Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire Christian, Greek-speaking, Eastern Roman Empire, which outlasted the Roman Empire in the West by nearly 1000 years. Constantinople (Byzantium or Istanbul) was established by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in ad 330. The area of the Byzantine Empire varied greatly, and its history from c.600 was marked by continual military crisis and heroic recovery. At its height, under Justinian I in the 6th century, it controlled, besides Asia Minor and the Balkans, much of the Near East and the Mediterranean coastal regions of Europe and North Africa. Of its many enemies, the most formidable were the Arabs, who overran the Near Eastern provinces in the 7th century; the Slavs and Bulgars, who captured most of the Balkans, and the Seljuk Turks. From 1204 to 1261, it was controlled by usurping Crusaders from w Europe and, although Constantinople was recovered, Byzantine territory shrank under pressure from the West and from the Ottoman Turks, who finally captured Constantinople in 1453, extinguishing the Byzantine Empire.