Quote:
Originally Posted by bambam_jr
i find it a little hard to call the history of ancient greece and the roman empire history of the country turkey.
What? The capital city of the Byzantian Empire (476-1453) was the city of Constantinopolis, modern day Istanbul, which is in Turkey. In terms of the actual early Greek history, religious ideas, philosophical schools and ideas etc., Ionnia (in other words, western Turkey) was far more important than the mainland Greece.
Other cool facts about Turkey: The armies of Alexander the Great defeated the Persian Empire in successive battles there in Turkey. Fast forward, In 1492 when the united Spanish kingdom began to suppress, kill and expel the Jews and Muslims in Spain, both the Jews and Muslims were accepted in the Muslim Ottoman Empire (most of the Jews ended up in northern Greece or in Istanbul, Turkey. The city of Konya in central Turkey was the place where probably the greatest Sufi mystic of all time, Rumi spent most of his live (his family ended up in Turkey after coming all the way from Afghanistan) in the thirteenth century or so. Turkey is pretty much the only Muslim democracy today, and despite some problems here and there, people living there managed to preserve a pretty diverse and tolerant society in the Anatolian peninsula for the last ummm 12,000 years (give or take a few thousand years). That, to me, is pretty impressive. In other words, Turkey wins.
Thread saver: Hot Turkish girls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DSB3Est3lQ