byzantines

Following the sack of Constantinople by crusaders and the Mongols’ defeat of the Seljuk Turks, the Ottomans emerged as a power in northwestern Anatolia. Under Osman’s successors, they crossed the Dardanelles into Europe, defeating the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo. When the Mongol conqueror Timur invaded the region, he defeated Bayezid, and the subsequent conflict among Bayezid’s sons splintered the Ottoman state. Timur’s empire came to include Persia, central Asia, and northern India, but Timur died before he could fulfill his plan to invade China.

Bayezid’s son Mehmed I and his grandson Murad II rebuilt Ottoman possessions in Anatolia and Europe. In 1453, among other victories, Mehmed II conquered Constantinople. He rebuilt the city, thereafter known as Istanbul, and invited scholars and artists from Asia and Europe. He was tolerant of his non-Muslim and European subjects and allowed them to remain in Istanbul, though historians see the flight of many scholars to western Europe with the preserved knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome as one factor that helped to spark the Italian Renaissance and the transition to the early modern era. Meanwhile, western European traders began to seek all-water, oceanic routes to South and East Asia.

All images referenced in this podcast can be found at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/17-1-the-ottomans-and-the-mongols

Welcome to A Journey into Human History.

This podcast will attempt to tell the whole human story.

The content contained in this podcast was produced by OpenStax and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/1-introduction

Podcast produced by Miranda Casturo as a Creative Common Sense production.

The issue of leadership following Muhammad’s death caused immediate tensions within the Islamic ummah even as the first four caliphs, the Rashidun, oversaw significant territorial expansion. Tensions between the family of Muhammad—especially his son-in-law Ali, the fourth caliph—and the Umayyads resulted in a civil war that brought Islam’s first dynasty to power.

Within a century of Muhammad’s death, an Islamic state ruled over the world’s largest empire at that time, first unifying the Arabian Peninsula through the Ridda Wars and then taking territory previously ruled by the flagging Byzantine and Sasanian Empires. Mimicking the leadership and culture of their Byzantine and Persian predecessors as a means to legitimize their own role, the Umayyads began the process of articulating what made Islamic culture unique among the other cultures of the region. By the later period of their rule, they began to privilege the position of the ethnically Arab members of the empire and to increasingly “Arabize” the government and its functions, despite the fact that the Arab-Muslim conquerors remained a minority population and did not promote or support the conversion of non-Muslims to the new faith.

All images referenced in this podcast can be found at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/11-2-the-arab-islamic-conquests-and-the-first-islamic-states

Welcome to A Journey into Human History.

This podcast will attempt to tell the whole human story.

he content contained in this podcast was produced by OpenStax and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/1-introduction

Podcast produced by Miranda Casturo as a Creative Common Sense production.

While the Arabs of northern Arabia were uniting as a capable fighting force looking for opportunities to expand, the Byzantines and Sasanian Empires were at a low ebb. In the early seventh century, the Byzantine Empire had won a long and costly war against the Sasanians, sometimes fought on both sides by proxies from northern Arabia, but now the combatants were exhausted and financially drained. Meanwhile, Muhammad’s historic unification of the majority of Arab tribes under the single leader of a monotheistic faith was only the beginning of the story of Islam. After Muhammad and his followers were forced to flee Mecca for Medina in 622, fighting between the two communities continued for several years before those in Mecca converted to Islam, and Muhammad made a triumphant return to the city. The stage was now set for a significant shift in the balance of power in the region.

All images referenced in this podcast can be found at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/11-1-the-rise-and-message-of-islam

Welcome to A Journey into Human History.

This podcast will attempt to tell the whole human story.

The content contained in this podcast was produced by OpenStax and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/1-introduction

Podcast produced by Miranda Casturo as a Creative Common Sense production.

The two great superpowers of Late Antiquity, the Byzantine Empire and the Sasanian Empire, vied for supremacy in the fifth and sixth centuries. Though the Byzantine Empire had to contend with the Sasanians as a particularly formidable challenge, the reign of Justinian witnessed the zenith of Byzantine culture. Justinian carried out monumental building projects, codified Roman law, and oversaw the reconquest of parts of the Roman West. The Sasanians meanwhile consolidated control over a vast region of central Asia, overseeing a large trade network and instituting Zoroastrianism as the state religion. Military conflict characterized the relationship between these two empires, but there were also periods of peace and cultural exchange.

All images referenced in this podcast can be found at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/10-2-the-byzantine-empire-and-persia

Welcome to A Journey into Human History.

This podcast will attempt to tell the whole human story.

The content contained in this podcast was produced by OpenStax and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/1-introduction

Podcast produced by Miranda Casturo as a Creative Common Sense production.

In today's episode, we take an in depth look at one of the most important and influential civilizations in all of history: Byzantium. And guiding us through this storied and complex civilization is Robin Pierson, host of The History of Byzantium podcast. From its vast, thousand-year history, to parallels with the modern world, we discuss what makes Byzantium History's Most Underrated Civilization.

A HUGE thank you to Robin from The History of Byzantium Podcast. Check him out at https://thehistoryofbyzantium.com/

Music: Sergei Rachmaninoff - String Quartet No. 2 as recorded by Steve's Bedroom Band and Steve Jones licensed under Creative Commons 4.0.