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Distinctive Facts About The Mighty Ottoman Empire

Khalid Elhassan August 13, 2020 35 min

Battle of Ankara - Timurid Empire — Tamerlane gloating over the captured Bayezid I. Wikimedia

29. The Badass Ottoman Sultan Who Trash Talked a Bigger Badass

Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I (1360 – 1403), nicknamed Yildirim (“Lightning”) for the speed and ferocity of his attacks, was a badass. Unfortunately for him, he got into a medieval flame war with an even bigger badass, Tamerlane, and it backfired big time.

Facial reconstruction of Tamerlane, from his skull. Wikimedia

His nemesis was Steppe warlord Tamerlane (1336 – 1405), a Muslim Turko-Mongol, who claimed descent from Genghis Khan. The claim was dubious, but Tamerlane justified his conquests as a restoration of the Mongol Empire and re-imposition of legitimate Mongol rule over lands seized by usurpers. He then spent 35 years earning a reputation for savagery while bringing fire and sword to the lands between the Indus and the Volga, the Himalayas and the Mediterranean.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.