Crusaders sack Constantinople

April 12, 1204

For three days Latin knights looted the richest Christian city on earth, hauling icons, relics, and bronze horses back to Venice. They installed a Flemish count on the imperial throne, fractured the Byzantine world, and bequeathed to Orthodox memory a wound that never quite closed. The Fourth Crusade, intended for Egypt, had devoured Christendom's own capital in a frenzy of greed.