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Speaker 1: The battles of the past to find the present. This

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Speaker 1: is shields high. Gather around, friends, for I have a

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Speaker 1: story to tell. The Fall of Constantinople, Part two. In

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Speaker 1: the year of our Lord fourteen fifty three, then the

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Speaker 1: most important city in the Christian world, Constantinople was besieged

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Speaker 1: by the most powerful army in existence, that of the

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Speaker 1: Ottoman Turks of Anatolia. Constantinople's Theodosian walls had stood up

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Speaker 1: to weeks of continuous assaults and battering barrages from the

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Speaker 1: seventy cannons that the Sultan meth Met had emplaced for

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Speaker 1: what was then the most impressive artillery battalion the world

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Speaker 1: had ever seen. The struggle for the city was an

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Speaker 1: all or nothing enterprise. If the defenders were overrun and Constantinople,

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Speaker 1: they knew that they would be slaughtered or enslaved to

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Speaker 1: a man, The icons of Christianity, including what was considered

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Speaker 1: a piece of the true Cross of Jesus Christ, would

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Speaker 1: be desecrated and destroyed, and with their successful taking of

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Speaker 1: the city, the Ottomans could create a capital at the

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Speaker 1: crossroads of the known world from which they could stage

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Speaker 1: further Jihad's invasions all the way into the heart of

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Speaker 1: Christendom itself. From there they could dominate the world and

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Speaker 1: the future of human kind. But the hearty defenders of

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Speaker 1: Constantinople were not giving in. In fact, the major assaults

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Speaker 1: on the wall had been repulsed, and the first effort

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Speaker 1: to engage the Constantinople navy at sea was a stunning

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Speaker 1: defeat for the Ottomans and had enraged met Met to

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Speaker 1: the point where he considered impaling his own admiral. He

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Speaker 1: needed to change the outcome. While no one in either

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Speaker 1: camp was certain, there was the possibility of a relief armada.

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Speaker 1: If the Italian city states of Venice or Genoa raised

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Speaker 1: a fleet, or if the Hungarian crusader spirit was once

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Speaker 1: again remembered to the west, a massive relief force by

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Speaker 1: land or sea could lift the siege and deliver Constantinople

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Speaker 1: from an ignominious and brutal defeat. Through the entire month

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Speaker 1: of April, the massive Theodosian Wall to the west of

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Speaker 1: Constantinople had withstood the roaring cannon fire of or Bond,

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Speaker 1: the master metallurgist, who had offered his services to the

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Speaker 1: Christians and tragically for them they didn't have the funds,

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Speaker 1: but Mathmet did, and that was how the Ottomans, all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, became the foremost gunpowder power in the

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Speaker 1: Mediterranean world. Those cannons were blasting at the Theodosian walls.

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Speaker 1: It was doing damage, but it was not enough, and

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Speaker 1: with the defender, Justiniani's on the spot improvisations, a stockade

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Speaker 1: had been built in the areas of crumbling wall, and

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Speaker 1: with hardy and fierce defense behind it, so far all

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Speaker 1: efforts to take the city by land had been repulsed.

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Speaker 1: Meth Met despite the humiliation of watching his navy greatly

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Speaker 1: out numbering just a few Genoese ships and being routed

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Speaker 1: by them on the sea in full view of both

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Speaker 1: combined military forces. Well, meth Met knew that he would

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Speaker 1: have to mount another naval assault against the city, and

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Speaker 1: he had to cut off supplies and any hope of

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Speaker 1: a reinforcement by sea. But to do that he had

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Speaker 1: to get around the three hundred yard long metal chain

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Speaker 1: that connected in the sea walls of Constantinople and the

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Speaker 1: city of Galata, a Genoese colony across the Bosphorus. He

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Speaker 1: couldn't just drive at it with his ships they would

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Speaker 1: be picked off and destroyed as they tried to make

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Speaker 1: their way around the barrier. Mehmet, however, had a brilliant

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Speaker 1: and devious idea. He would create a second opening for

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Speaker 1: his navy by going around the chain. This would let

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Speaker 1: him have his ships, bottle up all of Constantinople's naval

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Speaker 1: forces and create a threat to the Golden Horn itself.

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Speaker 1: The Golden Horn is a body of water just to

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Speaker 1: the north of the main city of Constantinople. It is

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Speaker 1: an estuary that connects to the Bosphorus, and the Bosphorus

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Speaker 1: is a thin body of water that connects into the

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Speaker 1: Sea of Marmara and then the Mediterranean to the south

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Speaker 1: and to the north the Black Sea. Incredibly valuable naval

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Speaker 1: and commercial maritime real estate, but for the city of Constantinople,

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Speaker 1: the Golden Horn had to be a safe haven, or

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Speaker 1: else it would extend their defensive lines even more. If

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Speaker 1: the Turks were able to make their way around the

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Speaker 1: chain and bring a naval force to bear to the

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Speaker 1: north of it as well as the south, all twelve

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Speaker 1: miles of Constantinople's perimeter would have to be defended. But

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Speaker 1: how to do it well? Meth Met had an ingenious plan,

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Speaker 1: one that, once executed, would strike terror into the hearts

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Speaker 1: of the Christian defenders, who mere days before this plan

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Speaker 1: was enacted could have in fact seen the Ottoman army

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Speaker 1: pack up and leave. That's how close they were to

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Speaker 1: a successful defense of the city. After victories on land

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Speaker 1: and then at sea. Meth Met was a student of history. However,

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Speaker 1: he knew that it was possible to move ships over

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Speaker 1: land if the right conditions were created. The Genoese colony

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Speaker 1: of Galata, which sits across the Bosphorus from Constantinople, was neutral,

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Speaker 1: though it was a Christian enclave and the Sultan had

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Speaker 1: suspicions that they were providing intelligence and probably even other

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Speaker 1: forms of covert assistance to the Christian defenders. But Galata

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Speaker 1: is surrounded with some land, and to the north that

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Speaker 1: land is above the great metal chain links that kept

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Speaker 1: the Ottoman navy from fully encircling Constantinople. Remember, the city

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Speaker 1: of Constantinople is on a peninsula at this time. To

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Speaker 1: the west it has the massive Theodosian walls, but to

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Speaker 1: the north, east and south its boundaries were water. The

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Speaker 1: route over land was only possible with the Ottoman logistical

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Speaker 1: war machine in full effect. They were able to create

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Speaker 1: a bridge of logs and carry their ships in whole

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Speaker 1: without even taking them apart over the pathway of logs

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Speaker 1: from the Bosphorus south of the chain up to the

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Speaker 1: north of the chain. This would mean that the entirety

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Speaker 1: of Constantinople was subject to attack. Saladin, the most famous

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Speaker 1: of Muslim generals and conquerors up to this time and

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Speaker 1: for all time, had moved ships from the Nile to

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Speaker 1: the Red Sea in the twelfth century. Meth Met, with

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Speaker 1: pretensions to be as great a conqueror as Saladin, took

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Speaker 1: a page from his playbook. On April fourteen fifty three,

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Speaker 1: the first Ottoman war galley was slipped into the water

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Speaker 1: north of the Great Chain across the Bosphorus. The road

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Speaker 1: of logs that meth Met had emplaced managed to get

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Speaker 1: the navy around the chain that had defended the Golden

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Speaker 1: Horn for centuries. There was nothing now to stop a

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Speaker 1: full scale naval assault of the north of the city,

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Speaker 1: except or the ships at harbor. The Genoese defenders of

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Speaker 1: the city, understanding the naval implications of this plot, immediately

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Speaker 1: came up with their own counter strike. They would lead

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Speaker 1: a naval assault in darkness with fire ships. The fire

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Speaker 1: ships would go directly into the thick of the Ottoman

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Speaker 1: naval presence that had now moved north of the chain,

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Speaker 1: set them on fire, and destroy the threat to the

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Speaker 1: north of the city and the Golden Horn. Time was

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Speaker 1: of the essence. A vote was taken and the defenders

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Speaker 1: of the city, led by Jacomo Coco, were ready for

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Speaker 1: their fire ship assault, but at the last minute there

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Speaker 1: was dissension within the ranks. They decided that they had

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Speaker 1: to delay. There were Genoese in Galata who wanted to

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Speaker 1: partake in the mission. To this delay was to prove disastrous.

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Speaker 1: Within a couple of days, they launched the fire ship

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Speaker 1: assault at night. The Ottoman ships were moored just as

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Speaker 1: they thought they would be, in relatively tight formation, but

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Speaker 1: there were cannons and placed along the shore. The first

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Speaker 1: ship meant to start the conflagration of the Ottomans. The

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Speaker 1: first fire ship, with Jacomo Coco as its captain, was annihilated.

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Speaker 1: It was turned into splinters by the cannons, and the

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Speaker 1: Ottomans clearly were waiting for this fire ship assault and

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Speaker 1: ambushed it. It was a dismal failure forty sailors managed

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Speaker 1: to swim ashore from the destroyed Christian ships. Meth Met

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Speaker 1: had the forty survived iving sailors seized and to tell

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Speaker 1: the Christians just what he thought of their effort to

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Speaker 1: destroy his navy north of the chain. He had his

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Speaker 1: men grab each individual Christian, lay him on the ground,

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Speaker 1: take a long sharpened stick and a heavy mallet. Smashed

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Speaker 1: the sharp end of the stick into the rectum of

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Speaker 1: the Christian captive, drive it all the way so that

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Speaker 1: it came out of his torso turned the stick upright

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Speaker 1: and let the mangled, bleeding body and the writhing Christian

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Speaker 1: a topic be a display of his hatred and resolve

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Speaker 1: for all the Christians on the walls of Constantinople to see.

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Speaker 1: The enraged defenders of Constantinople responded by taking over two

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Speaker 1: hundred Ottoman captives out of their prisons, and then one

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Speaker 1: after or another, throwing them off the city walls with

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Speaker 1: ropes tied around their necks, hanging them in a vicious

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Speaker 1: display of we will do to you as you do

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Speaker 1: unto us. There would be no quarter or mercy in

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Speaker 1: this fight. And now the city of Constantinople was truly surrounded,

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Speaker 1: the hopes of a naval fleet to relieve them. We're dimming.

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Speaker 1: The focus of the brutal struggle then turned underground. From

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Speaker 1: early to late May, it became a war of sappers.

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Speaker 1: This was a mining technique as staple of ancient siege warfare.

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Speaker 1: The miners would try to dig tunnels under the defender's walls.

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Speaker 1: They would either then collapse the tunnel intentionally to bring

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Speaker 1: down the foundation of the defensive fortification, or use the

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Speaker 1: tunnel as an entry point force soldiers to invade behind

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Speaker 1: the wall. The miners were in desperate circumstances. The Constantinople

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Speaker 1: defenders would seek to find any way they could to

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Speaker 1: harass them, to bury them alive, to set them on fire,

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Speaker 1: to use Greek fire to destroy their tunnels and everything inside.

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Speaker 1: While the miners got close to the wall, and in

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Speaker 1: fact beyond the wall, and more than one occasion, the

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Speaker 1: defenders of Constantinople were always just a step ahead. Under

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Speaker 1: the ground. There was a war going on that could

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Speaker 1: have ended the siege. Were it not for two Ottomans

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Speaker 1: who were captured and gave intelligence on the plans of

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Speaker 1: the miners, perhaps they would have been successful. But instead

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Speaker 1: the sappers attempts to get behind or under the walls

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Speaker 1: and end this great siege once and for all, ended

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Speaker 1: with nothing more than them either burning alive, were buried alive.

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Speaker 1: It would have to be a full scale assault on

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Speaker 1: the walls, timed simultaneously with an arm and naval assault

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Speaker 1: on the rest of Constantinople's periphery that would decide this contest.

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Speaker 1: Meth Met set his mind to exactly that plan m M.

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Speaker 1: Chapter two, All or Nothing, The Final Assault the Year

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Speaker 1: of Our Lord fourteen fifty three, the twenty sixth of May,

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Speaker 1: Mahmet was making the final preparations. After seven weeks of

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Speaker 1: brutal siege warfare, both sides were depleted and morale was

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Speaker 1: running out. The Christian defenders inside Constantinople had lost all

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Speaker 1: hope of a reinforcement fleet or a crusader army by

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Speaker 1: land coming to their rescue. They had sent out emissaries

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Speaker 1: to seek help and had been rebuffed by all leaders

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Speaker 1: with whom they came into contact. The Turks, for their part,

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Speaker 1: had become sick of the continuous assaults on the walls

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Speaker 1: that were repulsed time and again. They were promised booty.

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Speaker 1: They wanted the glory of taking this great city, but

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Speaker 1: also the riches, the slaves the women held inside, and

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Speaker 1: if they weren't going to be successful, the possibility of

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Speaker 1: the field army deciding to leave, or even a mutiny

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Speaker 1: that would turn on met Met was all too real.

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Speaker 1: The Sultan decided that it would be one final, all

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Speaker 1: out assault to take the city. The Saint Romantus Gate

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Speaker 1: in the center of the Theodosian walls was a well

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Speaker 1: known weak point and had been for centuries. The Ottomans

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Speaker 1: would concentrate much of their effort there, as well as

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Speaker 1: another weak seam in the wall to the north. Those

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Speaker 1: two places would be the primary points of entry for

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Speaker 1: the assault. The night before, the Ottoman camp wanted to

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Speaker 1: wage psychological warfare, and so they were told to each

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Speaker 1: and every tent to set a fire a light during

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Speaker 1: the night before the final siege. As the Christian defenders

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Speaker 1: looked out from the walls, they saw a terrifying sight.

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Speaker 1: It looked as though everything in front of them was

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Speaker 1: the light of an Ottoman soldier's fire. With those set,

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Speaker 1: the plan was put in motion. The Ottomans would attack

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Speaker 1: before the break of dawn. It would be an assault

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Speaker 1: in waves, a relay system. When one Ottoman force had

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Speaker 1: suffered severe enough casualties, the Sultan would order its retreat

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Speaker 1: and another would be flung against the walls. Meth Mets

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Speaker 1: personal bodyguards stood behind the assaulting waves of soldiers with

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Speaker 1: whips and clubs to remind them of their duty to

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Speaker 1: die as mujahadeen, as holy warriors. This was, of course

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Speaker 1: a jihad. There could be no place for cowards. After all,

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Speaker 1: paradise was awaiting them the moment of their deaths. If

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Speaker 1: they made it past the personal bodyguard of the Sultan,

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Speaker 1: then they would have to deal with the Janissaries, the

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Speaker 1: fiercest warriors of the Ottoman Horde. And with the janissaries,

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Speaker 1: any cowardice would be met with a scimitar's blade. Those

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Speaker 1: who ran from battle, no matter how fierce and furious

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Speaker 1: the fighting had become, would be cut down by any

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Speaker 1: janissary who saw them leaving the field. Without the sultans

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Speaker 1: say so. There was to be no stopping of any kind,

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Speaker 1: not for food or darkness. The Ottoman army was assaulting

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Speaker 1: the walls of Constantinople with everything they had, and the

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Speaker 1: attack would come from all sides. There would be a

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Speaker 1: full scale naval assault against the sea walls to the

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Speaker 1: east of the city as well. It was a multi

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Speaker 1: pronged for to take a city from all sides that

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Speaker 1: had not been successfully stormed in a thousand years. Constantine

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Speaker 1: the eleventh, the emperor of the Byzantines and leader of

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Speaker 1: their defense, was exhausted. He had, over the course of

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Speaker 1: seven weeks of fighting, lost about half of his total number,

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Speaker 1: from a start of around eight thousand down to around

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Speaker 1: four thousand. That's four thousand men to guard a perimeter

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Speaker 1: of twelve miles around the city. Meth Met had the

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Speaker 1: tremendous advantage of numbers. He told his men, who had

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Speaker 1: been promised under Islamic law three days of unrestrained pillage,

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Speaker 1: that they must leave the structures and buildings of the

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Speaker 1: city and the walls intact. All of the plunder objects

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Speaker 1: and human beings were up or the taking. The Christians

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Speaker 1: had at their defense the stalwarts Genoese name Justin Yanni.

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Speaker 1: He was the one who had arrived in January at

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Speaker 1: the start of the siege with seven hundred trained fighting men.

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Speaker 1: Justin Yanni knew that after this assault, if the Turks

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Speaker 1: were unsuccessful, it was likely they would retire to their

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Speaker 1: camp and return home. There would be further sieges, but

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Speaker 1: after this, perhaps they could rally Christendom to their defense.

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Speaker 1: There could be an influx of soldiers. The great city

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Speaker 1: of Constantinople could be the focal point of a renewed

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Speaker 1: resistance against Jihad. From Constantinople's walls, they could project out

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Speaker 1: force and send military forays to take back the land

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Speaker 1: that had been seized by the Turks. They could turn

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Speaker 1: the tide against Jihad, but they would have to hold

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Speaker 1: out this time. First, the odds were stacked against them.

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Speaker 1: The Christian defenders on constantinople city walls passed out what

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Speaker 1: remained of their weaponry and missiles. Crossbows, longbows, arquebusses, sword spears, lances, maces,

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Speaker 1: and battle axes were distributed to a man. Christian clergy

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Speaker 1: led processions around the city. There was still a widespread

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Speaker 1: belief among the population that God was on their side

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Speaker 1: and that God himself would deliver them from the Turkish menace.

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Speaker 1: Priests blessed the defenders with holy water. On the other

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Speaker 1: side of the battlefield, Methmet moved forward. The first wave

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Speaker 1: of the attack began. There was a desperate struggle that

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Speaker 1: was already established what parts of the wall had weakened,

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Speaker 1: and that was where the Ottomans concentrated their assault. But

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Speaker 1: the first wave was repulsed. The fighting was fierce and bloody.

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Speaker 1: As Roger Crowley writes of this moment in his book

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Speaker 1: fourteen fifty three, quote, arrows whipping through the night air

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Speaker 1: amplified the subterranean roar of the Ottoman cannon, vibrating the ground,

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Speaker 1: the flat crack of handguns. Swords clattered harshly against shields,

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Speaker 1: as blades severed windpipes, arrowheads puckered into chests, lad bullets

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Speaker 1: shattered ribs, rocks crushed skulls. And behind these sounds the

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Speaker 1: more terrible hubbub of human voices, prayers and battle cries,

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Speaker 1: shouts of encouragement, sobs and moans of the approaching death

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Speaker 1: for so many and quote, the sound of the battle

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Speaker 1: was deafening. The Ottomans were playing drums and flutes, trying

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Speaker 1: to rally their men to continue the vicious assault. Inside

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Speaker 1: of Constantinople, the church bells were ringing. They were hoping

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Speaker 1: for a miracle, They were hoping for divine intervention. After

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Speaker 1: four hours of continuous fighting, a contingent of three Ottomans

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Speaker 1: finally made it up the wall and through the stockade.

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Speaker 1: Once they had finally gotten past that first level of

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Speaker 1: Christian defense, they were surrounded and systematically cut down to

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Speaker 1: a man without a single survivor assault and meth Met

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Speaker 1: was becoming desperate. He had only one crack division left

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Speaker 1: of around five thousand troops, including many janissaries. If they

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Speaker 1: were unsuccessful in breaking through the defenses, the Christians would

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Speaker 1: win the day. To the north of the main assault,

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Speaker 1: disaster struck for the Byzantines. It was that another known

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Speaker 1: weak point, the Circus Gate, that an Ottoman contingent broke

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Speaker 1: through and was able to pull down the flag of

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Speaker 1: Saint Mark of the Venetian defenders and replace it with

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Speaker 1: the banner of the Sultan. For the first time, the

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Speaker 1: Ottomans had a flag of their own atop the Theodosian

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Speaker 1: walls in full view of the defenders. Back at the

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Speaker 1: main assault in the center of the wall, Giovanni JUSTINIANI,

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Speaker 1: the brave Genoese commander, was wounded. He asked the Emperor

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Speaker 1: Constantine if he could withdraw, as he was combat and effective,

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Speaker 1: but other Genoese saw their brave general retiring, and they followed.

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Speaker 1: It seemed as though they were retreating. The Ottomans recognized

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Speaker 1: this as their moment. A wave of janissaries smashed into

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Speaker 1: the remaining defenders and over rand them. They slashed and

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Speaker 1: stabbed and hacked at every man, and finally Constantine the

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Speaker 1: eleventh knew that it was too late. He tossed aside

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Speaker 1: his per bull emperor's robes, raised his sword, and ran

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Speaker 1: into the thick of battle, never to be seen again.

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Speaker 1: The janissaries surged forward, shouting Allah Huakbar, Allah Huakbar. Some

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Speaker 1: of the Christians at the walls held out for a

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Speaker 1: bit longer, but the Janissaries swarmed them and killed them mercilessly.

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Speaker 1: The remaining defenders were either cut down in place or

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Speaker 1: made a desperate run for the ships moored at the

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Speaker 1: docks of Constantinople. To the east of the city. The

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Speaker 1: Ottomans poured in victorious, a ravaging, conquering horde. Chapter three,

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Speaker 1: Total Desecration the city falls. Those initial minutes, once the

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Speaker 1: walls had been breached by the Turks, were sheer terror

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Speaker 1: for all of those inside Constantinople. The fall of the

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Speaker 1: city was a calamity. No one was coming to their aid.

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Speaker 1: A darkness of evil descended upon the greatest city in Christendom.

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Speaker 1: Constantinople had lasted five hours under the full weight of

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Speaker 1: Ottoman assault. Now it was a three mile foot race

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Speaker 1: from the walls to the heart of the city itself.

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Speaker 1: The only thing holding the Ottomans back in those first

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Speaker 1: minutes was fear of Christian forces lurking within the city

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Speaker 1: for a last stand. Perhaps they had made preparations for

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Speaker 1: final assaults inside the city walls, but there was nothing.

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Speaker 1: All of the able bodied men in the city had

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Speaker 1: been called to the defense of the walls. The Turks

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Speaker 1: turned the route at the Theodosian walls into a frenzy

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Speaker 1: of terror. Along the way. The first contingents of soldiers

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Speaker 1: who made it deep into the city killed every man,

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Speaker 1: woman and child they saw. They cut civilians down with scimitars,

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Speaker 1: They smashed their heads in with axes. The elderly, the infirm, lepers,

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Speaker 1: infants all were ruthlessly slaughtered. In an orgy of religious

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Speaker 1: fueled brutality. Ottoman soldiers raped every female in sight. Many

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Speaker 1: Byzantine Christian women chose to throw themselves off the buildings

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Speaker 1: to avoid this fate. Those who called Constantinople home saw

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Speaker 1: their families taken into slavery. Often the last sight they

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Speaker 1: would ever have in this world before an azapp or

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Speaker 1: janissary brought a blade down on their necks. Was their

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Speaker 1: wives and children roped and taken as chattel. Then the Turks,

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Speaker 1: after the blood in the streets was running freely, began

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Speaker 1: to turn their thoughts to plunder. Beautiful women and yes,

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Speaker 1: young boys were the most prized slaves. The Turks even

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Speaker 1: fought each over over some of this plunder. They turned

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Speaker 1: their swords on each other when they could not come

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Speaker 1: to an agreement on the spot. Churches and monasteries were

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Speaker 1: singled out for plunder and desecration. Christian icons that had

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Speaker 1: performed miracles were hacked to pieces out of spite. Crosses

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Speaker 1: were smell ashed off of roofs or set on fire.

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Speaker 1: The tombs of saints were ripped open, the bones thrown

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Speaker 1: out in the street for dogs to gnaw on. The

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Speaker 1: Turks raped the nuns and murdered all of the monks

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Speaker 1: they could find. The great doorway of Saint Sophia Cathedral

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Speaker 1: had been barred. It was hacked open with Turkish axes.

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Speaker 1: Every item in that church was either ransacked or destroyed.

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Speaker 1: The Muslim invaders believed that it was idolatrous, and besides,

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Speaker 1: any property that belonged to the infidels was now theirs

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Speaker 1: through right of Islamic law on plunder. In a short time,

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Speaker 1: anything in the city of Constantinople that could be identified

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Speaker 1: with Christianity was erased. Of the fifty thousand Christian inhabitants,

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Speaker 1: thousands were murdered, and the rest were taken as slaves.

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Speaker 1: They would linger on for months, perhaps years, before they

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Speaker 1: would die miserably at the ore, in the mines, or

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Speaker 1: perhaps in a rich Turk's harem. The three days of

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Speaker 1: Islamic plunder had been compressed into one. Within a few hours,

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Speaker 1: there were simply nothing worth while left to take, smash

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Speaker 1: or defile. Saint Sophia Cathedral was quickly converted into a mosque.

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Speaker 1: Meth Met would now become known as Fati a Conqueror.

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Speaker 1: The greatest city of the Christian world for the better

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Speaker 1: part of a millennium was no more. It would become Istanbul,

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Speaker 1: the seat of the most powerful Islamic caliphate in history.

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Speaker 1: The fall of Constantinople would lead to two hundred years

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Speaker 1: of Holy War between Christians and Muslims, with the very

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Speaker 1: survival of Christendom at stake, and it would take over

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Speaker 1: a century until a group of Christian warrior monks on

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Speaker 1: a remote island in the middle of the Mediterranean dealt

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Speaker 1: the Sultan a major defeat, one that would turn back

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Speaker 1: for the first time in decades the forces of Islam.

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Speaker 1: It all happened on the island of Malta, but that

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Speaker 1: is a story for another time. Be sure to subscribe

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Speaker 1: on iTunes or follow Shields High on the I Heart

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Speaker 1: app This has been Shields High