History is full of battles and conflicts. Most of them are forgotten over time as they don't really impact history.

Whether one king or another wins a battle usually doesn't matter in the big scheme of things.

However, there are moments that truly change world history, when civilizations clash and the

outcome can affect the world for centuries.

Such a moment occurred on May 29, 1453.

Learn more about the fall of Constantinople

and what it meant to history

on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. For those of you who remember all the way back to the very first episode of this

podcast I talked about how the Byzantine Empire didn't really exist. The

Byzantine Empire was a name given to the Eastern Roman Empire.

During the time it existed, no one called it the Byzantine Empire. They called themselves

Romans, as did everyone else.

When the Roman Empire supposedly fell back in 476, it actually didn't.

Just the western part of the empire fell.

The eastern part of the empire headquartered in Constantinople kept on going and going.

For the purpose of clarity in this episode, however, I'm just going to call him the Byzantine's.

By the year 1453, the Byzantine Empire could barely be called an empire anymore.

Over the centuries, their territory kept shrinking.

At first, it was due to the Islamic Caliphate, and later it was due to the rise of the Ottoman Turkish Empire.

In 1453 the Ottomans had basically taken up all of the territory on either side of the

Byzantine's.

The Byzantine's had the city of Constantinople and some territory outside the city and that was it

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