Mehmed II, commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror, was twice the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from August 1444 to September 1446 and then later from February 1451 to May 1481.
The Battle of Albulena, also known as the Battle of Ujëbardha, was fought on 2 September 1457 between Albanian forces led by Skanderbeg and an Ottoman army under Isak bey Evrenoz and Skanderbeg's nephew, Hamza Kastrioti.
The Second Siege of Krujë took place from 1466 to 1467. Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire led an army into Albania to defeat Skanderbeg, the leader of the League of Lezhë, which was created in 1444 after he began his war against the Ottomans. During the almost year-long siege, Skanderbeg's main fortress, Krujë, withstood the siege while Skanderbeg roamed Albania to gather forces and facilitate the flight of refugees from the civilian areas that were attacked by the Ottomans. Krujë managed to withstand the siege put on it by Ballaban Badera, sanjakbey of the Sanjak of Ohrid, an Albanian brought up in the Ottoman army through the devşirme. By 23 April 1467, the Ottoman army had been defeated and Skanderbeg entered Krujë.
The Fourth Siege of Krujë by the Ottoman Empire of Krujë in Albania took place from early 1477 to June 1478, almost ten years after the death of Skanderbeg, the main military commander of the Albanian rebellion against the Ottomans. The long siege resulted in the capture of the city after three previous sieges had failed.
The Treaty of Constantinople was signed on 25 January 1479, which officially ended the sixteen-year-long war between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire. The Venetians were forced to hand over Scutari in Albania and the island of Lemnos and the Mani Peninsula in Greece; and acknowledge the loss of Negroponte (Euboea) and Croia. The treaty allowed a full restoration of Venetian trading privileges in the Ottoman Empire against an annual flat tax of 10,000 ducats, as well as a 100,000 ducats in arrears owed by Venetian citizens to the Porte.
The Battle of Nish was fought between the Crusaders led by John Hunyadi and Đurađ Branković and the Ottoman Empire led by Kasim Pasha. It saw the Crusaders capture the Ottoman stronghold of Nish (Niš) in Serbia, and defeat two armies of the Ottoman Empire. The Battle of Nish was part of Hunyadi's expedition known as the long campaign. Hunyadi, at the head of the vanguard, crossed the Balkans through the Gate of Trajan, captured Nish, defeated three Ottoman pashas, and after taking Sofia from the Ottomans, united with the royal army and defeated Sultan Murad II at Snaim (Kustinitza). The impatience of the king and the severity of the winter then compelled him to return home.
The First Ottoman–Venetian War was fought between the Republic of Venice with its allies and the Ottoman Empire from 1463 to 1479. Fought shortly after the capture of Constantinople and the remnants of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottomans, it resulted in the loss of several Venetian holdings in Albania and Greece, most importantly the island of Negroponte (Euboea), which had been a Venetian protectorate for centuries. The war also saw the rapid expansion of the Ottoman navy, which became able to challenge the Venetians and the Knights Hospitaller for supremacy in the Aegean Sea. In the closing years of the war, however, the Republic managed to recoup its losses by the de facto acquisition of the Crusader Kingdom of Cyprus.
The Battle of the Echinades was fought in 1427 among the Echinades islands off western Greece between the fleets of Carlo I Tocco and the Byzantine Empire. The battle was a decisive Byzantine victory, the last in the Empire's naval history, and led to the consolidation of the Peloponnese under the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea.
Turahan Bey or Turakhan Beg was a prominent Ottoman military commander and governor of Thessaly from 1423 until his death in 1456. He participated in many Ottoman campaigns of the second quarter of the 15th century, fighting against the Byzantines as well as against the Crusade of Varna. His repeated raids into the Morea transformed the local Byzantine despotate into an Ottoman dependency and opened the way for its conquest. At the same time, his administration of Thessaly, where he settled new peoples, founded the town of Tyrnavos and revitalized the economy, set the groundwork for Ottoman rule in the area for centuries to come.
Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey was an Ottoman general and governor. The son of the famed Turahan Bey, he was active chiefly in southern Greece: he fought in the Morea against both the Byzantines in the 1440s and 1450s and against the Venetians in the 1460s, while in 1456, he conquered the Latin Duchy of Athens. He also fought in Albania, north-east Italy, Wallachia and Anatolia.
Şuluk Mehmed Pasha, better known in Europe as Mehmed Siroco or Mahomet Sirocco, and also spelled Sulik, Chulouk, Şolok, Seluk, or Suluc and known with the titles Pasha, Reis, or Bey, was the Ottoman Bey of Alexandria in the mid-16th century. Both the foreign and the Turkish nicknames were derived from the name of the southern Mediterranean wind Sirocco, from Greek σιρόκος sirokos and the hence derived Levantine Arabic شلوق shlūq, respectively.
The Battle of Kunovica or Battle at Kunovitsa was fought between crusaders led by John Hunyadi and the armies of the Ottoman Empire on 2 or 5 January 1444, near the mountain Kunovica between Pirot and Niš, in present-day Serbia. It was part of the larger Crusade of Varna.
The Battle of Gallipoli occurred on 29 May 1416 between the fleets of the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire off the port city of Gallipoli, the main Ottoman naval base. The battle was the main episode of a brief conflict between the two powers, resulting from Ottoman attacks against possessions and shipping of the Venetians and their allies in the Aegean Sea in 1414–1415. The Venetian fleet, under Pietro Loredan, was charged with transporting a Venetian embassy to the Ottoman sultan, but was authorized to attack if the Ottomans refused to negotiate. The subsequent events are known chiefly from a detailed letter written by Loredan after the battle.
Hass Murad Pasha was an Ottoman statesman and commander of Byzantine Greek origin.
Alvise Loredan was a Venetian nobleman of the Loredan family. At a young age he became a galley captain, and served with distinction as a military commander, with a long record of battles against the Ottomans, from the naval expeditions to aid Thessalonica, to the Crusade of Varna, and the opening stages of the Ottoman–Venetian War of 1463–1479, as well as the Wars in Lombardy against the Duchy of Milan. He also served in a number of high government positions, as provincial governor, savio del consiglio, and Procuratore de Supra of Saint Mark's Basilica.
Vettore Cappello was a merchant, statesman and military commander of the Republic of Venice. After an early career as a merchant that gained him substantial wealth, he began his political career in 1439. His ascent to higher offices was rapid. He is chiefly remembered for his advocacy of a decisive policy against the Ottoman Empire, and his command of Venetian forces as Captain General of the Sea during the lead-up to and the first stages of the First Ottoman–Venetian War.
The Albanian-Ottoman Wars (1432–1479) were a series of wars and revolts against the rising Ottoman Empire by Albanian feudal lords. The wars and revolts took place in present-day Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia and South Serbia. In this period, Albanians under the leadership of Gjergj Arianiti and especially later under Skanderbeg resisted the Ottomans under two Sultans in over 30 battles. Skanderbeg continued this resistance until his death in 1468, and the Albanians persevered for another 11 years before being defeated.
The Ottoman conquest of the Morea occurred in two phases, in 1458 and 1460, and marked the end of the Despotate of the Morea, one of the last remnants of the Byzantine Empire, which had been extinguished in the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.
Giovanni Dario was a Venetian official who served multiple times as ambassador of the Republic of Venice. His family hailed from Crete, a Venetian colony at the time; his knowledge of Greek allowed him to serve as interpreter and envoy to Constantinople during the last years of the Byzantine Empire. After the Fall of Constantinople he rose to the position of secretary of the Duke of Crete, and from 1464 entered service with the Signoria of Venice. He was repeatedly sent as ambassador to the court of the Ottoman Empire and the Mamluk Sultanate, most notably helping conclude the First Ottoman–Venetian War in 1479.
The battle of Isonzo was a military engagement between the Ottoman army and Venetians near the river of Soča during the Ottoman–Venetian War (1463–1479). The Ottomans emerged victorious during the battle.
