Auspicious Incident

June 15, 1826

Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II surrounded the mutinous Janissary corps in their Istanbul barracks and burned them inside. For four centuries the Janissaries had made and unmade sultans. Their destruction opened the way for a European-style army, and for the long reform program the Ottomans called the Tanzimat. Thousands of Janissaries were killed or exiled across the empire, and their military order was formally dissolved overnight.