It was on Tuesday May 29th 1453 that the unimaginable happened and the city of Constantinople fell to the Osman Tribe, the "Ottoman Turks".

Constantinople was so heavily defended by its' surrounding walls that even when it fell it was a surprise to the west.  It was unimaginable that such a well constructed defense, the best ever in the world at the time could be breached.

In fact the walls of Constantinople could not be breached and had the final attack not succeeded the Ottoman Turks would have abandoned their attempts to take the city.  The Sultan Mehmed was advised by his advisors to cancel his attack on the city which was seven weeks old and was failing.  It is well known that on the night the city fell not only breaches occurred in the walls, but a door had been left open to the city which allowed thousands of  Janissaries to enter the city.

The superstition the Greeks  used to say in the city was that the city would never fall, if the city fell it would fall on the day that ships would sail on the land. This superstition/prophecy had been told for over one thousand years and was believed in the city of Constantinople.

Mehmed decided that he would take the city, he would not allow himself to fail in this prize.  He knew that if he could get his navy into the Golden Horn the Byzantines would have to thin out their defense to defend that side as well.

His Engineers built a long pathway that connected the Bosporous with the Golden Horn.  Then 70 ships were pulled for several kilometers by thousands of men across the land.

The citizens of Constantinople watched in dismay and began to lose hope.  A prophecy which had been made a thousand years earlier was coming to fruition.  The Ottoman Turks were sailing on the land!  On the final attack the Byzantine/East Roman Empire capital Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks bringing the longest surviving empire ever over 11 centuries old  to an end.  This marked the beginning of a cruel 4 centuries of occupation of  all Christian peoples in the empire.