The Question Of Staged Coup Attempts

Few events boost a leader's position like an unsuccessful coup against him. It makes the leader look strong and his opponents look weak and lawless, having resorted to the coup as an act of desperation. In a democracy a leader cannot just have his opponents arrested but an illegal coup attempt against him provides justification for coming down on political opponents.

In the compound posting "Investigations", December 2018, we saw section 53) DID BORIS YELTSIN STAGE THE 1991 COUP? This does not necessarily mean a leader directly ordering a coup against himself, but it is possible to maneuver it into happening.

For a sense of perspective let's have a look today at another unsuccessful coup that had long-term implications, the 2016 coup in Turkiye. This is the country that was formerly spelled as "Turkey".

Modern Turkiye was created in the 1920s following the end and dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, after the First World War. This began in the Thirteenth Century and was one of the greatest empires in world history.

There is a persistent story that the Ottoman Empire declined because it resisted the printing press. This made the dissemination of modern knowledge much more difficult, causing it to fall behind the western European countries. It does seem that the Ottomans did not warmly receive the printing press although I do not know that it was actually banned. Possibly the Ottomans noticed how the printing press had fueled the Protestant Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, and didn't want it to similarly undermine their own rule. Rapidly printing criticism of the Catholic Church and Bibles that people could read for themselves, without relying on the Church, the printing press was like the heartbeat of the Reformation.

The founder of the modern Turkish Republic was Mustafa Kemal, commonly known as "Ataturk". Unlike the Ottomans, who emphasized Islam and ruled a vast territory, the new Turkish Republic was to have a secular constitution and would switch to the Latin alphabet for writing. The capital was moved from Istanbul to Ankara, to represent the new society, and the iconic Hagia Sophia was reclassified from a mosque to a museum. The Islamic Caliphate was to be abolished.

The Ottoman territory that was not where Turkish people lived, which amounted to most of the Middle East, would be divided up as colonies by the victorious European powers of Britain, France and, Italy. A major part of the trouble in the Middle East today is simply that it has not reached a new equilibrium since the end of long Ottoman rule.

But Turkiye was a Moslem country with a long and glorious Ottoman history and the creation of modern Turkiye was somewhat artificial in a way similar to "Libya, Iraq And, Sudan", as we saw in the posting by that name, May 2023.

Over the last twenty years President Recep Erdogan has represented the comeback of the Ottomans. There is much more emphasis on Islam. After not being given membership in the European Union the country has moved somewhat away from the west. There has been discussion of reviving the traditional Turkish alphabet and the Hagia Sophia has been reclassified back into a mosque.

As far as living like an Ottoman sultan Erdogan has built one of the largest presidential compounds in the world, in Ankara. To represent Turkiye regaining some of the global influence of the Ottomans he built one of the world's largest airports, at Istanbul.

In July 2016 there was a coup attempt by part of the Turkish military against Erdogan. The coup was apparently not well organized. It was mostly limited to the country's two largest cities and was defeated in a few days. It was actually remarkably similar to the 1991 Soviet Coup.

Erdogan gained a lot of power from the failed coup. For one thing he concentrated power in the president's office, which gave him much more authority. Hundreds of people were soon arrested, or lost their jobs, for involvement in or support of the coup.

Speculation immediately began that Erdogan himself was behind the coup attempt that he gained so much from. Not that he actually organized the coup but could have maneuvered it into happening. 

One prevailing theory is that Erdogan had a list of many people, particularly in the military, that he suspected of disloyalty. But to arrest them would mean that Turkiye had abandoned democracy and become a dictatorship. So he somehow leaked the list of who was to be arrested, causing them to attempt this hastily organized coup against him. This provided the reason to arrest and remove them, keeping the country a democracy and gaining a lot of power along the way.

Details of why many people believe that the coup was staged can be seen in the Wikipedia article "2016 Turkish Coup Attempt", in the last section of the article "Causes".

The fact that Erdogan, representing the comeback of the Ottoman Empire, can dominate the country like this for twenty years indicates that the modern Turkish Republic was somewhat artificial to begin with. I would like to direct your attention to the investigation, in the compound posting "Investigations", December 2018, 5) THE REAL STORY OF GALLIPOLI.

This is my version of how Britain and France were much more involved in the emergence of Ataturk, and the formation of the modern Turkish Republic, than has ever been made public. If the scenario of behind the scenes maneuvering that I presented there is correct, you can see how perfectly it fits with the theories about the 2016 coup attempt.

Does anyone notice what Turkish President Recep Erdogan did to consolidate his power after the 2016 coup attempt against him? It was very clever and might be seen as fitting with the idea that Erdogan might have maneuvered the coup into happening.

Turkiye and Iran are next door neighbors. The two countries are about the same size and both have ruled great empires. Inevitably there is some mutual gravity between the two.

There is much in common between the founder of modern Turkiye, Mustafa Kemal commonly known as Ataturk, and Reza Shah, the founder of the last royal dynasty of Iran, the Pahlavi Dynasty, and the father of the Shah who was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Both began programs of modernization and westernization under the influence of foreign powers. The major difference between the two, with regard to relations with the outside world, is that Iran has a lot of oil while Turkiye doesn't.

In 1934 Reza Shah, apparently able to speak Turkish, made the famous state visit to his friend Ataturk, in Turkiye.

We saw in the Investigation "The Real Story Of Gallipoli", in the compound posting "Investigations", December 2018 section 5), how the western Allies were behind the rise of Ataturk and his modern, secular Turkish state, following the end of the Ottoman Empire after it had been on the wrong side in the First World War. Coincidentally, at around the same time, there was a British-supported coup in Iran that brought the Pahlavi Dynasty to power, in 1921, ending the preceding Qajar Dynasty. This western support of the Pahlavi Dynasty is, of course, what would finally trigger it's end in what I refer to as "The Great Revolution Of Our Time", in 1979, as we saw in the posting by that name, January 2017.

What the western Allies wanted, as we saw in the Investigation, is a modern, secular westward-leaning state to replace the dismembered Ottoman Empire and a compliant leadership in neighboring Iran that would allow them to effectively control it's oil.

As for the inevitable mutual gravity between Turkiye and Iran if Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkiye, corresponded to Reza Shah then the current President of Turkiye, Recep Erdogan, must correspond to Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution that overthrew the son of Reza Shah in 1979. It is the revolution that we saw in "The Great Revolution Of Our Time", January 2017.

Like Khomeini, Erdogan represents a reversal of the westernization and secularism that had been imposed on the state from outside. The difference between the two, of course, is that the Iranian case was much more catastrophic and violent. Because it had a lot of oil the west had more interest in interfering in Iran. Erdogan is leading a revolution that parallels that of Khomeini and is, in fact, a reflection of what we saw in"The Great Revolution Of Our Time ". The difference is that Erdogan's revolution is much milder than Khomeini's.

Khomeini spent the first year of his exile from Iran, for denouncing the Shah, in Turkiye. The country accepted him to support the Shah. It was decided as better not to execute him because he was well-known and had a high religious rank. But he couldn't speak Turkish and was allowed to move to the Shiite holy city of Najaf, in Iraq, where he spent most of his exile.

In July 2016 there was the unsuccessful military coup in Turkiye against Recep Erdogan. Erdogan gained tremendously from this coup against him, using it to amass a lot of power for the supposed sake of security. Speculation immediately began that Erdogan had maneuvered the coup into happening himself as a reason to arrest or fire those he suspected of disloyalty, and then to amass more power.

As for the coup attempt Erdogan focused heavily on a Turkish Islamic cleric living in exile in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. The name of the cleric was Fethullah Gulen. He was once an ally of Erdogan, who accused him of being behind the coup attempt.

Gulen absolutely denied having anything to do with the coup attempt and condemned it. Erdogan's government has designated Gulen's charitable organization as a terrorist organization, and some countries allied with Turkiye have followed. Erdogan has requested Gulen's extradition but the U.S. Government remained unconvinced that he had done anything wrong.

What do you notice here, remembering the mutual gravity between Turkiye and Iran? The Iranian Revolution was led by an Islamic cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini, in exile in Paris after leaving Iraq. Although I cannot see that it was ever mentioned from a Turkish point of view Gulen thus resonates with Khomeini, who led the upheaval that happened next door.

A central part of the Iranian Revolution was the U.S. Embassy Hostage Crisis. Militants seized the embassy, on November 4, 1979, when the exiled Shah was admitted to the United States for medical treatment. They demanded that he be returned to Iran to face trial. This causes the case of Gulen, who was also originally admitted to the U.S. for medical treatment, to also resonate with the Shah.

Remembering how Turkiye is divided between the modern secular republic, represented by Ataturk whose Iranian counterpart is the Shah, and the glory days of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, represented by Erdogan whose Iranian counterpart is Khomeini, this means that Gulen could resonate with either. So following the 2016 coup attempt, for the sake of security, Erdogan seemed to be completely justified in amassing more power.

This focusing attention on Gulen even though, much unlike Ayatollah Khomeini he lived a quiet life in exile, was absolutely brilliant. Some might see it as supporting the idea that Erdogan maneuvered the 2016 coup attempt into happening. Erdogan has already ruled for over twenty years and has been reelected again. The reason Erdogan was reelected was that his version of the country is the real Turkiye and the secular republic that has existed since the 1920s is somewhat of an artificial western creation.

The Adventures Of Lost People

With the extreme politics, and associated violence, that was in the news this week, let's remember that humans were designed to believe in something. When we fall away from belief in God, we tend to just replace Him with something else and the "something else" is very often politics or economic ideology or nationalism. 

One thing that must be understood about religion is that people are designed to believe in something and if they don't believe in God then they will just replace Him with something else. In the late Nineteenth Century secularism became widespread in the western countries. At the same time great technological advances were making economics more complicated. 

Nationalism was also becoming more important. The modern concept of the nation state is a relatively recent development. Around the beginning of the Twentieth Century there were people in remote areas who were not sure which nation they belonged to, and it didn't really matter much because the tribe or religion was more important. When people went to war in centuries past they were usually fighting for their god, not for their country. 

One of the reasons for the new importance of nationalism was that it was a convenient replacement for religion, it gave people something to believe in. How many people have you known whose country was their "religion"? I remember one person saying "Your country is always right. Don't even think about your country being wrong. There is no such thing as your country being wrong". 

Along with nationalism different political-economic ideologies arose that were convenient substitutes for religion. Raw capitalism was generally the way of the Nineteenth Century. But it made a few people very rich while the vast majority remained poor and exploited. Most people were one step above slavery. The modern concept of socialism and Communism, as a reaction against this exploitation, is generally considered as having began with the writings of Karl Marx. There were proto-Communist events, such as the Communard seizure of Paris in 1871 and what could be called the Second Mexican Revolution of 1910, but global Communism is generally considered to have began with the October Revolution of 1917. The best thing that ever happened to Communism was the market crash of 1929. This is what made Communism into a major world system. Without this crash of capitalism, Communism might never have spread beyond the Soviet Union.

The last third of the Nineteenth Century, and up to 1914, had generally been a very good time in the western countries. There was much technical progress and an absence of major conflict. It was known as the Victorian Age. In America it was sometimes called the Gilded Age. In France it was known as the Belle Epoque. But secularism was ever increasing. Can you believe that there were people predicting that the upcoming Twentieth Century should be very peaceful, because most past conflict had been over religion?

The world exploded into war in 1914, and the good times came to an abrupt end. The First World War was a war like the world had never seen before. All of the great technological progress of previous decades was turned against humanity, making possible killing on an industrial scale. What is so striking and disturbing about the First World War was that it wasn't really over much of anything. People were just getting bored with the long period of peace. There were actually crowds of people in European capitals cheering the declaration of war, apparently under the delusion that the war would only last a short time.

Afterward the tremendous industrial production from the war was turned to production of civilian consumer goods. This brought the good times back in the form of the "Roaring Twenties". But there was trouble on the horizon, in the form of economics. Some people got fantastically rich but the average worker was not being paid enough to be able to afford to buy the goods that they were producing. Goods were just piling up in warehouses. Factories began cutting back on production, meaning that workers had even less money, and it spiralled into a devastating economic crash in October 1929.

This crash of capitalism is what made the previously obscure Communism into a major world system. Make-work projects were implemented in western countries to get the economy moving again. In Germany, the Weimar Republic had been devastated by the crash. A party, called the Nazis, emerged and adopted the make-work idea of building the Autobahn and military production in factories, while absorbing unemployment by drastically increasing the armed forces. The Nazis' economic ideology, of which their name was a contraction, was National Socialism. It was between capitalism and Communism in that there would be private enterprise but it would work with the government. 

With religion having been on the decline for decades, and many fewer people believing in God, these political-economic ideologies made an ideal substitute for religion. There was also the nationalism and racism that was associated in particular with Nazism. The useful thing about focusing on an evil "other" group is that, not only does it give us something to focus our hatred on but nothing is ever our fault. Unlike traditional Christianity, where the believer must repent of their own sinfulness, everything that is wrong with the world is always "their" fault.

People that, for the most part, no longer believed in God chose one or another of these substitutes for God and the resulting Second World War was the greatest war that the world had ever seen, far greater than the First World War, as they killed millions of each other that had made different choices.

After the Second World War came the Cold War. About a third of the world was Communist and proxy wars were fought all around the world. Have you ever stopped to think about how secular the western world must have become for nations to have nuclear missiles pointed at each other, and to come to the brink of nuclear war, over competing economic systems? That's right, over competing economic systems. 

Economics is just about how society is arranged. It is not supposed to be a religion. People in centuries past would be in utter disbelief if they were told that humans would one day be on the verge of wiping themselves out because of competing economic systems. It would be just incomprehensible. In my view it was the Iranian Revolution that turned the tide back toward religion, as we saw in "The Great Revolution Of Our Time", January 2017.

We have seen how the secular mindset of the Twentieth Century has led to so much trouble in "How Secularism Leads Us Astray", April 2020.

Even when the west became secular the wars tended to be along the traditional religious lines. Napoleon's invasion of Russia and the Eastern Fronts in both world wars, as well as the Cold War and the present war in Ukraine can be traced to the great split between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches in 1054. The wars in the 1990s following the breakup of Yugoslavia were not overtly about religion but the Serbs were traditionally Orthodox, the Croatians Catholic and the Bosnians Moslem. The traditional enmity between Poland and Russia began when the Eastern Orthodox Church split away from the Catholics but Poland remained Catholic. 

The modern political-economic ideologies that became substitutes for religion were actually secularizations of the traditional religions. The initial structure of Communism, revolving around local councils called Soviets, reflected the structure of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Capitalism, where anyone can set up their own business enterprise, is very much a reflection of the individualistic philosophy of Protestantism, where anyone could set up their own church. The "Age of Dictators" in Europe, Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain, and Salazar in Portugal, was centered in traditionally Catholic countries that had become secular so that a dictator had replaced the pope. Fascism could be described as following a dictator combined with extremist nationalism as a substitute for religion.

Adolf Hitler was from a Catholic family, in Catholic Austria and his initial power base was in Catholic southern Germany. The relationship between Mussolini and Hitler was very much a reenactment of that between Pope Leo III and Charlemagne, who he crowned as the first Holy Roman Emperor, with the objective of reining in the Christians of the east, who would later split away to form the Eastern Orthodox Church. Hitler considered himself as leader of the Third Reich, with Charlemagne being the First and the Kaisers the Second Reich, and his ultimate objective was to fulfill Charlemagne's mission, in modern secular form, by conquering the Soviet Union. 

The end of the Second World War would bring the west to a time of general prosperity and progress. But all was not quite well. First there was there the utter absurdity of the world being the touch of a button away from destroying itself over competing economic systems. The times were still quite secular and God was replaced with hedonism and the large-scale use of drugs. The late Sixties were referred to as the "Permissive Society", and the catchphrase was "Anything Goes". Nowhere is the secularization of traditional religion more striking than in rock music. A rock song is very much in the form of a psalm in the Bible, except that it is usually about romance, rather than God. 

People have always killed each other, whether individually or in some organized capacity. But what the more godless postwar world brought, despite it's relative prosperity, was widespread senseless killings. Virtually every few days there is a mass killing that makes no sense whatsoever to anyone but the killer. Sometimes the killing is done one-by-one, usually targeting a certain type of victim, by a serial killer. 

In recent years the use of drugs has taken a particularly ominous turn. The use of dangerous and illegal drugs has been widespread since the 1960s. But those drugs, such as heroin, cocaine and, hashish, were made from plants that had to be grown, then processed, and then successfully exported. Now drugs are increasingly made from chemicals, which can be done anywhere with no need for the plants. The opioid epidemic is everywhere, with addiction often beginning with legitimate medications. The most ominous new name regarding these synthetic drugs is Fentanyl.

While all of these developments in technology were going on, particularly the idea that every adult should have their own car, no one seems to have been giving much thought to what it was doing to the environment. Global warming is now perhaps the most pressing crisis in the world. We are destroying this planet. The worst thing in my lifetime is what we have done to the animals. There is now believed to be only about a third as many animals alive in the wild that there were fifty years ago. 

But these misadventures of lost people will not go on forever. We have seen how it will conclude in the posting "The End Of The World As We Know It".

Traces Of The Normans

With Donald Trump being hosted at Windsor Castle why don't we review the Normans, who built the castle.

The Normans were Vikings who landed on the north coast of France. The king of France ceded some land to them, in return for leaving the rest of France alone and protection from other Vikings. The area is now known as Normandy. The Normans adopted French language and culture, and later crossed to England and Wales and then Ireland.

The Normans are remembered for their incessant building in stone. But the best way to remember them is actually in our language. English is basically a Germanic, or northern European, language. The addition of French to it, which is from a different language group, gave English the wide "span" that is necessary for it to be the global language that it is today.

We often abbreviate words for convenience. I noticed that words of French form or origin are much more likely to get abbreviated than non-French words. This shows that English was originally a Germanic language and that the French, or French-influenced, words were added later.

Words of Germanic origin are almost never abbreviated. These are words that can be seen as similar to their counterparts in other northern European languages, such as drink, house, water and, school. This is not a strict rule because "street" is abbreviated as st. and "near" is sometimes abbreviated as nr. and both of these words are of northern European Germanic origin.

French-influenced words commonly use prefixes, such as con-, or suffixes, such as -tion. Some English words have their roots in French clearly seen, such as the word "donate" from the French "donner", meaning "to give". Almost all French words have had their pronunciations anglicized. The first exceptions that I can think of are the words "depot" and "debut".

Two words that illustrate the French way of forming words involves the prefix con-, meaning to put together, and the suffix -tion. Construction means the putting together of a structure. Stellar means something to do with stars, and so constellation means a group of stars that have been put together.

Here is a list of the words that I can think of which are commonly abbreviated. Every one is a word of French origin or form:

Abbr. for abbreviation
Amp. for ampere
Auto for automobile
Ave. for avenue
Avg. for average
Co. for company
Comps. for comparables (in real estate)
Const. for constant
Cont. for continued
Corp. for corporation
Dept. for department
Dist. for distance
Ed. for education
Esq. for esquire
Est. for established
Expo for exposition
Ext. for extension
Freq. for frequency
Gen. for generation
Govt. for government
Info for information
Ins. for insurance
Inst. for institution
Intel for intelligence
Max for maximum
Mfg. for manufacture
Min. for minimum
Neg. for negative
Org. for organization
Pos. for positive
Pres. for pressure
Prop. for propulsion or propellor
Req. for require
Spec. for specifications
St. for saint
Tel for telephone
Temp. for temperature
Var. for variable

Notice how French-sounding all of these words are, and most are the same or similar to their French counterparts. It is very likely that, if English was originally a Romance language and northern European Germanic words were added later, the pattern would be reversed and it would be those words which would be abbreviated today. 

There is Norman architecture around where I was born. This is the arch on the bridge over the Minnow River at Monmouth. My photo.

This is Chepstow Castle. Image from Google Street View. I was taken here as a young boy and maybe that is why I have always been interested in history.

 

 

Donald Trump Visits London

Donald Trump was hosted by the British Royal Family. Here are the postings about British royalty.

"The Royal Story" reviews the British Royal Family from the beginning, and how it got to where it is today.

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-royal-story.html?m=0

"Royal Observations" is my observations about British Royalty.

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2020/12/royal-observations.html?m=0

Our visit to "London" has a lot about British Royalty. 

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2022/09/london.html?m=0

Red Arrows Display During Trump Visit

The Red Arrows, Britain's aerobatic team, did a display during Donald Trump's visit to Britain.

Just a reminder of the role in aviation that was played by my native Gloucestershire. The Red Arrows were formed in Gloucestershire and their home base was there.

An important company in the early development of aircraft was the Gloucestershire Aircraft Company. For some reason, so many people misspelled it that it was shorted to "Gloster". It is unfortunate that the company is known for warplanes, rather than civilian aircraft, but during the Second World War the Allies fielded only one jet plane. It was the Gloster Meteor, and was made in Gloucestershire. Image from the Wikipedia article "Gloster Meteor".

Just past the other side of Gloucestershire was the town of Monmouth. This was the hometown of Charles Rolls, of Rolls-Royce fame. The company is known for it's iconic car but Charles Rolls, a race car driver, was more interested in aircraft. Henry Royce did not share the interest in aircraft, and the two separated. Charles Rolls would ultimately be the first Briton to die in a plane crash. 

This is the statue of Charles Rolls in Monmouth. He is holding a model aircraft. Image from Google Street View.

The estate of Charles Rolls' family near Monmouth was like a palace. Image from the Wikipedia article "The Hendre".

Rolls-Royce, best-known for the car, would ironically end up putting most of it's effort into producing aircraft engines, which would have fulfilled what Charles Rolls wanted for the company. Image from the Wikipedia article "Rolls Royce Holdings".

The grass area in the following scene from Google Street View is where the Cinderford Carnival, near where I was born in Gloucestershire, used to be held. When I went back there as a teenager the Red Arrows did a show for the carnival.

This is the program that I brought back. This states '73 but it was five years later that I was there.

Adjustable wrenches are found in toolboxes across the world, along with a hammer and screwdriver it is the most common tool. In some countries it is called a "spanner". Adjustable wrenches were invented in Gloucestershire by Edwin Budding, who also invented the lawnmower. Image from the Wikipedia article "Adjustable Spanner".

Charles Wheatstone was from Gloucester and his electric telegraph was the first step toward modern electronic communications.

This is my birth village. It is built along a road that runs through a valley. When I was a young boy, the viaduct was still there. It was a railroad bridge. Image from the Wikipedia article "Lower Lydbrook Viaduct"

Istanbul

Istanbul is Turkey's largest city and is situated on the Bosporus Strait, which is the boundary between Europe and Asia. If the Asian side is included, then it is the largest city in Europe. Being on this strategic waterway, which is the only link between the Black Sea and the rest of the world's water, and on the bridge of land that connects Europe and Asia makes Istanbul not only the "doorway" between east and west but perhaps the most natural location for a city in the world. Adding to this ideal location is that there is an excellent natural harbor, known as the "Golden Horn" for it's general shape.

Have you ever heard the geographical terms "Thrace" and "Anatolia"? Thrace is the European part of Turkey, while Anatolia is the far larger Asian part of Turkey. The dividing line between the two is the Bosporus Strait, and about two-thirds of Istanbul's population lives on the European side.

Istanbul began in Hellenistic times. It became an important city as the eastern capital of the Roman Empire, Constantinople was named for the Roman Emperor Constantine which was the first emperor to become a Christian. It became the capital of the Byzantine Empire for nearly a thousand years.

Today, the term "byzantine" means something that is unnecessarily complicated but it was actually a great Christian empire. After the conquest of Byzantium by the Ottomans, in 1453, it was renamed Istanbul and made the capital of their empire, which was one of the greatest empires in history.

In the past, Istanbul has been both the largest and the wealthiest city in the world, but is not today the capital of the Turkish Republic.

The oldest section of Istanbul is on the peninsula between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara, and is known as the Historic Peninsula of Istanbul. The three best-known sights here are the Hagia Sophia, the facing Blue Mosque, and the Topkapi Palace.

In the following image, from Google Earth, the peninsula is the Historic Peninsula of Istanbul and the water inlet above it is the Golden Horn.

Hagia Sophia means "The House of Holy Wisdom". This was the largest cathedral in the world for about a thousand years, until the construction of Seville Cathedral in the Sixteenth Century (which we saw in the posting on this blog, "When The Moors Ruled Spain".

When the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453, they renamed it as Istanbul. The Ottomans converted the Hagia Sophia into a mosque and built the four minarets around it. To show that they too were capable of such architecture, they built the Blue Mosque facing it. The two great mosques look similar from a distance but the Blue Mosque has a courtyard, which the Hagia Sophia doesn't, and has six minarets, while the Hagia Sophia has four.

The following eight images of the Hagia Sophia are from Google Street View.

When have you ever heard of a mosque with four minarets, where one is a different color than the others? My theory of why three of the minarets of the Hagia Sophia are white, and the other is red, is in the compound posting "Investigations", December 2018, section 11) SYMBOLISM THEORY OF THE VATICAN AND THE HAGIA SOPHIA.

The following eight images are of the Blue Mosque, which the Ottomans built adjacent to the Hagia Sophia. The Blue Mosque closely matches the design of the Hagia Sophia. It is also known as the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. I don't know if the Ottomans were trying to surpass the Hagia Sophia, which they had repurposed into a mosque, but the Blue Mosque has a courtyard that the Hagia Sophia doesn't and they put six minarets around the new Blue Mosque but only four around the Hagia Sophia.

The most momentous historical event to have happened in the city was the split between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, in 1054. The representatives of the pope came to the Hagia Sophia to meet with the Patriarch of Constantinople, to resolve their disagreements primarily over how much authority the pope should have. The meeting did not go well and the two sides ended up excommunicating each other. The split, and all of it's secular manifestations in the divide between east and west, has persisted to the present day.

In 1204, the Fourth Crusade was diverted to Constantinople and ended up occupying the city for over fifty years, and temporarily reconsecrating the Hagia Sophia as a Catholic Church.

My understanding of the reason was the overthrowing of the Byzantine emperor by his brother. The son of the deposed emperor asked the crusaders for help in restoring his father, promising money and supplies in return. But the son was unable to raise the promised money, was reportedly murdered and succeeded by another who couldn't raise the money either, so the crusaders looted and took over the city. The Byzantines eventually recaptured the city, but this episode probably helped along the death spiral of Byzantium which was ultimately conquered by the Ottomans.

The Ottomans did much to build Istanbul into the great city that it is today. Sulieman doubled the size of the Ottoman Empire and brought much of eastern Europe under it's control, one of the legacies of which is the population of Moslems in Bosnia. Upon the Ottoman conquest of 1453, the center of Eastern Orthodox Christianity moved first to Kiev, and then to Moscow, which is what led to Moscow becoming a great city.

But the Eastern Orthodox patriarch is still based in Istanbul's Church of St. George, even though Turkey is a Moslem country. It is the same St. George that is England's national saint. The church still refers to the city as Constantinople.

After the end of the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish Republic moved the national capital to Ankara. But Istanbul was greatly renovated and continued to grow rapidly until today, if the population of the Asian side is included, it is the largest city in Europe.

The modern Turkish Republic uses the Latin Script but the old Ottoman Script, which was an adaptation of the Arabic Alphabet for the Turkish Language, is still seen in historic buildings. There is an anti-secular movement in the country today to go back to it's Ottoman heritage and restore the script. Two images from Google Street View.

The following scenes begin inside Topkapi Palace. This is the palace that the Ottomans built as the primary residence of their leadership, after their conquest of the city in 1453. It is built on a high point in the oldest part of the city where a Byzantine fortress had been. This palace, and the nearby Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque have had an aura of being eastern and exotic, but are actually in Europe.

The first four images of the Topkapi Palace are from Google Street View.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0135544,28.9839429,3a,75y,91.84h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPQYZQ-s4Wx9ji3VQiaLMFJ6GSIZash62wbE_oH!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPQYZQ-s4Wx9ji3VQiaLMFJ6GSIZash62wbE_oH%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya153.43823-ro0-fo100!7i6144!8i3072

In the Eighteenth Century, the Ottoman leadership decided to move their primary residence from the Topkapi Palace to the Dolmabahce Palace, which was along the Bosporus waterway. Like the kings of England or France, the Ottoman sultans periodically moved their residence to a new palace and had smaller palaces also, where royal relatives could live and where archives and collections could be stored.

The first five images of the Dolmabahce Palace are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0391643,29.0004594,3a,75y,85.26h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOSAKyFgQOkl_3CpUxvo_EPZSZblO1btXNqebJf!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOSAKyFgQOkl_3CpUxvo_EPZSZblO1btXNqebJf%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya81.724785-ro-0-fo100!7i6144!8i3072

The following scenes are of Ortakoy Mosque and adjoining Square. The first three images are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0473447,29.0273176,3a,75y,3.63h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sV5-Dxqlkjd874rj3UekvmQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D0%26panoid%3DV5-Dxqlkjd874rj3UekvmQ%26yaw%3D3.6275752835247204!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTEyNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Karakoy is the district across the Golden Horn, the harbor, from the oldest section of the city, the Historic Peninsula of Istanbul. In this district are Taksim Square and what was the financial center of the Ottoman Empire, Bankalar Caddesi. During the days of Byzantium, there was settlers from Genoa here. They built a tower that remains today, the Galata Tower. It was built about a century before the Ottoman conquest.

These two images, from Google Street View, are of Taksim Square.

These six images of the Galata Tower are of the tower, the surrounding streets and, the view from the top of the tower.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0254812,28.974161,3a,75y,90.79h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sK8yQk7wYbfah0MZOeP9zeA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DK8yQk7wYbfah0MZOeP9zeA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D91.04192%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

One of the best-known and most-visited streets in the world is Istanbul's Istiklal Avenue. It runs from the Galata Tower to Taksim Square, and is one of those pedestrian streets that are always crowded and which seem to have everything on them. The following scenes begin there. The first six images of Istiklal Avenue are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.030872,28.9758278,3a,75y,76.9h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sqB8HEYV1omNS1rfnsXP5Uw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DqB8HEYV1omNS1rfnsXP5Uw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D72.861145%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

The Grand Bazaar has been Istanbul's central market since just after the Ottoman conquest in 1453. Visitors come from all over the world to see it. There are four entrance gates to the Grand Bazaar, and it is like a city unto itself. Most of the original structure is till there, but it seems to not have originally been covered. This is reminiscent of the Al-Madina Souk in our visits to Aleppo and the souk in Damascus, and the similar bazaars in Iran. The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, not being built until the Ottoman era, was built after the heyday of the Silk Road. The following scenes begin in the Grand Bazaar. The first four images of the Grand Bazaar are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0106413,28.9680676,3a,75y,108.17h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipP0QtvQSgNydwn2c_8DNnQ66cX_XyHMdyZUD-RQ!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipP0QtvQSgNydwn2c_8DNnQ66cX_XyHMdyZUD-RQ%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya219.5037-ro0-fo100!7i6144!8i3072

There are carpets similar to those of other countries in this part of the world. Image from Google Street View.

There is modern shopping, the Mall of Istanbul, but a modern mall in one place in the world is pretty much the same as a modern mall anywhere else in the world.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0635553,28.8073953,2a,75y,23.66h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sr0I1yvqY1SYTAwKjywvxkg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dr0I1yvqY1SYTAwKjywvxkg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D18.283785%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Here is a place that we do not see very much of. It is the Asian side if Istanbul, east of the Bosporus Strait. It seems that it's well-known sights are all on the European side, but actually about one-third of the city's population lives in Asia.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0218443,29.020441,3a,75y,136.5h,93t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sEBO0CcBFK8IRQnPwn3Unlw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DEBO0CcBFK8IRQnPwn3Unlw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D136.5%26pitch%3D-3%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Here is more of the rarely-seen Asian side of Istanbul.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.9873647,29.0253215,3a,75y,316.5h,92.93t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipO4nbJ8gS-_IqrQEILC3L4TdgqVt8Vaq5KmmpSR!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO4nbJ8gS-_IqrQEILC3L4TdgqVt8Vaq5KmmpSR%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9338646-ya144.50002-ro-0-fo100!7i10000!8i5000