of the Byzantines at that particular period in time, but hey, that's history.

@@isuckatleague745 why dont you present the opposite perspective? Why did the byzantines do it ? GO ON

I feel they have an agenda to talk about how great Islamic rule has been for great cities of Constantinople and Jerusalem, and that other leadership of other religions or societies are incompetent rulers.

I answer that as well.

OMG too many cats for no reason how cute=Turks.

turks , from our papers while plauges happens in 1600s sultan took many cats from anatolia for pests and rats and it works

Constantinople*

​@@DARK78521Constantinopole* your comment is also for muslims, who conquered Byzantine Empire and killed all real Turkeys.

yeah you re right

It was a occupied zone and it was a international zone. It was occupied, not conquered. The Turks won the war and the UK gave it back

@@sadooww doesn’t it mean it was controlled?

@@dimitrosskrippka2154 Yes and no. Officially it was still the Ottoman government in control but as a puppet of the British :)

Constantinople*

Controlled by Rome. Then the Papal States. Then Italy. Done.

Not as interesting

Do it with your mum

@@TheRatOnFire_ Nah you forgot Odoacer and the Ostrogoths, multiple HRE Emperors also directly ruled from there like Otto III.

@@joshuataylor3550 Chav

It's not the first time. He occasionally has others narrate videos, I think ones they created, or are particularly passionate about.

you must be new to the channel 😂 there have been guest hosts for years

That's Syawish from Al Muqaddimah, he's pretty much done all the videos relating to Islamic history because of his familiarity and better pronunciations. He's also done a few other videos recently due to Matt being sick or busy!

Remember Jack Rackam?

Read "The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium" by Anthony Kaldellis if you want an up to date account of everything they mentioned from Constantine refounding the city to Mehmed's Conquest of it. Having read extensively on Roman history, the video was largely accurate, though skipped over a lot of history for the sake of the length of the video.

@@VoidLantadd I get it, but it's not the viewer's job to do the research and verify the facts, these should be presented by the creator instead.

Real

I need more evidence

Madagascar? Why Madagascar?

Finally someone talking some sense.

Constantinople is actually Constanti-noble and is a Farsi word "کسانی که نوآورند - kesani-ke-no-avarand" which means "Those who are innovative/Those who bring new things".

Turks mostly do not speak Arabic. They use word Fatih as "conqueror”. In Arabic it could have different meaning.

@@XY-uc1tw not mostly, turks don't speak arabic, they speak turkish which has no connection to the language arabic, its an asian language from central asia.

@@adamfarmer7665 you are right but it chanced since 2015. More than 10 mil. Arabs live in Turkey now.

@@XY-uc1tw immigrants are not turks. being a turk is a race and it has its own culture.

Fatih: conqueror, fetih: conquest in Turkish

True my bro

what is that??

@@19.vishveshgupta32 , the great rise of islam

Finally AWC are chucking deeply at the corner after knowing her lovely city are mentioned.

Konstantiniyye

Atam beee, bir kere daha gururlandım!

@@DobyTheElf that's just a translation of Constantinople in Turkish. Same way Germans call Beijing Peking.

Always forever Constantinople@Qunstantiniyyah 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

​@@ophirbactrius8285 Uhmmm not sure about that 😂😂

They change the name, which is better than changing a gender 💀

Love the song and Bette though I do, she only covered that song. The Four Lads first recorded it in 1953, I think in a nod to the 400th anniversary of the fall on Constantinople.

@@xaviotesharris891 -thanks for pointing this out...just found The Four Lads version . . . . too funny

But of course, most people know the song today owing to the 1990 version by They Might Be Giants

@@lp-xl9ld Right. When that came out, I was unaware of Bette's brief stab at it on stage some years earlier - I thought TMBG had written it. When I saw her earlier version, I looked into it and learned about The Four Lads. And of course, TMBG had the benefit of Animaniacs.

There would have been a mosaic of Christ on a gold background there. Assuming that other Orthodox Church domes are modelled on it,

Unfortunately, no one was smart enough to take a photo of the time Justinian entered it.

@@UsefulCharts A shame really.

Well, it is there now, get over it

@@omerunlusoy I am a man who isnt particularly bothered by things he cant change. Fear if I ever get godlike powers tho, then the turks will be driven from Thace.

if it was me I would have counted it by unbroken succession of rulers. So to me the Roman rule should have ended at the 13h century.

@@JustinLethe last video about Jerusalem was divided by religious population; jewish, christian and Muslim. thats what everyone wants to see. we all know that the eastern roman empire or byzantine empire ruled over this city the longest.

Your logic isn't quite correct the Turks today don't call themselves ottoman while the Byzantines definitely called themselves Romans well after the siege of the city. Also sure the religion changed but their every day lifes and their customs not so much.

@@JustinLe if you count by dynasty or as you said unbroken succession of rulers then the ottomans would be the longest im pretty sure of that. the ottomans empire is one whole dynasty, whereas the roman empire had many different dynasties.

@@mariapapa6370 the turks are ottomans and the ottomans were turks. your logic does not make sense!

Well he said Byzantium was founded by that Amazon guy, so why not...😁

Maybe it’s his 500x greatest grandad

I live in İstanbul but I cannot deny

I was fortunate to meet Gli at the end of 2011. She was one of the sweetest cats I have ever encountered. She was the true empress, but without the political intrigue and the powerplay. She just wanted to hang out and sleep on your lap. On colder days, she'd also put her face against the light projectors, becoming a truly holy being of light. She met almost all politicians, state and religious leaders who visited Haghia Sophia during her lifetime.

The true ruler of Catstantinople. 😹😺

@@emilgilels ❤️🐱

I met Gli in the summer of 2017. Really a wonderful and lovely cat.

It was not basically a Greek Empire. It was completely Roman. The Romans spoke Greek in the eastern provinces as they always had, but Greek was never how they identified themselves.

@@VoidLantaddYou are correct but it's a bit more complicated than that. They did consider themselves Romans. They were the Roman Empire as we all know Byzantine Empire is a name historians gave them well after they ceased to exist. Yet they were aware they were Greek. But as you stated they considered themselves Roman. This was the case even before the western empire fell. They were the same but they were very different as well. That's probably why most think of the Roman Empire ending in the 5th century when it technically lasted almost another 1000 years. It's a shame.

​@@VoidLantadd​ It was basically a Greek empire. Greeks with roman citizenship took under their control the Roman state during the medieval period and they controlled it for almost a millenia. The empire during the byzantine period had Greeks in charge, Greek elite, Greeks at its center, Greek as the lingua franca and Greek culture as the dominant culture. So even though medieval Greeks preserved the state and kept the Roman law and institutions it's not wrong to say that, in essence, the empire transformed into a Greek empire during the byzantine period. Medieval Greeks identified as both Greeks and Romans since that's what they were : Greeks and citizens of the Roman state (a state that they controlled during the medieval period). I'm not sure what gave you the impression that they didn't identify as Greeks. Plenty of sources from that period have survived and it's a fact that Byzantines identified as Greeks.

@@gilpaubelid3780 It is not a fact that they identified as Greek. In those times Greek came to specifically mean someone from the Greek peninsula, so a Greek speaking Roman in Asia Minor for example would not have identified as Greek, while a Roman from Athens would have.

@@VoidLantadd No, it didn't. And we have plenty of sources from Greeks from Asia minor that identified as Greeks. How do you explain this extract from George Tornikes for example? He refers to Byzantines as Greeks and distinguishes between barbarians and Hellenes (Greeks) , those who are "slaves by nature" ( τοις φύσει δούλοις) and those who are free (ελεύθεροι). He expresses his discontent that "barbarians" are used to fill up important posts in the byzantine empire during the reign of Manuel I Komnenos and says that he can't accept having the Greeks, who are disciples of the Muses and of Hermes coming second to those who speak a barbarous tongue, have barbarous mores and are servants of Ares. («Μη μοι τοις βαρβάροις τον Έλληνα μηδέ τοις φύσει δούλοις τον ελεύθερον συναπόγραφε ο φιλέλλην και φιλελεύθερος. Ου δέχομαι γλώσσαν μεν άλλους έχοντας βάρβαρον, ειπείν δε και γνώμην, και υπηρέτας Άρεος χρηματίζοντας ός επίπαν τοις βαρβάροις ωκείωται, ανά μέσον βαρβάρου διαστέλλειν και Έλληνος , τον δε γνώμην και γλώσσαν υπέρ Έλληνά τε πάντα και ήρωα, εραστήν τε Μουσών και Ερμού, των ανδρών εκείνων δεύτερον έρχεσθαι».) Another example:Joseph I Galesiotes (13th century) said that they were Greeks in race that call themselves Romans, a name that they took from New Rome/ Constantinople: Ἕλληνες ὄντες τῷ γένει, Ρωμαίους ἑαυτοὺς ὀνομάζομεν και αληθώς γε μην· εκ γαρ της Νέας Ρώμης η παρωνυμία αύτη προσκεκλήρωται ημίν Another example:The byzantine translators when they were translating the syriac text of Pseudo-methodius into Greek (8th century) they wrote as a clarification note : The empire of the Romans meaning that of the Hellenes/Greeks ( Εστί δε νυν η βασιλεία των Ρωμαίων ηγουν Ελλήνων) From the primary sources we can see that Byzantine Greeks (no matter where they were from) identified as Greeks during the entirety of the byzantine period.

My Early Shorts have the it if you want to hear the short version

One of several covers of that quirky '50s song...

Anyone who took Byzantium and stuck their capital there is doing so to become culturally Byzantine for the legitimacy. They even renamed the thing "The City", which is the kind of thing you do when it's important to your legitimacy.

Well it is based on Political control not cultural and at no point did the Byzantine Empire stop considering itself the Roman Empire. It remained a Greek City as Byzantium even under Roman control so yeah if the criteria was changed Greek would be the undisputed number 1.

@@tylerellis9097 Yes why don't these people get that Roman and Greek is one and the same and that roman control was not seen as a occupation.

@@DCCrisisclips it wasn't always like that, the first few centuries the Romans were seen as foreign rulers, the Latins had to conquer the area after all, the Greek adoption of the Roman identity was a gradual process it cannot be helped that the Greek dominated medieval Byzantine/Rhomaioi Empire be distinguished from the classical Latin dominated Eastern Roman Empire culture wise even if they have a political continuum

@@tylerellis9097 they never stoped considering themselves the Roman Empire but the ruling elite stopped having cultural ties with Rome it wasn't a Greek city controlled by Romans, it was a Greek city controlled by Greeks calling themselves Romans I do not aim to devalue their legitimacy at all, I'm just saying the distinction must be made

I'm a Muslim and even I don't like that decision. Alas it's not the first house of worship that changed... ownership, and I don't think it would be the last

Which time? ;-) Not sure it's correct to call it "the saddest" moment in history: history is alas full of them. The magnificent building is still there, persevering over the millennia through the caprices of human history.

Hey real quick question: how do you feel about the Great Mosque of Córdoba? real sad when that was converted into a cathedral huh?

@@torilongstaff5591yes, but that was done 800 years ago. Hagia was converted just a few years ago and it wasn't even a Church anymore anyway so there was no reason for that other than to show some people reverted to a medieval mentality in the 21st century. Congratulations!

​@@torilongstaff5591 The Muslims conquered Spain, built mosques, heavily taxed people of other religions, that's called colonization. Spain retook the peninsula during the reconquista and removed mosques. That's called decolonization. Turks conquered Greece and converted a great building into a mosque, replacing the native culture with your own is called colonization. Funny how colonizers always cry when decolonization happens to them, eh?

Greeks in Turkey still call themselves Roman.

The national term "Greek" was adopted in the 18th century by Greek-speaking Romans under Ottoman rule, right?

​@@txikitofandango It was adopted during the revolution, which started in 1821. There were many reasons for the revival of the term, one of which was that some of the leaders of the revolution were western-educated and, thus, misinformed about the Eastern Empire.

It's the same thing. Ethnicaly Greeks, politicaly Roman. We had been the Roman empire for so long it became integral part of our identity.

Greek 100%. Ethnically, culturally, religiously and linguistically Greek. More particularly Hellenic. Roman was only a civic name or otherwise called "official name". The DPRK calls themselves democratic, is it democratic though? As for Rome and Roman civilization, the truth is that Greek influence inside Rome was far stronger than any influence Rome had over the Greek provinces. Most Ceasars spoke Greek in private during the united republic of Rome. So in a sense it would be more accurate to call the Roman empire, Greek than to call the Eastern Roman empire Italian. The modern successor of the Eastern Roman Empire is Greece, no matter how much people seethe.

Ottomans and turks are 2 very different groups compared to the long running Eastern Roman Empire

@@Carpediem357the ottomans were predominantly a turkish empire who integrated and assimilated other minorities from their empire and borders into their elite. the latin romans also did the same with germanic and other peoples. the big difference is that the eastern roman empire was predominantly greek whereas the western romans were latin. the turkish republic today is predominantly turkish even though they have a large variety of ancestry today and many minorities like Kurds and others. the roman empire also changed its political system many times from “democratic” republic to dictatorship/empire to christian theocracy, etc. so it only makes sense that todays turkish republic is put together with the ottomans. because they just changed the political system like how the romans did.

@@muslimresponse103 Turkey and the Ottomans are 2 different groups. The Romans were never democratic. Republic and Democracy were 2 very different things in the ancient times. The Romans spoke Latin, even the East for a while spoke Latin before the predominant language changed to Greek, Latin was still used and spoken in the East. By the same logic you used: Ottomans were an empire then fell and Turkey became a republic thus making both entirely different entities so again Ottomans and Turkey are different groups and thus aren't grouped together

@@Carpediem357 what nonsense are you on about. everything you are saying is wrong! the ottomans were turkish and the turkish republic are ottomans. their system of governance changed from tribal confederacy to absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy, to a parliamentary dictatorship under Mustafa Kamal to a parliamentary democracy and now a presidential democracy/republic. but still the elite and majority of the population have always been Turkish from the first days of the ottoman empire till today. the turkish republic of today is a continuation of the ottomans. this is indisputable. so stop arguing about it. the real question is. was the byzantine empire really a roman empire or was it actually greek? it may have started as a latin roman empire with latin elites but soon it turned into a greek empire not just because its population was greek but also because its elite were greek and only roman in name! meaning they preferred to be known as roman because of its prestige giving them extra legitimacy as an empire but really they were as roman as the ottoman sultans were roman emperors. only in title/name! whereas the ottoman empire was always dominated by turks and the elite were mostly turks and the majority of its population was for the most part turks and its army and its generals etc. on the other hand the byzantine empire was mostly greek and not roman, more slavs and bulgars made up the byzantine army and elite than latin speaking "romans".

@@muslimresponse103 the Ottomans and the Turks are different groups. The Ottomans were a Imperial Monarchy whereas Turkey is a republic 2 different groups wow mind blown. The Eastern were Roman. No debate lmao. There is question, they called themselves roman, they spoke roman, they were part of the roman empire, they continued Roman tradition and practices. Ottomans and Turkey are different so again they should not be grouped together end of discussion. Capiseesh??

Really? Attacked by Ghaznavis ?

Nah you’re wrong

​@@SethTheOrigink

There's a quite big different between the modern and theoretically secular and national Turkish state of now with the multi ethnic multi religious, Islamic ottoman empire. They were related entities but they are different.

The Turkish people as a nation and ethnic identity were founded in 1920 by Mustafa Kefal, no such thing as ''Turkish'' before that, ''Turk'' was a swear word for peasant people during the Ottoman times, they did not identify as Turks.

The Ottoman Empire still had a huge greek presence in Constantinople and Western Anatolia. So it is different from the ethnically homogenous Turkey

I mean you can, but why call is Constantinople now?

​@@sophiafayz7909 I mean, even Constantinople was a name change from Byzantium, so just call it that if you want to deny reality

​@@sophiafayz7909lemme guess, from the river to the sea, right?🤨

Only if you're flying in from New Amsterdam.

@user-uf5nv5cb3b God you guys are so delusional thinking everything Muslim has to do with the Israeli seige on Gaza. The Ottoman empire was the first nation to call that region their word for Palestine, which Palestine already is an anglicized version of Phillistine. British Mandate for Palestine is only called that because the Ottomans called it Palestine. A large Jewish population left Palestine, and then an even larger population eventually came back to that region and started calling it their own name

It was such a simple solution to a problem all dynasties faced it’s insane no else tried it

Nice obligatory reference to Istanbul (1953) by The Four Lads

Ottoman Constantinople corresponds to the same place as well. This is where it expanded from and became known as Istanbul

Did they have facilities for deuce dropping there?