Not Constantinople

Coincidental with our own Memorial Day, May 29 marks the 568th anniversary of the fall of the city built by the Caesar Constantine to the Turks in 1453. This Christian disaster, well told by Roger Crowley, extinguished the last flickering embers of the empire that ruled for more than a 1,000 years. By comparison, the Czars ruled Russia for about half that and their successors for scarcely 70, the British lasted perhaps 200, the French on and off for only 60, the Italians and Germans even less. The American Century (from the Spanish-American War to date) has lasted nearly 125. Constantine’s city still stands, but its great church is now a mosque and “you can’t go back to Constantinople, been a long time gone.”