Knights of Rhodes Surrender

January 1, 1522

After a six-month siege, the Knights Hospitaller, outnumbered and out-mined, handed the Aegean island of Rhodes to Suleiman on New Year's Day. The sultan allowed them to sail away with honor. They would wander homeless until Charles V gave them Malta, where they would meet the Ottomans again. Suleiman's chivalric courtesy, allowing the Knights to depart with weapons and wounded, contrasted with the massacres typical of Ottoman sieges.