The Ottomans were commanded by 21-year-old Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, who defeated an army commanded by Byzantine Emperor
Constantine XI Palaiologos.
In 1453, John's successor,
Constantine XI, died fighting the Turks on Constantinople's ancient land walls, and the city fell.
On 1453, Mohammed II ordered
Constantine XI to surrender.
He is told that he is "the emperor that Byzantium-in-exile has been waiting for the last 555 years!" since he is descended from the last Byzantine emperor,
Constantine XI. At first, he tries not to take what is revealed to him seriously.
After saying that the accession of the emperor
Constantine XI in 1449 "must have seemed like a bright, confident morning," Harris adds, more realistically, that "the Byzantines had lived under the threat of disaster for as long as anyone could remember and things seemed no worse now than they had been for decades" (169, 176).
A combination of a dozey linesman and the greatest Serb since
Constantine XI - The last Emperor of Constantinople - have breathed fresh life into a season that was previously heaping misery upon misery.
By night, he writes and stars in his own series of podcasts--12 Byzantine Rulers--covering 1,200 years of Byzantine history, from the reign of Diocletian in 284 to
Constantine XI in 1453.
15 In which year (10 either way) did emperor
Constantine XI famously die fighting in the breach as the Ottomans under Mehmet II entered Constantinople?
Constantine XI, the last Byzantine emperor, charged hopeless, defiant and screaming into the Ottoman masses.