When 70 Ottoman Ships Sailed Over Land to Conquer Constantinople

In the spring of 1453, a 21-year-old Ottoman sultan pulled off one of the most audacious military engineering feats in history: hauling some 70 warships overland on greased logs and launching them inside Constantinople's supposedly impregnable Golden Horn. This is the full story of how Mehmed II outflanked the great harbor chain, broke the thousand-year-old Byzantine capital, and ended the Middle Ages. From the giant bombards that shattered the Theodosian Walls to Constantine XI's last stand on May 29, 1453 — the night the ships walked on land changed the map of Europe and Asia forever. Music (CC-BY 4.0 — Kevin MacLeod, incompetech.com): "Stormfront" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) — Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... "Interloper" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) — Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... "Constance" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) — Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Chapters: 00:00 The Fleet That Appeared Where No Fleet Could Go 00:38 The City That Refused to Die 01:45 The Sultan Who Wanted to Rewrite History 03:31 The Cannon That Made the Earth Tremble 05:57 The Harbor That Became a Trap 08:04 The Night the Ships Left the Sea 10:17 The Morning Constantinople Woke to Betrayal 12:13 The Emperor Who Refused to Abandon His City 14:10 The Night Before the Final Assault 16:03 The Walls That Finally Broke 18:20 The Empire That Rose from the Ruins 20:35 The Lesson Hidden in Seventy Ships 22:43 When the Sea Was No Longer a Wall #OttomanEmpire #Constantinople #MehmedII #Istanbul #ByzantineEmpire #History #Documentary #1453 #FallOfConstantinople #MilitaryHistory #ConstantineXI #GoldenHorn #Siege #WarHistory #MedievalHistory #TurkishHistory #WorldHistory #EmpireAtlas #HistoryDocumentary #NavalHistory #Engineering #ImpossibleFeats #MiddleAges #Renaissance