Turkey History

Archeological evidence found in a cave near Antalya shows that ancient people were living in that region of Anatolia around 20000 B.C..  The first known human community in Turkey is believed to be in Catalhuyuk, near present-day Konya, where animals were raised and crops were grown. 

From the 19th to the 12th century B.C., the Hittites came into Anatolia and dominated the indigenous people already living there, including the Hattites.  They left behind the first written history about the region as well as giant statues and cities and temples which can still be seen today.

Between the 12^th and 7^th centuries B.C. saw the migration of Greeks into the Aegean coastal areas where they established the Phrygian, Ionian, Lycian, Lydian and other kingdoms.  Since then various hordes, armies and people of historic significance came and went.  Most of them left their marks in the form of settlements, languages, cultures, castles and fortresses, and temples, churches and mosques.  This is what makes Turkey such a wonderful place to visit; of course it probably was not fun for the local population who must have been kept busy by the invading armies who often killed, ransacked, enslaved and burned.

Among the invaders were Cyrus the Great, who led his Persian army into Anatolia in 546 B.C.; they stayed until 334 B.C. when Alexander the Great swept across Asia Minor on his way to the east.  With the decline of the Hellenistic kingdoms came the Celts (from Europe) and then the Romans who was gifted the Anatolian state of Pergamon by its last king in 133 B.C. and who eventually designated Anatolia as a province. 

In 47 B.C., Julius Caesar led an army to defeat a king in the Black Sea area; since then Roman influence gradually extended over the next century all the way to Armenia. 

After the assassination of Julius Caesar in 40 B.C.., the southern part of Anatolia around Lycia became the battleground for Brutus and Mark Anthony.  In 42 B.C. the latter defeated Brutus in the Battle of Philippi and gained control of Anatolia while Octavia kept the western part of the Roman Empire.  In 41 B.C., Mark Anthony summoned Cleopatra to Tarsus in southern Anatolia off the Mediterranean coast to reprimand her for assisting Cassius.  Instead they fell in love there and were married in Antioch near the Syrian border.

It was in Anatolia that Christianity first took root, and finally replaced Roman paganism as a religion.  After Jesus Christ was crucified, some of his disciples came from or came to Asia Minor to spread his gospel.  They included St Peter who lived in Antioch for several years and set up the first known Christian Church there.  St Paul of Tarsus preached throughout the region.  St John the Apostle, who was entrusted by Jesus to look after Virgin Mary, settled eventually with Virgin Mary in a house around Selcuk where she died in 48 A.D..  Emperor Justinian built the beautiful Basilica of St John in the 6^th Century to commemorate him.

In 330 A.D., Emperor Constantine established his new capital, Constantinople, which from 395 A.D. became the centre of the Eastern Roman Empire for the next 1000 years.  During this period, Muslim Arabs besieged Constantinople for 80 years starting from 638 A.D., and expanded their rule outside the city, spreading Islam in the process.  Then the Seljuk Turks from Persia drove the Arabs out of Anatolia and stayed (with Konya as their capital) from 1071 A.D. until 1243 A.D. when they were defeated by the Mongols.  Meanwhile, the Crusaders came from the west to “save” the Roman Christian kingdom and the Holy Land from the Muslims, but in fact pounced on and sacked Constantinople in 1204. 

1288 A.D. was the beginning of the Ottoman Empire, when Osman Ghazi, a warlord ruling over an area in central Anatolia after the decline of the Seljuk Turks, stopped the advance of the Mongols.  Over the next 150 years, the Ottoman Turks expanded to fill the power vacuum which resulted from the weakness of the Byzantine Empire, retreating Mongols and declining Seljuk Turks. 

Finally, Mehmet II overran Constantinople in 1483 and renamed the city Istanbul (City of Islam).  For the next 100 years until 1566, the Ottomans expanded throughout Anatolia, and conquered Persia and Egypt.  Later it invaded Europe and besieged Vienna but was turned back in 1699.  But even in the early 1600s, the Ottomans started its decline gradually, because of the rising western powers of Portugal, Spain, Holland, Britain and Russia, and because the internal political system of the Ottomans became inefficient, corrupt and rigid.  In 1744, the Ottomans lost Crimea to Peter the Great of Russia.  In 1789, Napoleon invaded Ottoman Egypt.  In 1854, the Ottomans had to rely on France and Britain to fend off Russia during the Crimea War, and about 30 years later, the Ottomans lost the Balkans when Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria became independent.

The end of the Ottomans came after its defeat in WWI when it allied with Germany, with the victors taking control over Syria, Iraq and the Palestine and attempting to carve up Turkey.  This was followed by the War of Independence led by a former colonel of the Ottoman army, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.  He organized resistance to drive out the French, Armenians, Georgians and finally the Greeks.  Finally in 1923, the modern secular Republic of Turkey was created and the mass exchange of population between Greece and Turkey took place.