Osman founds his beylik in Bithynia

1300

A Turkic frontier chieftain near Sogut began raiding Byzantine villages on the Sakarya. The chronicles would later give him a prophetic dream of a tree shadowing continents. He organized his followers into a disciplined ghazi warband loyal to both Islam and personal charisma. From this obscure force on the edge of ruined Seljuk Anatolia would grow six centuries of Ottoman empire.