Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman and Byzantine Empire from 330, when Constantine the Great founded it on the site of the older Greek city of Byzantium, until its capture by the Ottoman Empire in 1453. Straddling the Bosporus strait in southeastern Thrace, it was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe from the mid-5th through early 13th centuries, renowned for buildings such as Hagia Sophia, the Imperial Palace and the Hippodrome and for the Theodosian Walls that protected it for nearly 900 years; it was sacked by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and later became known as Istanbul after the Ottoman conquest, with the Turkish government formally urging international adoption of that name after 1930.