It's going to hear with another episode of the History Unplugged podcast.

The conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by the Ottoman Turks is a world historical hinge moment in history.

It changed military technology, the demographics of the Middle East, and global trade routes.

Military technology was changed because up into that point the way to defend a city was by city walls and nobody had better walls in Constantinople.

The AAA or Theodosian city walls had a moat, multiple lines of defense and towers where

Byzantine defenders could rain down Greek fire on anyone who

would try to lay a siege of the city. But it failed in 1453 when the Ottomans

use artillery and large cannons to make city walls obsolete. The conquest in 1453 also permanently changed the

demographics of Anatolia. There was a final stage of the Islamicization of that

part of the world and what was once a heartland of Christianity currently switched to a different religion.

The 1453 conquest also changed global trade

because it made goods coming from Eurasia to Europe much more expensive,

causing Western Europeans to risk incredibly dangerous journeys to go around Africa to access these trade routes directly, kicking off the age of discovery.

In today's episode, I'm speaking to Alexander Christie Miller, who wrote a book called To The City life and death along the ancient walls of Istanbul

to look at the nature of the conquest given to all the details of how the city is

won by a combination of superior numbers, cannons, and clever strategy like pulling chips up around a hill we look at all

the ways the effects are still being felt centuries later. Hope you enjoy this

discussion with Alexander Christine Miller.

And one more thing before we get started with this episode, a quick break for word from our sponsors.

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