Osman I founds the Ottoman Beylik

1299

In a Bithynian frontier pasture, a Turkish chieftain named Osman asserted independence from his Seljuk overlords and began raiding Byzantine territory. His followers called themselves Osmanli. Seven centuries later their descendants would lose Istanbul from the palace he could not yet imagine. The small beylik he carved from the Byzantine borderlands would grow into one of the longest-lived empires in history.