The battles of the past define the present. This is Shield's High.

Gather around friends for I had a story to tell. It is the tale of the fall of Constantinople,

one of the most important battles in all history. And while Scant attention is paid to it in most textbooks and school rooms,

the fall of Constantinople was a turning point in a thousand years of Christianity holding the line in the East.

For a millennium since its founding as a Christian capital in the year of our Lord 324, Constantinople was the first Christian nation on earth,

founded by Constantine who would give it his name. It had held out against centuries of siege and assault by various invading and barbarian tribes.

In fact, the Turks who were finally able to overrun the defenses of Constantinople give us the term Horde taken from Ordu.

But since the fall of Rome in the 4th century, Constantinople had been the greatest city of the Mediterranean basin by far.

And it stood like a massive sentinel at the crossroads of Asia and Europe, barring the Muslim conquest which began in the 7th century from entering the heart of Europe itself.

Within Islam, Constantinople was known as the Bone in the Throat of Ala. And for over 1100 years, up until that fateful spring of 1453, Constantinople had been able to hold out against siege 23 separate times.

The only time it was successfully stormed and plundered was during the 4th crusade when it was pillaged and there was a great massacre within the city.

The Byzantines were the last remnant of the great culture of ancient Rome. They had converted to Christianity under the Emperor Constantine and they considered themselves Roman.

In fact, it was not for hundreds of years after the fall of Constantinople that the term Byzantine would be applied to them.

Byzantine, by the way, comes from ancient Greece. A legend had it that Bezos had founded a city on a similar site, a thousand years before Constantin founded his.

Bezos gave his name to Byzantium and that is how we get the term Byzantines.

To the Muslims, the Romans of the Byzantine Empire were infidel or pagans. They were non-believers who were to be conquered or put to the sword.

Constantinople had been the one city to defy the conquest of Jehad and from the earliest days of the Islamic conquest, Constantinople had been both an obstacle and an obsession.

There was even a Hadith, a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad that said,

In the Jehad against Constantinople, one-third of the Muslims will allow themselves to be defeated, which Allah cannot forgive.

One-third will be killed in battle, making them wondrous martyrs and one-third will be victorious.

Constantinople was also situated on what could be considered the most important strategic real estate of the ancient world.

It was the gateway between Europe and Asia and the passageway for untold riches from the east as well as a waterway that connected the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, which in turn led out to the Atlantic and the Great Oceans of the world.

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