The Fourth Crusade

Fig.1: "Why did I come in here again?"

You know when you walk into a room and forget why you got up in the first place? So then you decide to smash the nice china cabinet with a baseball bat for no good reason? That's sort of like what the Fourth Crusade was like. Like the previous crusades, its propose was to make the pilgrimage to the Holy Land and wrest control of it from the Muslims. The Third Crusade did this pretty well, except that Christians failed to recover the super holy city of Jerusalem (having the Holy Land without Jerusalem was like eating fried chicken without the skin...or the guilt). Luckily for them, a Fourth Crusade was called in 1198 for this exact purpose. Unfortunately, it got a little distracted and spent all of its time attacking Christian cities, most notably the Byzantine capital of Constantinople. While the Catholics did manage to absorb territory that had been out of their fold for centuries, they essentially weakened the position of Christianity in Eastern Europe, and allowed Islam to dominate the region within the next two hundred years. But at least they got lots of loot out of it in the short run! (Sadly, the crusaders never took Macroeconomics 101.)

Fall of Constantinople

Fig.1: No, you can't go back to Constantinople! So stop asking!

Wise men once said that, "Istanbul was Constantinople; now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople." And they would be right! The city in Turkey that straddles the border of Europe and Asia is now known as Istanbul, but way back when it was called Constantinople. But that's been a long time gone...over five-and-a-half centuries to be more precise. So even though that's apparently nobody's business but the Turks', let's look into the reason why if you have a date in Constantinople, she'll be waiting in Istanbul.

Constantinople was technically founded in 330 Anno Doughnutty by the Roman Emperor Constantine (who, in all his narcissism, named it after himself), but it was really the site of the Ancient Greek city of Byzantium. That's like me going to Pittsburgh and saying, "I'm going to build an even better city here!" Which wouldn't be hard, cause it's Pittsburgh, but still, not cool. Anyway, Constantinople served as the capital of the eastern half of the Roman Empire, but then it became the only capital when Rome itself was bombarded with barbaric barbarians. Historians like to refer to the empire that Constantinople was centered around as the Byzantine Empire, to distinguish it from the Roman Empire and make it less confusing. But the Byzantines saw themselves as the Roman Empire, and in a sense, they were a continuation of the Roman Empire. So good job making things more confusing, you stupid historians! The nerve of those people (present company excluded, of course)!