Mehmed II
seventh Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1444–1446, 1451–1481)
Mehmed II (Ottoman Turkish: محمد ثانى, romanized: Meḥemmed-i s̱ānī; Turkish: II. Mehmed, pronounced [icinˈdʒi ˈmehmet]; 30 March 1432 – 3 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror (Ottoman Turkish: ابو الفتح, romanized: Ebū'l-fetḥ, lit. 'the Father of Conquest'; Turkish: Fâtih Sultan Mehmed), was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire twice, from August 1444 to September 1446 and again from February 1451 to May 1481.
During his first reign, he defeated the crusade led by John Hunyadi after Hungarian incursions into his lands violated the Treaties of Edirne and Szeged. Upon his restoration to the throne in 1451, he strengthened the Ottoman Navy and made preparations to attack Constantinople. In 1453, at the age of 21, he conquered Constantinople and effectively brought an end to the Byzantine Empire. After the conquest, Mehmed claimed the title caesar of Rome (Ottoman Turkish: قیصر روم, romanized: qayṣar-i rūm), on the grounds that Constantinople had been the seat and capital of the surviving Eastern Roman Empire since its consecration in 330 AD by Emperor Constantine I. The claim was soon recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, but rejected by most European monarchs.
Mehmed continued his conquests and reunified Anatolia, and campaigned as far west as Bosnia in Southeast Europe. At home, he implemented many political and social reforms. He was a patron of the arts and sciences, and by the end of his reign, Constantinople had been transformed into a thriving imperial capital. He is considered a hero in modern-day Turkey and parts of the wider Muslim world, with Istanbul's Fatih district, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge and Fatih Mosque being named after him.
Early life and first reign
Mehmed II was born on 30 March 1432, in Edirne, then the capital city of the Ottoman Empire.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Mehmed II” is seventh Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1444–1446, 1451–1481). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mehmed, seventh and Sultan, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q34503. VIAF identifies the subject as 86538783. The Library of Congress control number is n80090247. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1432, 1481, 1444 and 1446.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mehmed II” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.