1 € = $ 1.1606
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By Nick Andriotakis, Secretary, Joint Committee for the Commemoration of the Battle of Crete & The Greek Campaign.
On this day in 1912, the commander of the 8th Turkish army corps, Hasan Tahsin Pasha, signed the protocol officially surrendering Thessaloniki to the advancing Greek Army during the First Balkan War.
On May 29, 1453, the Ottoman army, led by Mehmed the Conqueror, seized Constantinople, putting a violent end to one of the longest-lasting empires in history. The fall of the great city also ended the life of the last emperor of Byzantium, Constantine Palaiologos.
The Antalya station issued a navigational telex (Navtex) late on Friday announcing that the Turkish ship Oruc Reis will carry out seismic surveys in an area north of Cyprus. The Oruc Reis, accompanied by the Ataman and Cengiz Han support ships, will be operating in the region until December 21.
An ancient manuscript that has been recently revealed indicates that in 262 BC there was another battle at Thermopylae that essentially saved Greece from the Goths.
1. It wasn’t called the Byzantine Empire until after it fell.
The term “Byzantine Empire” came into common use during the 18th and 19th centuries, but it would’ve been completely alien to the Empire’s ancient inhabitants. For them, Byzantium was a continuation of the Roman Empire, which had merely moved its seat of power from Rome to a new eastern capital in Constantinople. Though largely Greek-speaking and Christian, the Byzantines called themselves “Romaioi,” or Romans, and they still subscribed to Roman law and reveled in Roman culture and games. While Byzantium later developed a distinctive, Greek-influenced identity as the centuries wore on, it continued to cherish its Roman roots until its fall. Upon conquering Constantinople in 1453, the Turkish leader Mehmed II even claimed the title “Caesar of Rome.”
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