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( Ottoman Empire)
The Ottoman Empire (Old Ottoman Turkish ????? ????? ???????? Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye,[2] Modern Turkish Osmanli Imparatorlugu), also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey (see the other names of the Ottoman State), was an empire that lasted from 1299–1923. It was succeeded by the Republic of Turkey,[3] which was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923. At the height of its power (16th–17th century), it spanned three continents, controlling much of Southeastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The Ottoman Empire contained 29 provinces and numerous vassal states; some of which were later absorbed into the empire, while others gained various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. The empire also temporarily gained authority over distant overseas lands through declarations of allegiance to the Ottoman Sultan and Caliph, such as the declaration by the Sultan of Aceh in 1565; or through the temporary acquisitions of islands in the Atlantic Ocean, such as Lanzarote (1585), Madeira (1617), Vestmannaeyjar (1627) and Lundy (1655).[4] The empire was at the centre of interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds for six centuries. With Constantinople (Istanbul) as its capital city, and vast control of lands during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent which largely corresponded to the lands ruled by Justinian the Great exactly 1000 years earlier, the Ottoman Empire was, in many respects, an Islamic successor to the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. With the demise of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum (circa 1300), Turkish Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent states, the so-called Ghazi emirates. By 1300, a weakened Byzantine Empire had seen most of its Anatolian provinces lost to ten Ghazi principalities. One of the Ghazi emirates was led by Osman I (from which the name Ottoman is derived), son of Ertugrul in the region of Eskisehir in western Anatolia. Osman I extended the frontiers of Ottoman settlement towards the edge of the Byzantine Empire. He moved the Ottoman capital to Bursa, and shaped the early political development of the nation. Given the nickname "Kara" (which means "black" in modern Turkish, but alternatively meant "brave" or "strong" in old Turkish) for his courage,[5] Osman I was admired as a strong and dynamic ruler long after his death, as evident in the centuries-old Turkish phrase, "may he be as good as Osman." His reputation has also been burnished by the medieval Turkish story known as "Osman's Dream", a foundation myth in which the young Osman was inspired to conquest by a prescient vision of empire. In this period, a formal Ottoman government was created whose institutions would change drastically over the life of the empire. The government used the legal entity known as the millet, under which religious and ethnic minorities were able to manage their own affairs with substantial independence from central control.
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