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Turkey: The Entry of Mahomet II into Constantinople / The Entry of Fatih Sultan Mehmet into Istanbul. Painting by Jean-Joseph Benjamin Constant (1845-1902)

Mehmed II (March 30, 1432 – May 3, 1481) or, in modern Turkish, Fatih Sultan Mehmet; known as Mahomet or Mohammed II in early modern Europe) was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1444 to September 1446, and later from February 1451 to 1481.

In 1453, at the age of just 21, Mehmed led an Ottoman army in the siege of Constantinople with between 80,000 to 200,000 troops and a navy of 320 vessels, though the bulk of them were transport and store ships. The city was surrounded by sea and land; the fleet at the entrance of the Bosphorus was stretched from shore to shore in the form of a crescent, to intercept or repel any assistance from the sea for the besieged Byzantines.

In early April, the Siege of Constantinople began. After several fruitless assaults, the city's walls held off the Turks with great difficulty, even with the use of the new Orban's bombard, a cannon similar to the Dardanelles Gun. The harbor of the Golden Horn was blocked by a boom chain and defended by 28 warships. On April 22, Mehmed transported his lighter warships overland, around the Genoese colony of Galata and into the Golden Horn's northern shore; 80 galleys were transported from the Bosphorus after paving a little over one-mile route with wood. Thus the Byzantines stretched their troops over a longer portion of the walls. A little over a month later, Constantinople fell on May 29 following a 57-day siege. It was the end of the Byzantine Empire.