Ottoman Empire

Also called the Turkish Empire. It controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to the early 20th centuries and parts of southeastern Europe between the early 16th and 18th centuries. The empire emerged from a principality founded in northwestern Anatolia in 1299 by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. His successors conquered much of Anatolia and expanded into the Balkans by the mid-14th century. The Ottomans conquered Constantinople (today’s Istanbul) in 1453 and ended the Byzantine empire. The Ottoman empire peaked under Suleyman the Magnificent (reigned 1520—1566).